"Take the air" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by my date that I am got into a new scene, and that I am retired hither like an old summer dowager; Only that I have no toad-eater to take the air with me in the back part of my lozenge-coach, and to be scolded. I have taken a small house here within the castle and propose spending the greatest part of every week here till the parliament meets; but my jaunts to town will prevent my news from being quite provincial and marvellous. Then, I ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... of him they pulled up short, looked unutterably amiable, doffed their caps, and made as though they were merely out to take the air on this ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... about his civil business has in one way or another "gone to the war." The gay young men are at the front, the idle young women knitting or nursing or helping the poor, and it is an adventure uncommon enough to be remembered to meet on the street a pretty young lady merely out to take the air, with hands in her muff and trotting in front of her the timorous dachshund, muzzled like a ravening tiger and looking at the world askance ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... to be At home in the deep, deep sea. It is very pleasant to have the power To take the air on dry land for an hour; And when the mid-day midsummer sun Is toasting the fields as brown as a bun, And the sands are baking, it's very nice To feel as cool as a strawberry ice In one's own particular damp sea-cave, Dipping one's feelers in each green ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in reds and blues which we use for bed quilts. Every tent was carpeted with cotton dhurees, and completely furnished with dressing-tables and chests of drawers, as well as writing-table, sofa and arm-chairs; whilst there was a little covered canvas porch outside, fitted with chairs in which to take the air, and a small attendant satellite of a tent served as a bath-room, with big tin tub and a little trench dug to carry the water away. Nothing could be more complete, but I found my watchful old "bearer" already at work raising all ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... their weight; nay, often convert weekly into quarterly lodgings. Be sure there are no children in your house. They are vociferous when you would enjoy domestic retirement, and inquisitive when you take the air. Once (horresco referens!) on returning from my peripatetics, I was accosted with brutally open-mouthed clamour, by my landlady, who, dragging me in a state of bewilderment into her room, pointed to numerous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... to have vanished from her mind as well as from her countenance; and Madam took no notice of Phoebe's disturbed looks. The Maidens' Lodge, was first visited, and a messenger sent in to ask Lady Betty if she were inclined to take the air. Lady Betty accepted the offer, and was so considerate as not to keep Madam wailing more than ten minutes. No further invitation was offered, and the coach rumbled away in ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... the best chances of spotting this valuable spectacle came as the train slackened steam before entering a station. Then, as one regarded the backs of dreary tenement houses, it really seemed inevitable that some household cat should wish to take the air, or to regard the world from the vantage of dusty, unwashed sills! Inevitable, yet with the perversity of cat nature, it was extraordinary how seldom this all-to- be-desired vision burst upon the view. "It's not fair!" Rowena cried. "You have all the poor houses on your ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... drugs. Great God, I've had enough of drugs! I don't know if you feel the heavy inconvenience of the body, its exasperating demand of time from the mind—time—life! Live! We only live in patches. We have to eat, and then comes the dull digestive complacencies—or irritations. We have to take the air or else our thoughts grow sluggish, stupid, run into gulfs and blind alleys. A thousand distractions arise from within and without, and then comes drowsiness and sleep. Men seem to live for sleep. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... her to thee," said Sir Walter. "As Her Majesty goes to take the air upon the river to-day I will linger a little behind. When the maids of honor come forth, mark well my action. As they pass I will drop my glove at the feet of her ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... about the Needles to attack Hurst Castle and the forts on the Isle of Wight side, preparatory to a rush of two battleships and three cruisers through the narrows, while another was lurking under Hayling Island ready to take the air and rain destruction on the forts of Portsmouth ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... went slowly down, And walked about the town, With a cheerful bumpy sound, As they toddled round and round. And everybody cried, As they hastened to their side, 'See, the Table and the Chair Have come out to take the air!' ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... to see him, as soon as he is well enough to talk, and, if the young lady should be well enough to come out into the parlor this afternoon or take the air on the piazza, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... viz., teaching the horse to fight with his forelegs or lash out with his hind-legs at various angles in a general melee of horse and foot, but especially teaching him the secret of 'inviting' an obstinate German boor to come out and take the air strapped in front of a trooper, and do his duty as guide to the imperial cavalry, were imported into the Austrian service by an English riding-master about the year 1775-80. And no doubt it must have been horses trained on this learned system of education from which the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... which I myself had fashioned so cunningly that none might suspect a cupboard in the simple wainscot. Then to wash hands and face in fresh water, and put on my coat without the waistcoat, prepared to take the air on the cupola, where it should soon blow cool ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... she was ready to take the air," Johnny said under his breath to Sandy, who merely threw up his head and stared at the ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Take the air mail service, for instance. This is now only in its infancy, but it is destined to become as common as the railway mail service. It will employ hundreds of airplanes and aviators all ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... the present Canal bridge by Old Hall-street, down to the river. It was a sort of a terraced gravel walk, having four rows of fine Lombardy poplars, and seats underneath. On fine evenings all the gay and fashionable world of Liverpool used to take the air and show off their hoops and high heels, and the gentlemen their brocaded silk coats, and three-cornered hats. The sword was often drawn by the gallants for some fancied affront, and occasionally a little blood was spilt, a matter of no moment in those days. Great was the grief when it was ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... noonday quest for food, if the day is fine, it is my habit to shun the nearer places of refreshment. I take the air and stretch myself. Like Eve's serpent I go upright for a bit. Yet if time presses, there may be had next door a not unsavory stowage. A drinking bar is nearest to the street where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror to such red-faced ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... Tower, from which the Labyrinth did run, are yet remaining, being vaults arched and walled with stone and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which, if at any time her lodging were laid about by the Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by secret issues take the air abroad, many furlongs about Woodstock in Oxfordshire. [Drayton's England's Heroical Epistles, Note A, on the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... wrought meshes sometimes hang, veil-like, between you and the ruddy sunset, or plashing, as they fall nightly into the smooth sea, contribute the pleasure of an agreeable sound to the magic of the scenery. Some take the air on donkeys, which go at a great rate; some are mounted on Spanish mules, all mixed together freely amidst handsome and numerous equipages; and the whole is backed by a fine row of houses opposite the sea, built after the fashion of our terraces and crescents at watering-places. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... only three days later he was sitting in his rooms, having just come from the Law Courts, where he had been acting as junior counsel in an awkward case, and was bracing himself to the effort of getting himself his afternoon tea, since Pollyooly had gone with the Lump to take the air ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... walk to take the air, Your image is for ever there, Among the woods that lose their leaves, Or where the ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... could she have done but twirl her thumbs and watch him sleep and in his lovely lively hours superintend the nurse who required no superintendence? As it was she was about him in the delicious exercises of transporting him from cot through toilet and refreshment to readiness to take the air. His lordship was off in his lordship's perambulator by nine o'clock every morning. She did not herself leave, with Harry, till shortly before ten. There, in instance, was an hour at home with not the smallest benefit to Huggo. It would have been the same, had she remained at home, with ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... I have seen my lord, for at this hour my lord Alexandros is accustomed to sleep and I to wake. And so I take the air, and ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... at Bath is marked by very pleasing recollections. The venerable John Home, author of Douglas, was then at the watering-place, and paid much attention to my aunt and to me. His wife, who has survived him, was then an invalid, and used to take the air in her carriage on the Downs, when I was often invited to accompany her. But the most delightful recollections of Bath are dated after the arrival of my uncle, Captain Robert Scott, who introduced me to all the little amusements which suited my age, and above all, to the theatre. The play ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... he played the part of a temporary lunatic. Fortunately his window communicated easily enough with the garden by means of a few stone steps, but visitors are not usually in the habit of leaving their bedrooms in order to take the air at midnight. Thinking over these things in his rapid and rather superficial way, he unconsciously quickened ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... sometimes, and so to take a tour into the garden of the Tuileries and the other pleasant places of the city. It happened one day that my prince (if I may call him so) had a mind to give me some diversion, and to take the air with me; but, that he might do it and not be publicly known, he comes to me in a coach of the Count de ——, a great officer of the court, attended by his liveries also; so that, in a word, it was impossible to guess by the equipage who I ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... was a very good governor, as Robert several times assured the Earl of Cork, and allowed them to lack for nothing. In the spring he bought them saddle-horses so that after their studies they might take the air and see their friends. Since a governor had charge of all the funds, it was a great test of his honesty whether he resisted the temptation to