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Gymnastical   Listen
adjective
Gymnastical, Gymnastic  adj.  
1.
Pertaining to athletic exercises intended for health, defense, or diversion; originally said of games or exercises, as running, leaping, wrestling, throwing the discus, the javelin, etc.; in modern times more specifically applied to athletic exercises demonstrating balance and agility, such as tumbling, somersaulting, and bodily maneuvers performed on special equipment such as parallel bars or a balance beam; as, gymnastic exercises, contests, etc.
2.
Pertaining to disciplinary exercises for the intellect.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gymnastical" Quotes from Famous Books



... be observed. All luxury, greed, and ambition must be avoided. But negation is not enough. In the system of nourishment all the elements which strengthen the essence of the constituent yin and yang principles must be found by means of medicine, chemistry, gymnastic exercises, etc. When the maximum vital force has been acquired the means of preserving it and keeping it from the attacks of death and disease must be discovered; in a word, he must spiritualize himself—render himself completely independent ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... that are attributed to Lycurgus. The obligation of marriage was legal, like military service.[264] All celibates were placed under the ban of society.[265] The young men were attracted to love by the privilege of watching (and it is also said assisting in) the gymnastic exercise of naked young girls, who from their earliest youth entered into contests with each other in wrestling and racing and in throwing the quoit and javelin.[266] The age of marriage was also fixed, special care being taken ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... not the whole of this remarkable church. It has not yet adopted Mrs. Stowe's suggestion of providing billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, and gymnastic apparatus for the development of Christian muscle, though these may come in time. The building at present contains eleven apartments, among which are two large parlors, wherein, twice a month, there is a social ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... picked themselves up and made off, leaping wildly (many with broken legs) over a great mound of thawing snow, and over the worried body of a deceased companion. Their misery was so very human that I was sorry to recognize several intimate acquaintances conducting themselves in this forlornly gymnastic manner. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... his carabinieri in attendance.... The old-world capital of the island, which is a smaller place than Starigrad, was occupied on the same day. The first serious encounter took place on December 4, when the Italians, who were quartered on the upper floor of the Sokol or gymnastic club, observed that furniture was being taken from the rooms below them and was being carried out into the street. If they had asked the people what they were about they would have heard that these things had been stored in the gymnasium during the War and that the place ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... forms of culture. His features were high and refined, and, without being handsome, irresistibly attractive. He turned out to be a delightful playmate for the children, and astonished them and the rest of the company by surprising gymnastic feats in the rigging. The speech of these two Britishers gave the untravelled American a new appreciation of the beauty and significance of the English language. Not all Englishmen speak good English, but when they ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... the art of politics, which attends on the soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part; and another art attending on the body, which has no generic name, but may also be described as having two divisions, one of which is medicine and the other gymnastic. Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine; ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... In order to make your brains bring you what they ought, you must build up your body; it depends upon you." The boy felt both the obligation and the desire; he willed to be strong, and he went through his gymnastic exercises with religious precision. What he read in his books about knights and paladins and heroes had always greatly moved his imagination. He wanted to be like them. He understood that the one indispensable attribute common to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... foot-race was exhibited; afterward were added wrestling, leaping, quoiting, darting, boxing, a more complicated species of foot-race (the Diaulus and Dolichus), and the chariot and horse-races. The Pentathlon was a contest of five gymnastic exercises combined. The chariot-races [110] preceded those of the riding horses, as in Grecian war the use of chariots preceded the more scientific employment of cavalry, and were the most attractive and splendid part of the exhibition. Sometimes there were no less than forty chariots on the ground. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... GYMNASIUM. A profusely illustrated work. Being the application of Gymnastic, Calisthenic, Kinesipathic, and Vocal Exercises to the Development of Body and Mind, and the Cure of Disease. By R. T. Trall, M.D. Price, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... She began to menstruate at 12, was regular till 17; then got chlorotic for a few months, soon recovered, though menstruation was often irregular, but never painful. Sexual experience began at 25. I have often wondered if a moderate self-gymnastic of the faculty, in Venturi's sense, would not have educated her genital sphere, and made her a still better comrade—excluded the periods of irregularity and frigidity. The stage of latency was too protracted. We often noticed ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... disappointment was led by the eager German youth, who, inspired by liberal ideals, now thirsted for freedom of thought, of speech, and of action. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, a German patriot, organized everywhere Turnvereine, or gymnastic clubs, as a tangible form of expressing this demand. Among the students of the universities liberal patriotic clubs called Burschenschaften were organized, idealistic in their aims and impractical in their propaganda, where "every man with his bonnet on his head, a pot of beer in ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... shrewd-looking young man, with a cloak over his shoulders, an odd sort of cap on his head, a strangely twisted staff in his hand, and a short and very crooked sword hanging by his side. He was exceedingly light and active in his figure, like a person much accustomed to gymnastic exercises, and well able to leap or run. Above all, the stranger had such a cheerful, knowing, and helpful aspect (though it was certainly a little mischievous, into the bargain), that Perseus could not help feeling his spirits grow livelier as he gazed ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... way towards extending life under any circumstances, for it consists chiefly in deep and regular breathing, preferably of morning air, in swallowing the saliva three times in every two hours, in adopting certain positions for the body and limbs, which are also strengthened by gymnastic exercises, and finally, as borrowed from the Buddhists, in remaining motionless for some hours a day, the eyes shut, and the mind abstracted as much as possible from all surrounding influences. The upshot of these and other practices ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... its head under its belly and slides its front half over its hinder half by wormlike movements so slow that the lens can hardly detect them. In less than a quarter of an hour the larva, at first turned upside down, finds itself again head uppermost. I admire this gymnastic feat, but have some difficulty in understanding it, so small is the space which the larva, when at rest in its cell, leaves unoccupied, compared with that which we should be justified in expecting from the possibility of such a reversal. The larva does not long enjoy the privilege which ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... carols, as I have more than once pictured, and cannot do so too often—shaking first his little wings, and then his little throat; the old zigzagging to and fro—here, there, everywhere—whisking in this direction, and bouncing in that direction, restless gymnastic that he is, in a very whirl and ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff

... may be gained for the world as a whole by this fragmentary cultivation, it is not to be denied that the individuals whom it befalls are cursed for the benefit of the world. An athletic frame, it is true, is fashioned by gymnastic exercises; but a form of beauty only by free and uniform action. Just so the exertions of single talents can create extraordinary men indeed; but happy and perfect men only by their uniform temperature. And in what relation should we stand, then, ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... laughable, or impossible cures. One man wants to be made clever, another to be made fat, another to be cured of insanity, another of tobacco, another of whisky, another of hunger, another of tea; another wants to be made strong, so as to conquer in gymnastic exercises; most men want medicine to make their beards grow; while almost every man, woman, and child wants to have his or her skin made as white ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... Mineralogical Cabinet and the college archives. A new dormitory has been erected by the liberality of the late Ex-Governor Morgan, of New York, and during the present year a spacious building of stone has been erected for gymnastic purposes. As new buildings have been constructed, old ones have been rearranged and better adapted for the various uses of the college, and so it has been provided with the means of enlarging and improving its work, and it is believed that few, if any, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... of my inferior stature led me to a determination to try what gymnastic practice could do to remedy the defect. For some thirty years, gymnastics, first introduced into this country, I believe, at the Round-Hill School at Northampton, then under the charge of Messrs. Cogswell and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... at the other end of the island, on the banks of the Harlem River, there stands the old warehouse which modern progress has converted into the Highfield Athletic and Gymnastic Club. The imagination, stimulated by the title, conjures up a sort of National Sporting Club, with pictures on the walls, padding on the chairs, and a sea of white shirt-fronts from roof to floor. But the Highfield differs ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... advantages of safety and elegance, and with far greater pleasure to the spectator? The vigorous movements of the pantomime—turn and twist, bend and spring— afford at once a gratifying spectacle to the beholder and a wholesome training to the performer; I maintain that no gymnastic exercise is its equal for beauty and for the uniform development of the physical powers, —of agility, suppleness, and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... pathetically grave face. He never smiled; he never made a remark; he always gathered me tenderly up when I plunged off, and helped me on again without a word. When he had been teaching me twice a day for three weeks I introduced a new gymnastic—one that he had never seen before—and so at last a compliment was wrung from him, a thing which I had been risking my life for days to achieve. He gathered me up and said mournfully: "Mr. Clemens, you can fall off a bicycle ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... Gymnastic exercises, dignified with this name, upon the occasion of a death or funeral, were common to many tribes. It ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... joint. I became interested. How, I wondered, do I put on my jacket? I rose, took it off, found that my right arm slipped automatically into its sleeve, tried the reverse process, discovered that it was as difficult as an unfamiliar gymnastic operation. Why, said I, I am a mere bundle of little habits of which I am unconscious. This thing must be looked into. And then came into my mind that fascinating book of Samuel Butler's on Life and Habit. Yes, certainly, here was a subject that would "go." I dismissed all the ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... men forget how to act. Another thing was the introduction of 'the new education,' imported by 'the Sophists,' which substituted for serious studies, definitely limited and systematically pursued, a crowd of vague and subtle speculations; it was a mental gymnastic that gave suppleness to the wits, it is true, but only by corrupting and deteriorating the moral sense, a system that in the long run was merely destructive. Such, then, was the threefold poison that ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... time to get the old and the new emotions comfortably adjusted, but Mrs Jo helped him, and Mr Laurie gave him some wise advice upon the astonishing gymnastic feats the human heart can perform, and be all the better for it if it only held fast to the balancing-pole of truth and common sense. At last our Tommy got his bearings, and as autumn came on Plumfield saw but little of him; for his new lode star was in the city, and business kept him hard at work. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... could hold her own with many of a larger growth. Did she go to school to-day? asked I. No, was the answer, she has not been for some time, as she was beginning to get quite a serious curvature of the spine, so now she goes regularly to a gymnastic doctor. I almost feel ashamed to criticize such noble institutions as the schools of New York; but truth compels me to do this. Hitherto, nothing whatever has been done to train the bodies of the tens of thousands who are educated there. ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop

... of the neighborhood, with the dances under the walnut-trees of sunny Provence. The game is an invigorating one, and even those who do not know it are pleased with its animation. We have hitherto neglected that gymnastic culture which made the Greeks the graceful people they were, and which contributed to the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... woodwork but no wires. In this room should be a bed of hay. The natural food of mice is grain, but in captivity they are generally fed on bread and milk and slices of apple. They can be tamed to a small extent, but for the most part they do no more than run round a wheel, although if other gymnastic contrivances are offered them they will probably do something with them. Dormice (to whose food you may add nuts) sleep through the winter months, and are therefore not very interesting for ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... 20. In the gymnastic exercises suppose that a man has torn thee with his nails, and by dashing against thy head has inflicted a wound. Well, we neither show any signs of vexation, nor are we offended, nor do we suspect him afterwards as ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... unsound, social or antisocial.—Finally, the discipline of the school has its effect. Whatever its rules and regulations may be, whether liberal or despotic, lax or strict, monastic, military or worldly, whether a boarding or a day school, mixed or exclusive, in town or in country, with predominance of gymnastic training or intellectual efforts, with the mind given to the study of things or to the study of words, the pupil enters into a ready-made setting. According to the diversities of this setting or framework he practices ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... tenaciously. Elevate the infant that does not cry thus a few times above the bed and let it hang for a few seconds each time. This throws the chest forward and exercises the lungs. What is more, this small amount of gymnastic work is thoroughly enjoyed. It helps to build strength and good temper. The crying helps to make the baby ill-tempered and fretful. A little crying now and then is all right, but much indicates discomfort, disease or a spoiled child. It would surprise most mothers how good babies ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... extraordinary vein of jesting upon it. Soon afterwards, passing over to Naples, although at that time greatly disordered in his bowels by the frequent returns of his disease, he sat out the exhibition of the gymnastic games which were performed in his honour every five years, and proceeded with Tiberius to the place intended. But on his return, his disorder increasing, he stopped at Nola, sent for Tiberius back again, and had a long discourse ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... together with spirit and grace. The music was provided by a drum, made out of an old tin box. Many of the steps reminded me of a Highland reel, but were curiously mixed up with calisthenic, and even gymnastic exercises; the hands in particular were used very gracefully, and they often took off their hats and waved them to and fro. But they also climbed on each other's shoulders, and did other strange things. After dancing for some time, they sang songs to us in a curious, low, weird kind ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... a series of gymnastic efforts, during which you have nearly begun your day out of bed on your head, you are successful. It is then requisite to pause and take breath. This cessation of energy affords an opportunity for the servant to appear ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand

... White Lion was in a state bordering upon frenzy, at the singular deportment of the "Princess" and her numerous attendants. The former arrayed herself in the most astonishing combinations of apparel that had ever been seen by the good gossips of Bristol, and the latter indulged in gymnastic antics and vocal chantings that almost deafened the neighborhood. There was a peculiar nasal ballad in which they were fond of indulging, that commenced about midnight and kept up until well nigh morning, that ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... trained by its young commander, Captain E. E. Ellsworth, in a novel drill based on the quick movements of the Moors. The staid old military organizations were magnetized by the rapid, theatrical manner in which the Zouaves executed the manual and several gymnastic company movements. Their uniform was loose scarlet trousers, gaiter boots, and buff-leather leggings, a blue jacket trimmed with orange-colored braid, and a red cap with orange trimmings; their scarlet blankets were rolled on the top of their knapsacks. They drilled as light infantry, and moved ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... he had roamed for a time as a wild man in a band of gypsies. He next took a cottage in the lake district in the North of England, where he associated with Wordsworth, and occupied himself alternately with desperate gymnastic exercises and composing slight descriptive poems. Even after connecting himself with the magazine and becoming the symposiarch of the "Noctes," and perhaps the greatest Tory in all broad Scotland, he did not renounce his home among the lakes. He was a lover of scenery, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... was informed of the Vindex episode as he was in Naples viewing the gymnastic contest just after luncheon. He was naturally far from sorry, and leaping from his seat vied in prowess with some athlete. He did not hurry back to Rome but merely sent a letter to the senate, in which he asked them to regard leniently his non-arrival, because he had a sore throat, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... forget the sensations I experienced in making the passage of the huaro. I had felt giddy enough in going over the 'soga' bridges and 'barbacoas' common throughout Peru, but the passage of the huaro is really a gymnastic feat of no easy accomplishment. I was first tied, back downwards, with my back resting in the concavity of the bent wood; my legs were then crossed over the main rope—the bridge itself—with nothing ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... influence, his mind was prepared to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and he had a deep conflict to pass through, which he confided to his mother, and which he seemed to think was the presage to suffering. In performing some gymnastic exercises he received a fall on the head, which after some time was followed by a paralytic affection of the whole body, so that he became entirely helpless, and his speech was taken away. It was only his tender mother ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... were content with sliding, or driving each other forward on great pieces of ice. "Dancing with swords" was a favourite form of amusement among the young men of Northern nations, and in those parts of England where the Norsemen and Danes settled, this graceful gymnastic custom long lingered. ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... to their tribe. The men, whose evening costume consists of buttonless shirts and short canvas trousers, are more demonstrative than their partners. Sometimes they throw up their arms in wild ecstacy, or leap madly into the air; varying these gymnastic performances by squatting, frog-fashion, near the ground, or turning pirouettes. They get so excited and warm over their gyrations, that their Panama hats, which have been doffed and donned fifty times, are thrown away, their buff-coloured ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... the birth. He must know enough and not too much; he must not dim his perception by acquainting himself in detail with what has been said or thought; he must not take off the freshness of his mind by too much intellectual gymnastic. It is a race across country for which he is preparing, and he will learn better what the practical difficulties are by daring excursions of his own, than by acquiring a formal ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... holiday in the summer at her father's parsonage, near Hang. That remarkably fine specimen of his race, Herr S——, was met by wife, and brother, and a host of students—for he returned from Malm, victorious, with the Finnish flag. He, with twenty-three friends, had just been to Sweden for a gymnastic competition, in which Finland had won great honours, and no wonder, if the rest of the twenty-three were as well-made and well-built as this hardy descendant of a ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... not object to boys sitting astride a fence: it is rather manly than otherwise, if they do not concoct a plan to tear their clothes; but it does seem a bit out of the womanly way for a girl. To be sure, there is not much difference between climbing fences and many of the gymnastic performances for girls; but time and place must be regarded. I should not frown if I heard a girl whistling, under two conditions,—she must be a good whistler, and confine her musical exercise to the woods. I think it is fine to see a girl go over a fence ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... own deformity of mind, body, or dress, of their affectations, 222and their leading of a party. There is something manly in the Yacht Club, in a dexterously driving four fleet horses in hand, in reining in the proud barb, and in gymnastic exercises: but the whole merit of these ceases, when my Lord (like him of carroty beard) becomes the tar without his glory, and wears the check shirt without the heart of oak—when the driver becomes the imitator of the stage and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... Emerson the true reason for the athletic cult, given a generation before it existed among us. Your boy "hates the grammar and Gradus, and loves guns, fishing-rods, horses, and boats. Well, the boy is right, and you are not fit to direct his bringing-up, if your theory leaves out his gymnastic training.... Football, cricket, archery, swimming, skating, climbing, fencing, riding are lessons in the art of power, which it is his main business to learn.... Besides, the gun, fishing-rod, boat, and horse constitute, among all who use them, secret ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot

... Homer makes Apollo orchestes, or the dancer; and amongst the early dances is that in his honour called the Hyporchema. Their dances may be divided into sections somewhat thus: (1) those of a religious species, (2) those of a gymnastic nature, (3) those of a mimetic character, (4) those of the theatre, such as the chorus, (5) those partly social, partly religious dances, such as the hymeneal, ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous

... change had taken place in the military tactics, caused by the heavy armor and powerful horses which the crusaders brought into the field, and by the greater personal strength and skill in warlike exercises of the Western troops, who had no occupation from infancy but gymnastic exercises and athletic amusements. The nobility of the feudal nations expended more money on arms and armor than on other luxuries; and this becoming the general fashion, the Western troops were much better armed than ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... recognize a correct physical training as being at least as important as any branch of mental discipline. Accordingly, when the titles of the professorships were under discussion, it seemed right not to take my designation from the classes I instruct in history and philosophy, but from the general gymnastic development of the female members of the college, which it is likewise my duty to oversee. I know, of course, that the prejudices of the public would hold me in greater esteem as a teacher of some ancient lore than in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... hardly needs to be reminded how all- pervasive in it that imagery is; how emphatic, in all its speculative theory, in all its practical provisions, is the desire for harmony; how the whole business of education (of gymnastic even, the seeming rival of music) is brought under it; how large a part of the claims of duty, of right conduct, for the perfectly initiated, comes with him to be this, that it sounds so well. Plemmeleia, discordancy,—all faultiness resolves itself into that. "Canst play on this flute?" asks Hamlet:— ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... the form of collars, inscribed in large painted letters with the particular merit of the pupil rewarded, such as agility, courage, strength, &c. One pupil was given a prize for "hidden virtue." After the gymnastic lessons came riding lessons, for which we were taken to the Cirque Olympique, I and my two elder brothers being always put in the charge of a single tutor. But as he invariably found the riding school too cold, he used to go and shut himself up in the manager's room, and leave us to ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... by "assumed airs" (see No. 714). It here means the art of moving in coition, which is especially affected, even by modest women, throughout the East and they have many books teaching the genial art. In China there are professors, mostly old women, who instruct young girls in this branch of the gymnastic. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... things that his keepers sought to teach him. To him, dining at a table was tiresomely dull, and the donning of fashionable clothing was a frivolous pastime, On the other hand, the interior of his cage, and his gymnastic appliances of ropes, trapeze and horizontal bars, all interested him greatly. Every square inch of surface, and every piece of material in his apartment, was carefully investigated, many ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... contrary. In the Hekuba it is said to be a disgrace to murder guests in Greece, and in Iphigenia amongst the Taurians the same doctrine is stated when Greeks are to be the victims of the contrary rule. "Barbarian" was a cultural category. To be Greek was to have city life with market place, gymnastic training, and a share in the games.[1645] These were arbitrary marks of superiority such as the members of an esoteric corporation always love, but the time came when the Greek history contained so many shameful things that the Greeks ceased to talk of the contrast with barbarians. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... it was with a feeling of joy that she felt the animals come to a halt, saw the black one, upon a word of command, get docilely to its knees, heard Howesha grumbling fiercely to the moon as she went through the same gymnastic performance, and felt her own rocking and pitching until it came to the ground. Whereupon she dismounted lightly, and reeled against the man as the entire desert, herself and camels included, turned a complete somersault, after which she ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... such an interesting business. You understand—life. Come, let's have a game of jackstones to-morrow. I'll provide the jacks, first-class jacks. (Enter Lipa, unnoticed) And then you should take gymnastic exercises. I mean it seriously. See how sunken your chest is. You'll choke of consumption in a year or so. The deaconess will be glad, but it will create consternation among the dead. Seriously now. I have taken gymnastic exercises. Look. (He lifts a heavy chair easily ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... a moment, for a murderous fire greeted the first heads which appeared, and several men, mortally wounded, rolled down again. But the rest pressed on, using both hands and feet to climb the hill, whose ascent would have been mere sport for fresh youths, skilled in gymnastic exercises, but which must have seemed terribly steep to harassed, exhausted troops. As they worked their way upward with the utmost zeal, evidently striving to excel one another, Prince Louis thought ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... this morning, never thinking to run across a surprise, when what did I see but a long crate, and inside that a splendid eight-oar shell, just what we ordered with that money we earned in the winter, giving minstrel shows and gymnastic performances. It's a great day for Riverport school, fellows; and well have a dandy time this summer, ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... abound which are exhaustive in their presentation of ethical theory. On the other hand books are plenty which give good moral advice with great elaborateness of detail. Each type of work has its place and function. The one is excellent mental gymnastic for the mature; the other admirable emotional pabulum for the childish mind. Neither, however, is adapted both to satisfy the intellect and quicken the conscience at that critical period when the youth has put away childish things and is reaching out after manly and ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... massacred, were the two wings on which it was to soar. Auxiliary soaring societies were organised, among them a Turkish Ojagha with similar aims, and no fewer than sixteen branches of it were founded throughout the Empire. There were also a Turkish Guiji or gymnastic club, and an Izji or boy scouts' club. A union of merchants worked for the same object in districts where hitherto trade had been in the hands of Greeks and Armenians, and signs appeared on their shops that only Turkish labour ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... that Leonidas and his companions employed themselves, on the eve of the battle, in music and the gymnastic ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... girl, she with her little hand Lashed and reined in the rapid steed she raced, Tossed the huge javelin, wrestled on the sand, And by gymnastic toils her sinews braced; Then through the devious wood and mountain-waste Tracked the struck lion to his entered den, Or in fierce wars a nobler quarry chased; And thus in fighting field and forest glen, A man to savage beasts, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... Gymnastic exercises were not thought of; and, except cricket, they had no manly games to strengthen their muscles and improve their forms. There was a dancing-master; but as he had the art of making a toil of a pleasure, few of the boys learned. A drill-sergeant came once a week, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... Pompeii converted into baths, and you will then form a notion of the size of the imperial thermae of Rome. But a notion of the size only. Imagine every entertainment for mind and body—enumerate all the gymnastic games our fathers invented—repeat all the books Italy and Greece have produced—suppose places for all these games, admirers for all these works—add to this, baths of the vastest size, the most complicated construction—intersperse ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... suspended insect raises itself and fixes the talons of the anterior limbs in the empty skin above it. Never did acrobat, hanging by the toes to the bar of a trapeze, raise himself with so stupendous a display of strength in the loins. This gymnastic feat accomplished, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... condition and to laugh at the doctor we must keep out of doors as much as possible. Gymnasium work of course will help us to build up our strength and develop our muscles, but skill in various acrobatics and gymnastic tricks does not give the clear eye and ruddy cheek of the person whose life is in the open air. Outdoor sports, like tennis, baseball, and horseback riding are far superior to chestweights or