economize on the clothes and spending-money of his pupils, and to pocket the part of their allowance so ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... she took a satisfied glance at the mirror. Then, a little nervously, with an anxious eye and a quivering pink nose, she hastily invited Sugar and Fire to take the air with her. So they all three walked out, while the others went on dressing. Let us follow them for a moment, for we have already grown to like our brave little Tyltyl and we shall want to hear anything that is likely to help ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... shabby and small, with coarsely-papered walls and a discolored ceiling. Percival remarked that his window had a very wide sill. He never found out the reason, unless it were intended that he should take the air by sitting on it and dangling his legs over the foulest of water-butts. But when night came the broad sill was the favorite battlefield for all the cats in the neighborhood. It might have been pointed out as readily ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... moralise. Mr Towlinson proposes with a sigh, 'Amendment to us all!' for which, as Cook says with another sigh, 'There's room enough, God knows.' In the evening, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who has not yet tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each other at dusky street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an altered and blameless existence as a serious greengrocer ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... thrill of danger. And I know damned well that Lana Helmer loves it. For when we came through without so much as sighting a muskrat, 'What!' says she, 'Not a savage to be seen and not a shot fired! Lord,' says she, 'I had as lief take the air on Bowling Green—there being some real peril ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... it comes over me ... the blood, you know ... it seems to go to my head suddenly, once in a while. It's like a ... it's horrible, too ... like an attack of dizziness! I suppose I'll have to ... at least, I think I'll have to take the air a bit. But it's nothing of ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... kept in her coach; she hunts in a chaise with one horse, which she drives herself, and drives furiously, like Jehu, and is a mighty hunter, like Nimrod. Dingley has heard of Nimrod, but not Stella, for it is in the Bible. . . . The Queen and I were going to take the air this afternoon, but not together: and were both hindered by a sudden rain. Her coaches and chaises all went back, and the guards too; and I scoured ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... alone, became aware that another man was dragging a chair out upon the stoep, intending, like himself, to take the air. Looking up, he saw that it was the man to whom nobody ever seemed to talk, beyond exchanging the time of day, and that in the most curt and perfunctory fashion. He had noticed, further, that this individual seemed ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... shipped off a cargo to New Orleans a few days before. That city is the market where the highest price is generally obtained for them. The premises are strongly secured with bolts and bars, and the rooms in which the negroes are confined, surround an open court yard, where they are permitted to take the air. We were accompanied and kindly introduced by an individual who has often been engaged in preventing negroes from being illegally enslaved; and the proprietor of the establishment expressed his approval of his efforts, and that when such cases come before himself in the way ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... to see such happy faces." said Aunt Madge. "How would you all like to go out by and by, and take the air?" ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... canst thou prefer this solitary scene to the gay company about to take the air in her ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whistling squalls of wind, and bitter blasts of hail; in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take the air in; a farmer or farmer's servant was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the kirk of Alloway, and being rather on the anxious look out in approaching ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... its aeroplanes and captive balloons. Owing to the daring of the French and British aviators the German flyers were literally prohibited from the lines of the Allies during all that time. In five days fifteen German machines were brought to the ground. Very few German balloons even attempted to take the air. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Duke of Leeds shall married be To a fine young lady of high quality, How happy will that gentlewoman be In his Grace of Leeds' good company. She shall have all that's fine and fair, And the best of silk and satin shall wear; And ride in a coach to take the air, And have a ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Lord Merton, "that you did not take the air this morning, for Coverley has been driving against me as if he was mad: he has got two of the finest spirited horses I ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... of bones covered with flesh and skin; the blood flows through it, all the time, from my heart. I breathe through my nose and mouth, and take the air into ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... house of which all the little houses are rooms. The streets are the stairs. Those who live always in the town are never out of doors even if they do take the air in ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... people swallow and utter, I am quite content you should fill up your paper with the mad eccentricity of the order of my engagements, the rotation of my gowns, and the dripping street-cabs in which I refuse to take the air for the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the Chinese mostly sleep on the ground floor. In Peking, houses of more than one storey are absolutely barred; the reason being that each house is built round a courtyard, which usually has trees in it, and in which the ladies of the establishment delight to sit and sew, and take the air and all the exercise they ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... leaving Bombay, and it was this which had caused him to set sail with so much haste. Becoming very busied in preparations for the defence, I luckily slipped somewhat out of his mind, and the boatswain took advantage of this to soften the rigour of my imprisonment, allowing me to take the air on deck, and even going so far as to release ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... common ground we must have found in the one idea that, by good fortune, COULD steady us. It was the idea, the second movement, that led me straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I could take the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could join me. Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to me before we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every feature ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... to the Chair, "You can hardly be aware How I suffer from the heat And from chilblains on my feet. If we took a little walk, We might have a little talk; Pray let us take the air," Said the Table to ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... he responded. "It is this way, then. You will comprehend that Madame, my spouse, and myself are of the busiest. We do not keep a great staff; accordingly we have much to do ourselves. Consequently we have not much time to go out, to take the air. Madame, my spouse, she has a love for the dogs—she keeps two, Fifi and Chou-Chou—pogs. What they call pedigree dogs—valuable. Beautiful animals—but needing exercise. It is a trouble to Madame that they cannot disport themselves more frequently. Now, about the beginning ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... "a long way in miles, but not far in minutes if we go by the tubular route. But if it is agreeable to you, suppose we take the air line and make a leisurely ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... to go to church once on Sunday. When you are there, behave with decency. You should never walk in fashionable places on Sunday afternoon. It is notoriously vulgar. If your health requires you to take the air, you should seek some ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... branches, after they have formed the angle of their separation from the parent stem, always bend downwards so as not to crowd against the other branches which follow them on the same stem and to be better able to take the air which nourishes them. As is shown by the angle b a c; the branch a c after it has made the corner of the angle a c bends downwards to c d and the lesser shoot c dries ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Signor Mannetti expressed a wish to take the air. They walked on the terrace presently, and Mary joined them. He asked for her arm, and she ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... Egyptian Princess wished to take the air, she seated herself in a Palanquin, which was nothing but a comfortable chair, with poles at the sides, and her bearers, with the ends of the poles upon their shoulders, bore her gently and easily along, while an attendant with a threefold fan kept the sun from her ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... so outwitted his village physician as to be given the freedom for which he ravened; liberty to take the air in his garden, as understood by the doctor, but by him liberty to stand guard down at the edge of that dark pool which would not freeze over,—liberty to take an air sweet with the odors of the parting year, but crowded also with distended ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... While I am Duke in Padua: listen, Madam, Being mine own, you shall do as I will, And if it be my will you keep the house, Why then, this palace shall your prison be; And if it be my will you walk abroad, Why, you shall take the air from morn ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... which divers English and Scots, besides those of his family, were present. In the evening the Queen passed through the streets in her coach, with divers other coaches and her servants waiting on her, to take the air, though upon this day; and in the night, many disorderly drunkards were committing debaucheries and insolences in the town, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... being given, the monster machines began to take the air one after another, units in a vast whole. There was no demonstration, though scores of other aviators and assistants were on the field watching the send-off, speculating as to the momentous business being thus undertaken and often eating ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... by the purveyors of carts and oxen for a morning's ride. The same circumstances occurred in this country. When coaches began to be kept by the gentry, or were hired out, a powerful party found their "occupation gone!" Ladies would no longer ride on pillions behind their footmen, nor would take the air, where the air was purest, on the river. Judges and counsellors from their inns would no longer be conveyed by water to Westminster Hall, or jog on with all their gravity on a poor palfrey. Considerable bodies of men were thrown out of their habitual ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... 