Indian clubs as a means ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... would have made you notice his long, pointed wings if he had been near you, and they were well worth noticing; for besides just flying with them,—which was wonderful enough, as he was a talented flier,—he used them in a sort of gymnastic stunt he was fond of ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... with their curiosity, had entirely disarmed my suspicions, and I as gladly showed them what I could do as I watched to see their habits. The whole afternoon was passed in exhibiting to these strange beings all of the various gaits and modes of motion and gymnastic exercises which I had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... caught premature colds and perished; and how, when I, with manifold toil, had driven one of these inconsiderate gadders into a coop, to teach her domestic habits, the rats came down upon her and slew every chick in one night; how my pigs were always practising gymnastic exercises over the fence of the sty, and marauding in the garden. I wonder that Fourier never conceived the idea of having his garden land ploughed by pigs; for certainly they manifest quite a decided elective attraction ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... there exists a mysterious attraction in the sight of a number of people, and Mr. Salt, no wiser than his neighbors, pushed his way, when the doors were opened, into the room. There, on a sort of stage, he saw a tall and powerfully-built young man, performing various gymnastic exercises, and feats of strength. While this Hercules in tinsel was lifting enormous weights, and jumping from a table over the heads of twelve men, a pretty, delicate-looking young woman, was arranging some hydraulic machines ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... Aurelius Zoticus, a native of Smyrna, whom they also called "Cook" (from his father's trade), he incurred the sovereign's thorough love and thorough hatred, and consequently his life was saved. This Aurelius had a body that was beautiful all over, as if ready for a gymnastic contest, and he surpassed everybody in the size of his private parts. The fact was reported to the emperor by those who were on the lookout for such features and the man was suddenly snatched away from the games and taken to Rome, accompanied by an immense procession, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... where, besides room for study, the boys have abundant space and apparatus for gymnastics, and ample grounds for gardening. We once passed a pleasant summer evening there, strolling through the fragrant alleys of the garden, in talk with the father-professors, and looking on at the gymnastic feats of the boys; and when the annual exhibition of the school took place in the fall, we were invited to ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... half-educated people, only good to turn into corporals or calculating-machines." This class then, as ever since, opposed an increase of popular control and the progress of free institutions with might and main. Friction arose between the Government and Liberal gymnastic societies and students' clubs. This culminated in the festival on the Wartburg in October 1818, when a bonfire was made of a book of police laws and Uhlan stays and a corporal's stick. It was followed the next year by the assassination of the dramatist ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... D. The fourth gymnastic aim is symmetry and correct proportions. Anthropometry and average girths and dimensions, strength, etc., of the parts of the body are first charted in percentile grades; and each individual is referred to the apparatus and exercises ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... his mate was badly wounded in spite of this achievement, the observer swung one leg over the side of the fusillage and climbed on to the wing—figure for a minute the air pressure on his body during this gymnastic feat—until he was beside the pilot, faint and drenched with blood, who had nevertheless got his machine back ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... houses? they give the ladies a cruel contempt of our natural furniture. And what do we know but that Plato, after other well-instituted republics, ordered that the men and women, old and young, should expose themselves naked to the view of one another, in his gymnastic exercises, upon that very account? The Indian women who see the men in their natural state, have at least cooled the sense of seeing. And let the women of the kingdom of Pegu say what they will, who below the waist have nothing to cover them but a cloth slit before, and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... and their boy chums were too active to remain quiet long, even after plum pudding. Allen was the first to become restless, and the others soon caught it from him. He rose, went through some gymnastic exercises, then looked about him curiously. "I wonder if there are any more places like this hereabout?" he said. "Does anybody want to take a little tramp and find out? You look about as energetic as a bunch of turtles. ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... this foundation we go on to specific training of the charger—still working, of course, concurrently at the gymnastic side of his training also—to accustoming him to the curb, then by the end of February the remount ought easily to be ready to be placed ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... neither coach nor spur and there were others nearly as good as he, but each worked on his own system, whereas the doughboys pulled together. Not to be outdone, Davies laid out a riding-school back of the agency corral, and every day had his detachment out for a vigorous mounted gymnastic drill as well as another at platoon exercise. He was wiry, athletic, and an enthusiastic teacher, and presently it was noted that the Indians, who for a time hovered impartially all over the prairies and slopes, watching the manoeuvres ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... our training, one of the finest gymnasiums in the world, was near completion and would be ready to receive squads for instruction in a short time. Eventually we were ordered to prepare squads for gymnastic work, and those who had the privilege of attending it liked it very much. I was very fond of fencing, single stick and sword drill. This gymnasium was built and equipped, and the exercises, systematized and progressive, were the same as those at Oxford University. They were under the supervision ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... the brain (haud rediturus) over one of the noblest—if it be not a treason to discriminate—of all the dead one has known who have died for England. Graciousness was in all his doings and in all the workings of his mind. The music and gymnastic whereof Plato wrote, that should attune the body to harmony with the mind, and harmonise all the elements of the mind in a perfect unison, had done their work upon him. He seemed—at any rate, to the eyes of those who ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... found the city in a state of turmoil. The occasion was the march of the Catholic gymnastic associations from the church where they had heard the Mass to St. Peter's, where they were to be received by the Holy Father. Cries of "Long live free-thinking!" were issuing from the rabble which followed hooting in the wake of the procession. To these ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... gymnasium shoes and sweaters and singlets in untidy brown parcels there stood the stout leather-jacketed vaulting horse waiting its turn to be carried up on the stage and set in the middle of the winning team at the end of the gymnastic display. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... well on the ladder below him, let himself quietly drop, and caught hold of it with hands of iron, and twisting round, came down the ladder on the inside hand over head without using his feet, a favourite gymnastic exercise of his learnt at the Modern Athens. He was warmly received by the crowd and by the firemen. "You should be one of us, sir," said a fine young fellow who had cheered him and advised him all through. "I wish to Heaven I was," said Edward. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... Graham; you injured it, and I bound it up, that is all. When gentlemen amuse themselves with such gymnastic feats as you performed, they must expect a little temporary inconvenience from crushed bones and overstrained muscles. Beulah, mind my ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... an offering to Apollo of Actium a trireme, a four-banked ship, and so on up to one of ten banks, from the captive vessels; and he built a larger temple. He also instituted a quinquennial musical and gymnastic contest involving horseracing,—a "sacred" festival, as they call all which include distribution of food,—and entitled it Actia. Further, by gathering some settlers and ousting others who dwelt nearby from their homes, he founded ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... dragged from the mairie to the Grande Place, between rows of firemen, in noisy processions, whose accompanying brass instruments split his ears, under pink-striped tents, draped with tricolor flags, before interminable files of gymnastic societies, glee clubs, corporate bodies, associations, Friends of Peace, or Friends of War societies! Then wandering harangues; commonplace remarks, spun out; addresses, sprinkled with Latin by professors of rhetoric; declarations of political faith by eloquent municipal councillors, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... drawn to the tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top of the barrier. He performed this feat with gymnastic address, like one who had often practised it; albeit the discreet adventurer had not mentioned in his narrative to Paul any previous occasion for the practice. As soon as he had gained the top of the wall, he threw down the cord to his companion, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... but it happens that I have thought more of exercise lately, and have taken walks late in the evening, besides playing my old gymnastic tricks ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... frequently addressed assemblies of the people and urged them to transfer the command to another general, since "Marcellus," he said, "after a little sparring with the enemy had gone to the hot baths to refresh himself as if after a gymnastic contest." Marcellus, hearing of this, left the army in charge of his legates, and went to Rome to clear his reputation from these slanders; but, in consequence of them he found that he was to undergo a trial. A day was fixed; the people assembled in the Circus Flaminius; Bibulus rose and impeached ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... bows, arrows, and quivers. Stella, as Maid Marian, and Phyllis, as the Curtle Friar, were especial successes; while Will Scarlett and Little John gave a noble display of fencing with quarter-staves, a part of the program which they had practiced in secrecy, under the instruction of the gymnastic mistress, and now presented as a complete surprise to the school. Their acting was so spirited that everybody was quite sorry when the short piece was ended, and would have liked certain scenes repeated, had not Miss Morley pointed to her watch and shaken her head emphatically to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... was a gymnastic performance peculiar to old Russia, and therefore needs to be described. It could become popular only among a people of strong physical qualities, and in a country where swift rivers freeze rapidly from sudden ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... cloistered monk or any obscure individual whatever was an idea to be immediately dispelled from the mind, for that the Annals was composed by such a man would have been about as incomprehensible an occurrence, as it would be impossible to conceive that an acrobat who exercises gymnastic tricks upon the backs of galloping horses in an American circus could discharge the functions of a First Lord of the Treasury or a Justice in the High Court of Judicature, or that a pantaloon in a Christmas pantomime could think out the Principia of Sir ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... readily fitted up in almost any house. This book, moreover, includes a translation of Prof. KLOGS'S 'Dumb Bell Instructor' and Prof. SCHREBER'S 'Pangymnastikon.' By the way, is this the same work of SCHREBER'S which was translated some years ago by Prof. SEDGWICK, of New York, for his Gymnastic Journal? We remember the latter as a work of solid merit, recommending on sound anatomical principles the means of cure by gymnastics and calisthenics for many of the ills that flesh is heir to. We ask, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... because everybody had to shout at him to make him hear. But this time Plunger was wise and kept out of sight, as did also Pud Hicks, his assistant, and Bob Nixon, the chauffeur. The only person the boys could get hold of was Si Crews, the gymnastic instructor. ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer

... home was celebrated by a feast in which, by a confusion of circumstances, the book played the part of the fatted calf, being read afresh from beginning to end. During his earlier and more agile years the Rabbi used to reach the higher levels of his study by wonderful gymnastic feats, but after two falls—one with three Ante-Nicene fathers in close pursuit—he determined to call in assistance. This he did after an impressive fashion. When he attended the roup at Pitfoodles—a day of historical prices—and purchased in open competition, at three times its value, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... ourselves by shooting with a cross-bow, using for a mark the top of our snowy flag-staff, which, until now, we had been unable to see. Indeed, we took exercise in any way possible, and endeavored by throwing, running, and other gymnastic sports, to restore strength and suppleness to our half frozen limbs. The foxes, in capturing whom we had formerly been so busily engaged, now suddenly vanished, a sure sign of the re-appearance of the bears. These dangerous beasts soon visited ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... are goin' to fight with stones; because, if you are, you ought to give me a chance to get some,' and I thought to myself that I would pick up rocks that could be heaved. 'Oh no,' says he, with one of them smiles of his—'oh no; I just want to open our conference with a little gymnastic exhibition.' And so sayin', he rolled up his shirt-sleeves—he hadn't no coat on—and he picked up one of them rocks with both hands, and then he gave it a swing with one hand, like you swing a ten-pin ball, and he sent that ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... men ... at the present day would appear truly ridiculous.... Not long since it was thought discreditable and ridiculous among the Greeks, as it is now among most barbarous nations, for men to be seen naked. And when the Cretans first, and after them the Lacedaemonians, began the practice of gymnastic exercises, the wits of the time had it in their power to make sport of those novelties.... As for the man who laughs at the idea of undressed women going through gymnastic exercises, as a means of revealing what is most perfect, his ridicule is but 'unripe fruit ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and ensure the harmonious development of all our powers, have we not been forgetting that hand and foot may cause us to stumble, and that we had better live maimed than die with all our limbs? There is a true asceticism, a discipline—a 'gymnastic unto godliness,' as Paul calls it. And if our faith is to grow high and bear rich clusters on the topmost boughs that look up to the sky, we must keep the wild lower shoots close nipped. Without rigid self-control and self-limitation, no ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... gilding the tops of the pomegranate trees, where the parroquets were joyously performing their gymnastic exercises; and the breeze which caressed the plants in the garden, wafted into the saloon the perfumes of a thousand flowers. It was a solemn and decisive moment. Gertrudis, happy, yet trembling for the words of love she expected ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... we say of their education? Were they not to be trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge which were proper ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... conservative school in the country—there were more than a thousand young men, full of life and energy; yet during the intervals between classes, or during recreation-hours in the playground, the garden, and the gymnastic hall, the general hush gave one a strange sense of [425] oppression. One might watch a game of foot-ball being played, and hear nothing but the thud of the kicking; or one might watch wrestling-contests in the jiujutsu-room, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... music. But not far away, in the less stately, more natural park surrounding the Alexander Palace, the property of the Crown Prince, lies the real paradise of the children of all classes. There is the playground, provided with gymnastic apparatus, laid out at the foot of a picturesque tower, one of the line of signal towers, now mostly demolished, which, before the introduction of the telegraph, flashed news from Warsaw to St. Petersburg in the then phenomenally short space of twenty-four hours. The children's favorite ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... though not rampant, as that inopportune charger on which Clark Mills perched General Jackson, at the national Capital. Nor is this "first in peace" by any means "the first" on horseback; the figure being theatric rather than dignified, and the extended arm more gymnastic ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... as in the physical solitude of the settlers upon the far northwestern prairies of a later epoch, many a mind snapped. Unnatural tension was succeeded by unnatural crimes. But for the stronger intellects New England Calvinism became a potent spiritual gymnastic, where, as in the Swedish system of bodily training, one lifts imaginary and ever-increasing weights with imaginary and ever-increasing effort, flexor and extensor muscles pulling against one another, driven by the will. Calvinism bred athletes as ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... fearlessness. "At present," he had written, "he is influenced more by curiosity than by a care for truth, according to the character of the young. Certainly, he differs strikingly from his equals in age, by his passion for a vigorous intellectual gymnastic, such as the supine character of their minds renders distasteful to most young men, but in which he shows a fearlessness that at times makes me fancy that his ultimate destination may be the military life; ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... don't imagine it was my intent To live with her on bread and cheese and kisses. No! just upon the threshold of our blisses, Kind Heaven must snatch away the gift it lent. I need a little spiritual gymnastic; The dose in that form ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... is the case in the Roman amphitheatres, and it is by no means so high. In the time of Napoleon, games were executed in this circus in imitation of the games of the ancients, for Napoleon had a great hankering to ape the Roman Caesars in everything. There were, for instance, gymnastic exercises, races on foot, horse races, chariot races like those of the Romans, combats of wild beasts, and as water can be introduced into the arena, there were sometimes exhibited naumachiae or naval fights. These exhibitions were extremely frequent at Milan during the vice-regency ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field: some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers; some smoked cigars or pipes; and many were cleaning their arms or accoutrements,—the more carefully, perhaps, because their division was to be reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne



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