'You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,' said Miss Monflathers. 'Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... gold and silver. And in the mid place of one of his gardens is a little mountain, where there is a little meadow. And in that meadow is a little toothill with towers and pinnacles, all of gold. And in that little toothill will he sit often-time, for to take the air and to disport him. For the place is made for nothing else, ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... of the cathedral, has just turned under the gate," observed Decoud. "He said Mass for the troops in the Plaza this morning. They had built for him an altar of drums, you know. And they brought outside all the painted blocks to take the air. All the wooden saints stood militarily in a row at the top of the great flight of steps. They looked like a gorgeous escort attending the Vicar-General. I saw the great function from the windows of the Porvenir. He is amazing, your uncle, the last of the Corbelans. He glittered exceedingly ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... preferred to take the air on deck. The sun was rising above the willow-clad banks of the Brenta, and it was pleasant to glide in the clear early light past sleeping gardens and villas, and vineyards where the peasants were already at work. The wind setting from the sea, they travelled slowly and ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... convey to him a horse of extraordinary swiftness; and appointed Roger Mortimer who had returned into the kingdom, to be ready at hand with a small party to receive the prince, and to guard him to a place of safety. Edward pretended to take the air with some of Leicester's retinue, who were his guards; and making matches between their horses, after he thought he had tired and blown them sufficiently, he suddenly mounted Glocester's horse, and called to his attendants that he had long enough enjoyed the pleasure of their company, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... noticed, when I took your hand, that it was hot. Now, my good fellow! this is little better than suicide on your part; and if I do not mistake, you are too good a Christian to be guilty of self-murder. Why don't you ride out and take the air? You ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... village there was an old woman frightfully disfigured by fire, and not quite sane as the people thought. She was harmless, but never showed herself by day, and only came out at night to work in her garden or take the air. Many of the ignorant peasants feared her, however; for the country abounds in fairy legends, and strange tales of ghosts and goblins. But the more charitable left bread at her door, and took in return the hose she knit or the thread ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... crows. They would watch us from afar, holding noisy indignation meetings in a row of weather-beaten trees at the far side of the field. And when some inexperienced pilot lost control of his machine and came crashing to earth, they would take the air in a body, circling over the wreckage, cawing and jeering with the most evident delight. "The Oriental Wrecking Company," as the Annamites were called, were on the scene almost as quickly as our enemies the crows. They were a familiar sight on every working day, chattering ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... rosy. With permission of the chair, I shall leave you for a little, for I'd like to take the air. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... was luckily owing to Mr Square; for he, Master Blifil, and Jones, had mounted their horses, after church, to take the air, and had ridden about a quarter of a mile, when Square, changing his mind (not idly, but for a reason which we shall unfold as soon as we have leisure), desired the young gentlemen to ride with him another way ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... have much of the nature of our flies; they buzzed abroad a month or two in the summer, would venture about dog-days to take the air in the Park, but all the winter slept like dormice; and, if they ever appeared in public after Michaelmas, their faces shewed the difference betwixt their country and ours, for they look in Spain as if they were roasted, and in England as if ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... deck smiled when they saw me hurrying aft. The marines on the half-deck smiled as I flew by them. Everybody aboard knew by this time of my five years from home and the little baby waiting. Good old Doctor and Pay, going up to take the air on the quarter-deck, said: 'Hurry, Dick, hurry!' Hurry? I was taking the ladders in single leaps. At the foot of the last one, in the passageway leading to the ward-room, I all but bowled over a little fellow who was looking ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... time, the deep voices of the captains shouting orders, and the blasts of the trumpets filling the air, were heard far and near around the island, she became so overwhelmed with uneasiness that she insisted upon going to the shore, though hitherto she had not been permitted to take the air except under the awning stretched for the purpose on the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... father and mother in a chaise and pair, which your kind brother had presented to them unknown to me, that they might often take the air together, and go to church in it (which is at some distance) on Sundays. The driver is clothed in a good brown cloth suit, but no livery; for that my parents could not have borne, as Mr. B.'s goodness made ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... d'Armes. The ancient Cabildo, where Spanish justice fell like hail, faces it, and the Cathedral, another provincial ghost, overlooks it. Its centre is a little, iron-railed park of flowers and immaculate gravelled walks, where citizens take the air of evenings. Pedestalled high above it, the general sits his cavorting steed, with his face turned stonily down the river toward English Turn, whence come no more Britons to bombard ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... while. She made several openings for him in the conversation, which he immediately sealed up with monosyllables, and when she allowed her fan to slip to the floor he stepped on it. She suggested that they should take the air on the balcony, and as I left them he pulled himself together and began to tell her, in a well-modulated voice, that the surface of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... There's a thing called electricity. Well, you know that if you take a slice out of anything, less remains behind. We can take the air out of this room, and scarcely leave any ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... take the air that afternoon and incidentally to pay his respects in person to Madame de Brissac. Fortune favored him, for he met her coming down the path from the upper town. He lifted his hat gravely and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the beau monde of Calcutta begins to take the air on the Course, a very pleasant drive which runs along the bank of the river. It is usually crowded with carriages, but it must be confessed that none of them would be likely to excite the envy of an owner of a fashionable turn-out at home, unless indeed it might be now and then ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... is a custom of the Thibeto-Burman tribes in Assam, and is not a Khasi institution. There are also high platforms, some 12 ft. or 15 ft. in height, in Lynngam villages, where the elders sit of an evening in the hot weather and take the air. Lynngam houses and villages are usually much cleaner than the ordinary Khasi villages, and although the Lynngams keep pigs, they do not seems to be so much en evidence as in the Khasi village. There is little or no furniture in a Lynngam house. The Lynngam ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... vaults arched and walled with stone and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which, if at any time her lodging were laid about by the queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by secret issues, take the air abroad, many furlongs about Woodstock, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... said in high-tuned tones, halting his legs in such an easy attitude that it was impossible to interrupt it: "come to take the air?" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hospital had relieved Diane and Sheba at daybreak. They slept until the middle of the afternoon, then under orders from the doctor walked out to take the air. They were to divide the night watch between them and he said that he wanted them fit for service. The fever of the patient was subsiding. He slept a good deal, and in the intervals between had been once ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... may be said that a pilot is safe. When he knows in his own heart that nothing can happen to him which will throw him off his guard, or which will worry him, he can take the air without fear. ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... the planes need not exceed 25 degrees so the frame does not require an angle of more than 17 degrees. This is shown in Fig. 54, where the machine is in a position ready to take the air at that angle, leaving ample room for ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... I want you and Mr. Conway in town. Christmas has dispersed all my company, and left nothing but a loo-party or two. If all the fine days were not gone out of town, too, I should take the air in a morning; but I am not yet nimble enough, like old Mrs. Nugent, to jump out of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... collaborated in writing to one lady-love! A condition of unexampled friendship this, of complete oneness. They had both cut themselves garments from the same cloth, as the Arabic saying goes. And on Sunday afternoon, in garments spick and span, they would take the air in Battery Park, where the one would invoke the Statue of Liberty for a thought, or the gilded domes of Broadway for a metaphor, while the other would be scouring the horizon for the Nothingness, which is called, in the recondite cant of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Withrow's before I thought of doing that. But a little further thought and I knew there were more capable men than I walking the streets of Boston looking for work. However, a lot could happen before I would have to worry, and so I decided to take the air ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... obtain a passage, nothing would satisfy Dawson's painful, restless spirit but we must return to Thadviir; so thither we went once more to linger about the palace of Ali Oukadi, in the poor hope that we might see Moll come out to take the air. ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... the dark-skinned man, Forister. When I arrived in the lower corridor and was passing through it on my way to take the air, I found a large group of excited people talking of the quarrel and the duel that was to be fought at daybreak. I thought it was a great hubbub over a very small thing, but it seems that the mainspring of the excitement was ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... windy, hot, and cold, all within any twenty-four hours of the year, just as the case may be, it is plain that we want for general use something that will be proof against the atmospherical accidents that may befall any man who goes abroad to take the air. And here let it be observed, that in reasoning about hats, all thoughts about that effeminate invention, the umbrella, are to be laid aside. This utensil is truly a disgrace to the manhood of the times; and its existence, by allowing people to dispense with warm cloaks and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... a pilot, (And earned his Golden Wings) He'll take the air on high, you bet And do some bully things! The Prussians will be sorry He ever learned to dance With a rearing, tearing Penguin Out ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... calm retreat, To books and study gives seven years complete, See! strewed with learned dust, his night-cap on, He walks, an object new beneath the sun! The boys flock round him, and the people stare: } So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, } Stepped from its pedestal to take the air! } And here, while town, and court, and city roars, With mobs, and duns, and soldiers at their doors; Shall I, in London, act this idle part? Composing songs for fools to get by heart? The Temple late two brother sergeants saw, Who ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... waving leaves with the motionless flowers and foliage of carved stone; look out over the reef with its white fringes of foam in contrast to the sapphire sea; and then turn to the city, with its galleries and terraces whither the townsfolk come to take the air among their flowers of an evening, above the houses and the tops of the trees in their little gardens; add a few sails down in the harbour; and lastly, in the stillness of falling night, listen to the organ ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... seventh day Is famous for a grand display Of modes, of finery, and dress, Of cit, west-ender, and noblesse, Who in Hyde Park crowd like a fair To stare, and lounge, and take the air, Or ride or drive, or walk, and chat On fashions, scandal, and all that.— Here, reader, with your leave, will we Commence our London history. 'Twas Sunday, and the park was full With Mistress, John, and Master Bull, And all their little fry. The crowd pour in from all approaches, Tilb'ries, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... room, in another some at work, while one is reading aloud, and in a separate chamber a set joining in a little concert, though none of them are great proficients in music; while two or three shall be retired into their own rooms, some go out to take the air, for it has seldom happened to them to have less than two boarders at a time who each keep an equipage; while others shall be amusing themselves in the garden, or walking in the very pleasant meadows ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... night. The young girls are thinking of their partners and their toilettes. Intimacy becomes impossible, and quiet enjoyment of life. On the other hand, the crowd of bourgeois has not invaded Brighton. The drive is not blocked up by flys full of stockbrokers' wives and children; and you can take the air in your chair upon the chain-pier, without being stifled by the cigars of the odious shop-boys from London." So Lady Kew's name was usually amongst the earliest which the Brighton newspapers recorded amongst ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as Patty went on her daily stroll to "take the air," her way was blocked by a clamoring crowd of undesirables who were baiting ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... weeks before he passed away. "Our aged and venerable brother feels himself growing gradually weaker. He can scarcely rise from his couch, and it is with great difficulty that he is carried out daily to take the air. Yet he is free from all pain as to disease, and his mind is in a most serene and happy state. He is in full possession of his faculties, and, although with difficulty, on account of his weakness, he still converses with his friends ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... in all weathers we take the air—walking, or sitting in little companies talking over each other's ailments and measurements and ills ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... natives live to a very great age. I have seen some of them not able to walk, without having any other distemper or infirmity than old age, so that when the necessities of nature required it, or they wanted to take the air, they were obliged to be carried out of their hut, an assistance which is always readily offered to the old men. The respect paid to them by their family is so great, that they are looked upon as the judges of all differences, and their ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... directed to me; upon which information she was now more confined than ever, and that I could have no chance of seeing her, unless I would run the risk of getting into the garden, where she and her maid were every day allowed to take the air, and lie hid until I should have an opportunity of speaking to them—an adventure attended with such danger, that no man in his right wits would attempt it. This enterprise, hazardous as it was, I resolved to perform, in spite of all the arguments of Mrs. ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... inventions, of which the Victor Pirolo is, perhaps, not the least surprising. She and a few score sister-craft of the same type embody his latest ideas. But she is not comfortable. An A.B.C. boat does not take the air with the level-keeled lift of a liner, but shoots up rocket-fashion like the 'aeroplane' of our ancestors, and makes her height at top-speed from the first. That is why I found myself sitting suddenly on the large lap of Eustace Arnott, who commands the A.B.C. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... that is my Wife's and the Family's; the other is a Physick Garden, containing the choicest physical Herbs. At the left Hand there is an open Meadow, that is only a green Plot enclos'd with a quick-set Hedge. There sometimes I take the Air, and divert myself with good Company. Upon the right Hand there's an Orchard, where, when you have Leisure, you shall see a great Variety of foreign Trees, that I have brought by Degrees to ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... without her. "Gentle Avenant," said she, "all the reasons you have laid before me, are very good, and I assure you, I would rather favour you than any other; but you must know, about a month since, I went to take the air by the side of a river, with my maids of honour; as I was pulling off my glove, I pulled a ring from my finger, which by accident fell into the river. This ring I valued more than my whole kingdom; whence you may judge how much I am afflicted ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... month of May, they sent him into the country, to take the air; and some other circumstances occurred, so unusual, that they judged he must be bewitched. And what confirmed this conjecture was, that he never had any fever, and retained all his strength, notwithstanding ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... this fatal grain: It's grown. And now, my bonny birds, Though you have disbelieved my words Thus far, take heed at last,— When you shall see the seed-time past, And men, no crops to labour for, On birds shall wage their cruel war, With deadly net and noose; Of flying then beware, Unless you take the air, Like woodcock, crane, or goose. But stop; you're not in plight For such adventurous flight, O'er desert waves and sands, In search of other lands. Hence, then, to save your precious souls, Remaineth but to say, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... third. My machine is number seven. I ask my observer, Allard, if he is ready. He answers, "Yes." I start the engine, give it all the gas, like the others roll along the ground for a few seconds, and then take the air. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... and it is not a military wall. It supports merely a superb promenade, Dufferin Terrace, a great plank walk poised sheer above the river, the like of which would be hard to equal anywhere. On this the homely people of Quebec take the air in a manner more sumptuous than many of the most aristocratic resorts ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... wake this morn from sleep, It seemed I heard birds in a dream; Then I arose to take the air— The lovely air that made birds scream; Just as a green hill launched the ship Of gold, to take its first ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... cold, and before the Sunday muster came round the garments had vanished—not into thin air, indeed, but in tobacco and rum, for which forbidden luxuries he invariably bartered them with the bumboat women who had the run of the vessel while she remained in harbour. Or allow him on deck to take the air and such exercise as could be got there, and the moment your back was turned he was away sans conge. Few of these runaways were as considerate as that Scotch humorist, William Ramsay, who was pressed at Leith for beating an ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... the morning's work was over, I informed my secretary that I would go out and take the air ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... was almost alone in the world. Neither father, nor mother, nor any other near relative remained to him, save his sister, Johanna, whose care of him had need to be almost maternal. Well-nigh every day in the year these two might be seen walking out together to take the air. They went always arm in arm, a beautiful embodiment of the tenderest affection. Hardly the king himself attracted more attention in the street. Scarcely a person he met failed to raise his hat and salute the venerable scholar with the heartiest good will. As he was both short-sighted and suffering ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... secluding himself in his own house, he would admit no visitors and open no papers on business. In vain did his most trusted colleagues sue to him for one hour's conversation. As the spring advanced, he retired to a house at Hampstead, and was able at intervals to take the air upon the heath, but was still at all times inaccessible to all his friends." His brother-in-law, Mr. Grenville, wrote:[106] "Lord Chatham's state of health is certainly the lowest dejection and debility that mind or body can be in. He sits all the day ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... sure that there was any baby at all, though John,—John was one of the English servants,—had seen a bundle come into the house. Wouldn't it be natural and right that any real child should be carried out to take the air? "And then all manner of messes were," said Mrs. Toff, "prepared up in the closed room." Mrs. Toff didn't believe in anything, except that everything was going to perdition. The Marchioness was intent on asking after the health and appearance of her son, but Mrs. Toff declared ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... was such an invalid,' I said.—How long is it since she could only take the air in a close carriage, with a gentleman in a black coat on the box? Let me tell you a story, adapted to young persons, but which won't ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... female apprehension at least, as "too divine." The cabin is removable at pleasure, and is generally taken off and replaced by awnings in summer. But in the evening, when the fair Venetians go out in their gondolas to take the air, even this awning is dispensed with, and the long slender boat glides darkly down the Grand Canal, bearing its dazzling freight of white tulle, pale-faced, black-eyed beauty, and flashing jewels, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... have a dainty pair, Which, when you please to take the air, About your head shall gently hover, Your clear brow from the sun to cover; And with their nimble wings shall fan you, That neither cold nor heat shall tan you; And, like umbrellas, with their feathers Shall shield you ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... had been reading Plato together so diligently, that the usual hour of exercise passed away unperceived: we sallied forth hastily to take the air for half-an-hour before dinner. In the middle of Magdalen Bridge we met a woman with a child in her arms. Shelley was more attentive at that instant to our conduct in a life that was past, or to come, than to a decorous regulation of the present, according to ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang |
