"Frolic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enemy as a base, one rose and struggled to the beach oaks. Frantic wing-beating showed that the other bird was in serious difficulties. It was a hundred yards out, but the enjoyment of a sunbath after a sea frolic enabled one to proceed to the rescue without preliminaries. Half drowned and completely cowed, the bird was now confronted by a more awful peril than that of the sea. A bedraggled crest indicated horror at the steady approach of the enemy ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... with which it was surrounded—the growth of centuries—casting a deep and solemn shadow over the place of graves. The humble offices, and the corn-yard in which I had rejoiced to mingle in rural occupations and frolic, were near; and nothing was wanted to realize the scenes of my youth, save the presence of the venerable patriarch and my mother, and their little ones grouping around their knees, or ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... the trip was perfect nonsense; she knew we would have pneumonia and various other diseases if we attempted it, but she ended by declaring that, of course, she could not be left behind if we were determined on the frolic. She is a darling! So, now, Mrs. Thurston, if only you will consent, in a few days we want dear old 'Bubble,' to make a start for the Berkshires. This is the perfect time of the year and the mountains will be simply glorious! Oh, I can't talk any more, I am so out of breath! Do ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... go by, a diversion which had, in the past, never failed to amuse. But I could see that it was not interested. A tune from the victrola fell equally flat, even though I set my little charge on the center of the disc and allowed it to revolve at a dizzy pace, which frolic usually sent it into spasms of excited giggling. Something was wrong. It was under emotional stress of the most ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... Sir Arthur Champernowne was 'a good soldier and an eminent commander in the Irish wars' of the sixteenth century, and was conspicuous for his zeal and valour. Prince gives an odd little bit of gossip about an heiress of this family. He says she was 'a frolic lady,' and no unusual epithet could be more descriptive; for the lady 'married William Polglas, within three days after her father's death; and within two days after her husband Polglas's death, she was married again ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... and White commissioned me to write a story for his Christmas Number. I wrote this story. He expressed a deep personal admiration for it, but said positively that he would not dare to offer it to his readers. I withdrew the story, and gave him instead a frolic tale about a dentist. (See page 136.) Afterwards, I was glad that I had withdrawn the story, for I perceived that its theme could only be treated adequately in a novel, I accordingly wrote the novel, which was duly published ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... nearing its old age, and we have come to love sadness, as the friend who has been longest with us. In the young days of our vigour we were merry. With Ulysses' boatmen, we took alike the sunshine and the thunder with frolic welcome. The red blood flowed in our veins, and we laughed, and our tales were of strength and hope. Now we sit like old men, watching faces in the fire; and the stories that we love are sad stories—like the stories we ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... along with fire and fury! Hark! the whistle shrilly shrieks! Speed—but mark! we don't insure ye 'Gainst the boiler's frolic freaks. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... small, but they were numerous. By a last effort of mischievous frolic several of them pulled at the frames of the windows so strongly that several panes broke. A shout of joy sounded far over the field. Through the openings the interior of the hut became strewn with small clods of earth ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... of it, anecdotes about it, are few in those dim Books; are uncertain as to truth, and without importance whether true or not. For all his gravity and Colonelship, it would appear the old spirit of frolic has not quitted him. Here are two small incidents, pointing that way; which stand on record; credible enough, though vague and without importance otherwise. Incident FIRST is to the following feeble effect; indisputable though extremely unmomentous: Regiment Goltz, it appears, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... gossips:—at least I hope so. That scamp hasn't bad taste, I must confess. He would have to make a long search before he found a handsomer or more amiable woman than Lenora. Look you, Monsieur De Vlierbeck, we must have a wedding frolic that people will ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... was ideal, and had nothing to do with ordinary life; it arose from the winter feasts of Bacchus, while comedy was the outcome of the harvest feasts, and the accompanying Bacchanalian processions, which were more in the nature of a frolic than of real acting. The influence of the Middle and New Greek comedy, especially, that of Menander, on the Roman comedy of Terence is well defined. Under Ennius and Plautus the Roman comedy was fairly original; but Terence wrote for the ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... smoke-house. We were shown the scene of one of these neighborhood vengeances. It is a low house at the side of a ravine, down whose steep slope the beech forest steps persistently erect, as if distrusting gravitation. Thirty Confederates had gathered in that house at a country-side frolic, and the fiddle sang deep in the night. The mountain girls are very pretty, having dark, opalescent eyes, with a touch of gold in them at a side glance, slight, rather too fragile figures, and the singular purity of complexion peculiar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... put by plenty of money, being able to earn, in spite of herself, quite as much as two lawyers could. The poverty of her home was a help rather than a hindrance. Four broken chairs and a broom-handle savoured of a witch's frolic. ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... how dear, Who even in thy frolic mood Discerned (or sometimes thought I could) The pure ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... life of Balzac were his ability to abandon himself to the task in hand, his infinite good-nature, his capacity for frolic and fun, and his passion to be famous and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... yet unspoil'd and clear; The many-buttress'd bridge that stems the tide; Black-timber'd wharves; arcaded walls, that rear Long, golden-crested roofs of civic pride:— While flaunting galliots by the gardens glide, And on Spring's frolic air the May-song swells, Mix'd with the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... the town was electrified by a general invitation to the annual jubilee at Jollyboys Hall, which this spring flowered into a masquerade, and filled the souls of old and young with visions of splendor, frolic, and fun. Being an amiable old town, it gave itself up, like a kind grandma, to the wishes of its children, let them put its knitting away, disturb its naps, keep its hands busy with vanities of the ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... that ever trod clover, had sat down on him (a favorite pastime of hers), and after jolting her fat little person up and down on his patient head, rolled herself over and gave him a series of bear-hugs. Timothy looked pale and languid, Samantha thought, and though Gay waited for a frolic with her most adorable smile, he only lifted her coral necklace to kiss the place where it hung, and tied on her sun-bonnet soberly. Samantha wished that Vilda had been looking out of the window. Her own heart didn't need ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round: 90 Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... succotash; and doubtless the manner of cooking is wholly Indian. Hoe-cakes and ash-cakes were made by the squaws long before the landing of the Pilgrims. Roasting ears of green corn were made the foundation of a solemn Indian feast and also of a planters' frolic. It is curious to read Winthrop's careful explanation, that when corn is parched it turns entirely inside out, and is "white and floury within;" and to think that there ever was a time when pop-corn was a novelty to white children ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... she had worn that day she went to have been married to Octavio, when the States' messengers took her up for a French spy, a suit Philander had never seen: she equips herself, and leaving in charge with Antonet what to say in her absence, and telling her she was going upon a frolic to divert herself a day or two; she, accompanied by her page only, took horse and made away towards Brussels: you must know, that the half-way stage is a very small village, in which there is most lamentable accommodation, and may vie ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... and ask Dinah to help you look for the straps," directed Freddie to his little sister, "and I'll catch Snap. Here, Snap! Snap!" he called to the dog who had come back into the yard after a romp and frolic with his animal friend. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... cottage on the purple moor, Where ruddy children frolic round the door, The moss-grown antlers of the aged oak, The shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke, 250 The bearded goat with nimble eyes, that glare Through the long tissue of his hoary hair;— As with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... I will add, which may contribute to the interest of this account. While the class were confined in what they purchased, to the number ten, they were sometimes inclined to turn the exercise into a frolic. The variety of articles which they could find costing less than ten cents was so small, that for the sake of getting something new, they would propose examples really ludicrous, such as these. Three meeting-houses at two cents. Four pianos at nine cents. But I soon found that if I allowed this at ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... frolic and be merry: you shall be sure to have wine enough, whatsoever your fare be. I tell you, cavaliers, my brother hath in his house five tun of wine, and as long as that lasteth, I beshrew him that ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallowed house: I am sent with, broom, before, To sweep the dust ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... veins with richness and fulness of life. The merle and the mavis sung their love-songs, even although it was winter, the squirrels climbed the bare branches of the trees, while even the rabbits besported themselves gaily. And Naomi and I, because we loved each other, were as gay as any lambs that frolic on the warm days of May. Ay, we were young; and I, even although I was almost penniless, was happy in my strength and my youth. Thus is God kind to His children. As for Naomi, I, who am but poor at stringing words together, can never tell how beautiful ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... a mettlesome, warm-blooded creature, full of the energy and audacity of youth, to whom as yet life was only a frolic and a play spell. Work never tired her. She ate heartily, slept peacefully, went to bed laughing, and got up in a merry humor in the morning. Diana's laugh was as early a note as the song of birds. Such a nature is not ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he regarded his repetition of his sonorous adjective as quite an original thing in the way of pure rhetoric. Tom Lennard was by inheritance a merchant, by choice a philanthropist; he was naturally religious, but he could not help regarding his philanthropic work as a great frolic, and he often scandalized reformers of a more serious disposition. The excellent Joseph Naylor, who was never seen to smile, and who was popularly supposed to sleep in his black frock-coat and high stock, once met Tom on a platform. When Tom was introduced to the prim, beneficent ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... the strings and played the Fisher's Hornpipe. What a romp of merry music filled the house! I had never heard the like and was soon smiling at him as he played. His bow and fingers flew in the wild frolic of the Devil's Dream. It led me out of my sadness into a world ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... was looking down upon him from the hemlock shadows, what brave little heart was determined to save him. He was in one of those great crises of agony that boys pass through when they first awake from the fun and frolic of unlawful enterprises to find themselves sold under sin, and feel the terrible logic of evil which constrains them to pass from the less to greater crime. He felt that he was in the power of bad, unprincipled, heartless ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had no herbage to eat. Some of them ate the dried dung of camels and horses. We have a young camel with us about four months old; it continues to suck. It has no frolic or fun in its actions, and is as serious as its mother. The foal of the camel frolics in awkward antics a few days after its birth, but apparently soon loses all its infant mirth. In the first place, the foal ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... planets, to amuse the vulgar, have, in my opinion, too long been suffered to abuse the world. But an honest physician ought not to be despised because there are such things as mountebanks. I hope I have some share of reputation, which I would not willingly forfeit for a frolic or humour; and I believe no gentleman who reads this paper will look upon it to be of the same cast or mould with the common scribblers that are every day hawked about. My fortune has placed me above the little regard of scribbling ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... the family." Growing-up man forgets good counsel. The Arcadia of respectability is apt to give place to the levity of football and other low-toned accomplishments. The book of life, at that period, opens readily at fun and frolic, and the insignia of greatness give the schoolboy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... in the tree, his plumage all the brighter for the winter's bleaching. The day is not long enough, the night is consumed. The boys from all the country about gather at the camp. The moon was a book and every star a word that read fun and frolic to the jolly crowd at the camp at ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... residing with their father in the castle of L'Aigle in Normandy, were one day engaged in sport together; and after some mirth and jollity, the two younger took a fancy of throwing over some water on Robert as he passed through the court on leaving their apartment [l]; a frolic, which he would naturally have regarded as innocent, had it not been for the suggestions of Alberic de Grentmesnil, son of that Hugh de Grentmesnil whom William had formerly deprived of his fortunes, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... rocky passes. Occasionally, a sudden yell of pain mingled with the shouts of mirth, for land-crabs have their methods of revenge. The three or four girls whom Rachael had induced to attend this masculine frolic, kept to the high refuge of the villa, attended by cavaliers who dared not hint that maiden charms were ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... a koryphaios, hold, as it were, a komos, leaping, singing, and dancing[55] through the streets, striking together the wands which they carry. These cow-boys not only dress (as do others) in new clothes on this occasion,[56] but they give their cattle new equipments, and regard the whole frolic as part of a religious rite in honor of Krishna, the cow-herd. But all sects take part in the performance (that is to say, in the Hol[i] portion), both Civaites and Vishnuites. When the moon is full the celebration ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... a sweet yet melancholy pleasure, when far away from friends and home, in thinking over happy days gone by, and dwelling on the scenes and pleasures that have passed away, perhaps for ever. So I thought and felt as I recalled to mind the fun and frolic of the Stornoway ball, and the graver mirth of the Gravesend dinner, until memory traced my course backward, step by step, to the peaceful time when I dwelt in Scotland, surrounded by the gentle inmates of my happy ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... intellect, might have suggested the necessity of a quiet life, if inclination and liking had been the arbiters in the choice. Nor was this inactivity the result of defective animal spirits either, for sometimes his mirth and boyish frolic were unbounded; but it seemed to proceed from an over-activity of the inward life, absorbing, and in some measure checking, the outward manifestation. He had so much to do in his own hidden kingdom, that he had not time to take his place in the polity and strife of the commonwealth around ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... except the ruins of an old church. There has been no priest since the death of one who was drowned, a few years ago, near Bird Island, a large rock, at the mouth of the harbor. At the time of this fatal mishap, the reverend father was on a drunken frolic, in company ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... early, we will ask her to come for a romp with us in the garden, and show her how much nicer it is to live in the country than in the city, where little girls have to walk so quietly along the streets, and dogs have to be led along the sidewalk, and cannot frolic on ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... sleepy to read and too lazy to write; So I'll watch the blue rings, as they eddy and twirl, And in gossamer wreathings coquettishly curl. In the stillness of night and the sparseness of chimes There's a fleetness in fancy, a frolic in rhymes; There's a world of romance that persistently clings To the azurine ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... pioneer days of Illinois the making of mock Masons, or pseudo Sons of Malta, was a popular form of frolic, now almost forgotten. Young people formed mock lodges or secret societies, for the purpose of initiating new members by a series of tricks, which became the jokes of ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... church, they dismounted at the great horseblock, leaving their hats and mantles thereon, as was the custom; and it was a pretty sight to see the ladies walking into church, their cheeks glowing with exercise, and the fresh, morning air. As Winnie entered, her long curls composing themselves after a frolic with the breeze, many a sly glance was aimed at her from the neighboring pews, in spite of the consciences of their owners reminding them that it was holy day. It was a source of great comfort to Mrs. Santon, that she as able to come so far to this ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... at last, when they had subsided from a regular rough-house frolic for all the world as if they were children, "we'll have to get to work in good earnest; only it doesn't seem right to let you work so hard when you ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... Points and Creeks soon came to an end. A River Pilot was the lesser evil, a Channel Pilot was the greater one; but both were got rid of at last. Then the Skipper was himself again. He would drink himself blind with Punch in the forenoon, or cob his cabin-boy to Death's door after dinner for a frolic. He could play the very Devil among the Hands, and they perforce bore with his capricious cruelty; for there is no running away from a Ship at Sea. Jack Shark is Gaoler, and keeps the door tight. There is but ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... when a tune Speeds us to Heaven, and night is at the noon Of all its frolic, all its wild desire! O thrall of rapt illusions when we tire Of coy reserve, and all the moments pass As pass the visions in a magic glass, And every step is shod with ecstacy, And every smile is fleck'd ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... paradise to their surprised and happy eyes after the long habit of seeing nothing but dirty lanes and streets. It was a wonder to them—those spacious reaches of open country to run and dance and tumble and frolic in, after their dull and joyless captivity; so they scampered far and wide over the fair regions on both sides of the river, and came back at eventide weary, but laden with flowers and flushed with new health drawn from the fresh country air ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tailor who was charged before Sir Peter Laurie with being drunk and disorderly in Fleet-street, escaped the penalty of his frolic by an extraordinary whim of justice. The young schneider, it appears, sported a luxuriant crop of hair, the fashion of which not pleasing the fancy of the city Rhadamanthus, he remitted the fine on condition that the delinquent should instantly cut off the offending hairs. A barber being sent for, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... each week, but were saved up often for several weeks or even a month or two, and then came a wash-day frolic. Imagine wash day looked forward to as a delightful event! So it was, however, to many California children. Senorita Vallejo, in the Century Magazine (Vol. 41), thus describes one ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... that actually makes me sick at my stomach. Then, he never plays and makes merry along with us, and, if he does, harm is always sure, somehow or other, to come of it. When other people dance and frolic, he stands apart, with scorn in his face, and his black brows gathering clouds in such a way, that he would put a stop to all sport if people were only fools enough to mind him. For my part, I take care ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the sound, found tears in her eyes, not all of pain but of sad pleasure, and assumed thenceforth something of the port of a connoisseur. She said she "couldn't abide a fiddle jes sawed helter-skelter by them ez hedn't larned, but ter play saaft an' slow an' solemn, and no dancin' chune, no frolic song—she warn't set agin that at all." And she desired of Leander a repetition of this sunset motive that evening when he had come home late, and she discovered him hiding the obnoxious instrument under the porch. But in vain. He did not remember it. It ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... frolic of the largesse was over, the king and queen rose to depart. The evening was now coming on, and a great number of torches were brought in to illuminate the hall. By the light of these torches, the company, after their majesties ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... rose solemnly from her seat, walked to the centre of the terrace, and stood in front of the prince's chair. All looked on with some surprise, and Prince S. and her sisters with feelings of decided alarm, to see what new frolic she was up to; it had gone quite far enough already, they thought. But Aglaya evidently thoroughly enjoyed the affectation and ceremony with which she was introducing her recitation of ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... ceremonies, and Monsieur Bloome, were frolic at dinner with Whitelocke, and made many caresses to him, and extolled the Chancellor's care and high respect to Whitelocke, in bringing his treaty to so good an issue; and after dinner Bloome told Whitelocke that the Chancellor had advised the Queen to make a noble present to Whitelocke, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... descend with business-like airs to breakfast, wish each other good morning, pretend that we haven't any hearts. Oh, is this life! I won't believe it. Our good genius has come back to us; now all things will again go on smoothly; once more I can be a little girl and frolic up here instead of playing Miss ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... "are almost too costly for humanity." Who wishes to be severe? Who wishes to resist the eminent and polite, in behalf of the poor and low and impolite? and who that dares do it can keep his temper sweet, his frolic spirits? The high virtues are not debonair, but have their redress in being illustrious at last. What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their contemporaries! The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... like other frigates, could safely fight only their inferiors in force. What applied to the Guerriere and Macedonian against the Constitution and United States, where the British force was inferior, applied equally to the Frolic against the Wasp, where no inferiority could be shown. The British newspapers thenceforward admitted what America wished to prove, that, ship for ship, British were no more than ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... swaying in the crowd, as a sedan-chair was borne through—or attempted to be—for the effort failed. There was a scuffle, one of the bearers was knocked down and hurt. Some cried "shame!" others seemed to think this incident only added to the frolic. At last, in the midst of the confusion, a lady put her head out of the ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... a head like a tar-bucket," he concluded. "Everything I ever put into it has stuck. We are going to frolic round the world together, and we will be home ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... her say one man sold all his slaves. The War broke out. They run away and went back to him. She'd see 'em pass going back home. They been sold and wouldn't stay. Folks got to running off to war. They thought it look like a frolic. I heard some of them say they wish they hadn't gone off to war 'fore it was done. Niggers didn't know that[TR: ?] war no freedom was 'ceptin' the Yankees come tell them something and then they couldn't understand how it all be. Black folks ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... in some ridiculous manner, from the respectability of the room. He was an inharmonious note in its staid preciseness. Moreover, it was evident from the frank friendliness of his dark, gray eyes that he was perniciously of that type who frolic through a frosty, first-citizen aura of informality and give and accept friendship as a matter ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... costume, and many of them in that equivocal description of it which could scarcely be termed costume at all. Bareheaded and barefooted multitudes of both sexes were present, regardless of appearances, half mad with delight, and exhibiting many a frolic and gambol considerably at variance with the etiquette of fashionable life, although we question whether the most fashionable fete, of them all ever produced half so much happiness. Farmers had come ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... size—for the stream itself was small; and, though little countries sometimes produce great men, little streams rarely produce great fish. But on one occasion, towards the close of autumn, when a party of the younger workmen set themselves, in a frolic, to sweep it with torch and spear, they succeeded in capturing, in a dark alder-o'ershaded pool, a monstrous individual, nearly three feet in length, and proportionally bulky, with a snout bent over the lower jaw ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... we wanted Goya, and more and more Goya, who is as Spanish and as unlike Velasquez as can very well be. There was not enough Goya abovestairs to satisfy us, but in the Goya room in the basement there was a series of scenes from Spanish life, mostly frolic campestral things, which he did as patterns for tapestries and which came near being enough in their way: the way of that reality which is so far from the reality of Velasquez. There, striving with their strangeness, we found a young American husband and wife who said they ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... upon Black Boy, who recognised it directly as his master's call, and having had his frolic, he trotted slowly towards where Bart cantered on, suffered himself to be caught, and the party returned in triumph, none the worse, save ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... satisfaction of feeling himself the first person in company. Of these associates, the first in talents, and in jovial profligacy, was Sir Terence O'Fay—a man of low extraction, who had been knighted by an Irish lord-lieutenant in some convivial frolic. No one could tell a good story, or sing a good song better than Sir Terence; he exaggerated his native brogue, and his natural propensity to blunder, caring little whether the company laughed at him or with him, provided they laughed. 'Live and laugh—laugh and live,' was his ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... formal trial; and he was soon obliged to return once more to his old quarters. Just before we let go our anchor, a small sloop, rather than submit to yield us an inch of way, ran foul of our ship, and carried off her bowsprit. This obstinate frolic would have cost those aboard the sloop very dear, if our steersman had not been too generous to exert his superiority, the certain consequence of which would have been the immediate sinking of the other. This contention of the inferior with ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... record: "She was of a strange people. She was born in a wigwam." She did not know that failing health was really the cause of this lapse of self- confidence, this growing self-depreciation, this languor for which she could not account. She found that she could not toss the child and frolic with it as she had done; she was conscious that within a month there had stolen upon her the desire to be much alone, to avoid noises and bustle—it irritated her. She found herself thinking more and more of her father, her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... He would in frolic moments, when Such mischief bent upon, Take Bishops up as betting men - Bid Ministers move on. Then all the worthy boys he knew He regularly licked, And always collared people who ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... young beavers there was one who from the first took the lead. Born in the lodge of old Ahmeek, king of the beavers, he showed every indication of following in the footsteps of his father. He it was who led the others in their frolic in the pond and upon the banks, and when the sharp slap of a tail upon the water told of danger, none was more ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... snow-covered ridge, taunting him with merry laughter as she left him clambering in cautious descent down the rock. Jan followed in pursuit, shouting to her in French, in Cree, and in English, and their two voices echoed happily in their wild frolic. ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... Spring Garden squad. Nearly all of these were twenty or twenty-one years old. The men included Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Burke, Fox, Milton, Spencer, Hume and Sheridan; the women Spring, Summer, July, Bashfull, Virtue, Frolic, Gamesome, Lady, Madame, Dutchess, Mirtle and Cowslip. Seventeen of this distinguished company died ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... "descriptive" music. A popular audience is delighted with the "Cats' Serenade," executed on the violins with overwhelming likeness to the reality, or with, the "Day in the Country," in which the sun rises in the high notes, cocks crow, horses rattle down the road, merrymakers frolic on the green, clouds come up in the horns, lightning plays in the violins, thunder crashes in the drums and cymbals, the merrymakers scatter in the whole orchestra, the storm passes diminuendo, and in the muted violins the full moon rises serenely into a twilight sky. Here the intention is easily ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... "By all the saints, no unfrocked priest shall speak words in this camp of mine! Not even a good father of the French has been present at a rendezvous of the bully boys of the mountains; and who are you, to come intruding at the frolic of the trappers? I'll have no sniveling Protestant here. So get ye gone ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... it seemed to Baree that the pond was alive with beavers. Heads and bodies appeared and disappeared, rushing this way and that through the water in a manner that amazed and puzzled him. It was the colony's evening frolic. Tails hit the water like flat boards. Odd whistlings rose above the splashing—and then as suddenly as it had begun, the play came to an end. There were probably twenty beavers, not counting the young, ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... you'd do the settin' part best, Prue, you are so patient. Till would fight like a wild cat, but she can't hold her tongue worth a cent," answered Eph; whereat Tilly pulled his hair, and the story ended with a general frolic. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... "Let us go into the house. Go you into the kitchen and frighten the maids, and I will torment the lady. When it is time to depart, I will come for you." The lady screamed and sobbed with terror as if she was mad, and the maids screamed too, but with fun and frolic. ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... with its big black eyes. Judd thought it would make one helluva lousy pet, but he didn't tell Lindy. Trouble was, it never did anything. It merely sat still, or occasionally it would bounce down to the floor and mince along on its hind-legs for a scrap of food. It never uttered a sound. It did not frolic and it did not gambol. Most of the time it could have been carved from stone. But Lindy was happy and ...
— Black Eyes and the Daily Grind • Milton Lesser
... to deliver our invitations in person," Jane finally said with a smile. "Miss Leonard, I'd love to be your cavalier for the freshman frolic." ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... when in childhood's frolic hour, Thou'dst plait a garland for thy hair; The nettle bloom'd a chosen flow'r, And native thistles ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Teague Poteet's on this particular evening, it found a fiddle going. The boys and girls of the mountain, to the number of a dozen or more, had gathered for a frolic—a frolic that shook the foundations of Poteet's castle, and aroused echoes familiar enough to the good souls who are fond of the cotillon in its primitive shape. The old folks who had accompanied the youngsters sat in the kitchen with Teague and his wife, and here Woodward also sat, listening ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... and frolic flower-sprites we see, And fairies weaving rings of gossamer, And angels floating ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... another. These sat with their wizened hands clasped on their high stomachs, or on the handles of their baskets, and stared, like stupid, placid animals, at the strange young foreign couple before them. Partly for the frolic of astonishing them, and also because he was happy at seeing Louise so happy, Maurice kissed her hand; but it was she who astonished them most. When she gave a cry, or used her hands with a sudden, vivid effect, or flashed her white teeth in a smile, every head in the carriage ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... us to follow them right now?" demanded Josh, while his eyes sparkled with the spirit of retaliation, as though he could picture them pouncing on the spoilers of the camp, and making them pay dearly for their frolic. ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... is that he was an honest man. He was a small farmer in Ohio with no definite political principles, but had gained some military eclat in the War of 1812. The presidential campaign of 1840 is well described by Carl Schurz as "a popular frolic," with its "monster mass-meetings," with log-cabins, raccoons, hard cider, with "huge picnics," and ridiculous "doggerel about 'Tippecanoe and Tyler too.'" The reason why it called out so great enthusiasm was frivolous enough in itself, but it expressed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... Florida rose, I called her, and many a romping frolic we had together during the winter months, and many a serious talk, too, we had of her second mother; her own she did not remember, and of her sister Miggie whose grave we often visited, strewing it with flowers and watering it with tears, for Nina's attention for her lost ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit; for though a pleasant writer said, "Liceat perire poetis," when one of them, in cold blood, is said to have leaped into the flames of a volcanic revolution, "ardentem frigidus AEtnam insiluit," I consider such a frolic rather as an unjustifiable poetic license than as one of the franchises of Parnassus; and whether he were poet, or divine, or politician, that chose to exercise this kind of right, I think that more wise, because more ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Creole friend from Louisiana, he slipped down to Bennie Haven's on a frolic—taking French leave, of course. The alarm was given of the approach of an instructor, and the two culprits bolted for the barracks at breakneck speed through pitch darkness. Scrambling madly through the woods, there was a sudden cry, a crash and ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... and inquired if there were among the officers on board any who had ever been in the Upper Bay, and learning that there was a midshipman (Whittaker) he was sent for. It so happened that this midshipman had been on a frolic on shore a few nights before, and was accordingly much frightened when summoned into the commodore's presence, but as soon as he was questioned as to his knowledge of the bay, he was sensibly relieved, and professed to know every thing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... treasures of art was a little etching, by an English artist-friend, the subject of which was the gambols of the household fairies in a baronial library after the household were in bed. The little people are represented in every attitude of frolic enjoyment. Some escalade the great arm-chair, and look down from its top as from a domestic Mont Blanc; some climb about the bellows; some scale the shaft of the shovel; while some, forming in magic ring, dance festively on the yet glowing hearth. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Americans, they said that the British were feigning to be frightened and falling down for sport; but when they saw that they did not get up again, and when the dead and wounded were brought back to Boston, the reality began to be made known, and that little frolic of taking the fort was really an ugly ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... His face grew a little white, and his hand, when he caressed lightly the frolic-rumpled little head, was not steady. The stone mask of the man dropped off completely, and underneath was tenderness ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... crossed the Atlantic or passed the Tropic of Cancer. The Raz, or Tide-Race, was a dangerous passage off the coast of Brittany; some religious observance among the early sailors, dictated by anxiety, appears to have degenerated into the Neptunian frolic, which included a copious christening of salt water for the raw hands, and was kept up long after men had ceased to fear the unknown regions of the ocean. Perhaps an aspersion with holy-water was a part of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Camp Frolic,' pleaded Polly Oliver. 'Pray, pray let us have Camp Ha-Ha; my heart ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... family, when the little 'Furrys' and 'Buffys' could not be kept in order, but would go peeping into bungholes, and tumbling nearly through, and having to be picked out by Carlo, drabbled and chilled, but ready for a fresh frolic five ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... runs away will live to run another day," retorted Peter promptly. Then he began the maddest kind of a frolic with the Merry Little Breezes until they and he were quite tired out and ready ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... over-ready to do, and in answer to his whim a leaden, inky pall now lay over Thanet, whilst the gale continued its mighty, wanton frolic, lashing the sleet against the tiny window-panes of the cottage, or sending it down the chimneys, upon the burning logs below, causing them to splutter and to hiss ere they changed their glow to black ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... know which is the oldest, you or the baby, honey-bird!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry as she came up the steps in the midst of the frolic. "You and him a-giggling make music like a nest full of young cat-birds. Did you ever notice how 'most any down-heart will get up and go a-marching to a laugh tune? I needed just them chuckles to set me ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to bear her off, as of old the treacherous Roman bachelors carried the Sabine maids. Screams filled the air, mingled with oaths and laughter; and the affair that had been begun in vulgar, aimless, frolic, might have ended in serious outrage, but just then a horseman appeared at the gate, dismounted, and, rushing in, riding-whip in hand, plied it with such vigor, that in a few seconds all the rude gang had fled except Narcisse, who, having stumbled, was seized by ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... had been enclosed with a fencing of poles, and toros were the amusement of the afternoon. The country sports with bulls are different from the regular bull-fights of the cities. Any one takes part who pleases, and while there is little of trained skill, there is often much of fun, frolic, and daring. The bull is led into the ring from outside by a lasso. It is then lassoed from behind and dragged up to a post or tree, to which it is firmly tied to prevent its moving. A rope is then tightly cinched about its middle and a man mounts upon the back of the beast, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... my pretty guests brought me round, and I soon thought that, after all, cheerfulness was better than sulking, and I resolved to make up for my disappointment with the two charming sisters, who seemed well disposed to enjoy a frolic. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... thigh. His new scarlet coat imparts a healthy hue to his face, and good boots and breeches hide the imperfections of his bad legs. His hounds seem to partake of the old man's gaiety, and gather round his horse or frolic forward on the grassy sidings of the road, till, getting almost out of earshot, a single 'yooi doit!—Arrogant!'—or 'here again, Brusher!' brings them cheerfully back to whine and look in the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the air; of the eagle-owl, hooting weirdly at night in the mountain-clefts—in short, he means a whole world of birds, and has a little difficulty in confining his ideas to the poor capercailzie, surprised and killed by a sportsman in the midst of a love-frolic, when the sun is rising ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... feet patter on the stair? Did boyhood frolic in the snow? Did gray age, in her elbow chair, Knit, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... awhile, If ever you wished to smile, Or hear a true story of old, Attend to what I now unfold! 'Tis of a lad whose fame did resound Through every village and town around, For fun, for frolic, and for whim, None ever was to equal him, And his name was Arthur O'Bradley! O! rare Arthur O'Bradley! wonderful Arthur O'Bradley! Sweet ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... an Indian bracelet, profusely hung with small trinkets, from her arm to her wrist, and was evidently selecting one. It proved to be a child's tiny ring with a small pearl setting. "This was given to me by Cousin Jack," said Miss Eversleigh in a low voice, "when I was a child, at some frolic or festival, and I have kept it ever since. I brought it with me when we came here as a kind of memento to show him. You know that is impossible now. You say you have nothing of his to keep. Will you accept this? I know he would be ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... ascertained that they were two respectable and peaceably-disposed Germans who resided at New Haven, and who had come to Stamford on that evening to attend a frolic at the house of a German farmer who lived near to that place. They had spent the evening in a jovial manner, and had left the house under the impression that by hastening their steps they would be in time to catch the train ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... taken one day in a part of the New Forest. Madeline was in particularly good spirits; she had succeeded in getting an engagement to teach some children, and her work was to begin the next day. In a frolic she set herself to jump over a fallen tree; her feet slipped on the dry grass beyond, and she fell with ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... frolic breeze o'er field and dell, Now pealing a bold stave with lusty swell, Now falling to ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... familiar to readers of American newspapers even before its bearer was fairly out of college. The publicity it then attained (partly due to young Harman's conspicuous wealth) attached to some youthful exploits not without a certain wild humour. But frolic degenerated into brawl and debauch: what had been scrapes for the boy became scandals for the man; and he gathered a more and more unsavoury reputation until its like was not to be found outside a penitentiary. The crux of his career in his own country was reached during a midnight quarrel ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... rocking masts That scrape the sky, their only tenant The jay-bird that in frolic casts From some high yard his broad blue pennant. I see the Indian files that keep Their places in the dusty heather, Their red trunks standing ankle deep In moccasins of ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... cannot boast intelligence offices for servants; but if you want to know the character and occupation of your friends, come to the Exchange!" How I wish I could give you the raciness, the contagion, of her laughter! Who would have dreamed that behind her primness all this frolic lay in ambush? "Why," she said, "I'm only a plantation girl; it's my first week here, and I know every wicked deed everybody as done ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the lady which she felt sure she ought to be. There were hints of this sometimes in her mother's talk; but it was plain that there was nobody to help her to this but herself. Already Jim drank more than his share. He was going the way of his father, dead years before in a drunken frolic; and the income made from the little shop her mother had opened, to teach him how to make a living, covered expenses, and not much more. Whatever was done for Nelly must be ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... individuality at all, it relishes curiously of the coarse and heavy produce of Portugal, so beloved of Dr Johnson, and many other grave doctors, down to the last generation. This breathes all over of the sweet South; it babbles of green fields; it is full of gaiety and frolic, of song and laughter, and the sparkle of wit and crystal. The title, we say, is a good title; and the book has an unmistakable claret flavour—the best English claret, that is to say—which unites the strength of Burgundy with the bouquet of Chateau Margaux. Mr Reach despises a weak thin wine, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... or disorderly. In Vitellius' army disorder and drunkenness were universal: it was more like a midnight orgy[380] than a properly disciplined camp. So it happened that two of the soldiers, one belonging to the Fifth legion, the other to the Gallic auxiliaries, in a drunken frolic challenged each other to wrestle. The legionary fell; and when the Gaul began to exult over him, the soldiers who had gathered round took sides, and the legionaries, breaking out against the auxiliaries with murderous intent, actually cut to pieces a couple of cohorts. This commotion was only cured ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... appeared, leading Arthur Stoss by his coat collar. Within the next few moments, Wilke also appeared. He had been drinking, and was shouting as if the whole thing were a frolic; but he was half dragging, half carrying on deck an old, wheezing working woman. Thrusting Stoss and Bulke aside, he landed ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... blessings of the lowly train; To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art; Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play, 255 The soul adopts, and owns their firstborn sway; Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed— 260 In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... and startling were the demands for pies, cheese, and gingerbread, to be answered on the ensuing Saturday. Those good housewives who had no boys at school or elsewhere, thought it must be 'real good fun' to help them get ready for such a frolic,—those who had boys—wished they had none! As to the rest, the disturbance spread a little (as disturbances are wont) from its proper sphere of action. Two boys even invaded Mrs. Derrick's peaceful dwelling, and called down Faith from conquering Peru. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Saturday afternoons unless boss give time off to work our own little patches or do some other work we had to do. But some would frolic then and wash up for Sunday, or set around. On Sunday we went to church and talked to neighbors. On Christmas we celebrated by having a big dinner which the master give us. We had three days holiday or sometimes ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... that the trick had been played by the Wazir's wife or daughter. I could mention sundry names at Cairo whose charming owners have done worse things than this unseemly frolic. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... and cannot enter into the little girl's conception of life, a dress is of more importance than the spirit of the child. But the teacher or the parent who has the "aptitude for vicariousness" that enables her to enter into the child's life in her fun and frolic with the playful water, and can feel the presence of the nymphs among the wavelets,—such a teacher or parent will adorn the school or the home and endear ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... who has tried to be king even for a few weeks under the above circumstances must agree with the historian that it is no moonlight frolic. ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... although her eyes gleamed appreciatively at the plan. If only Rosslyn and Janie were older! How she would enjoy such a frolic as Susie's suggestion ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... shuffling little creatures joined her. What they were or where they came from Black Bruin did not know. They seemed not to care much for the fish which the old bear offered them, but preferred to romp and tumble about in the jolliest kind of frolic. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... Lock' has been so often related that it requires only a brief restatement. Among the Catholic families of Queen Anne's day, who formed a little society of their own, Miss Arabella Fermor was a reigning belle. In a youthful frolic which overstepped the bounds of propriety Lord Petre, a young nobleman of her acquaintance, cut off a lock of her hair. The lady was offended, the two families took up the quarrel, a lasting estrangement, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... gamblers, out of sheer devilry and diversion, similarly attach their stuffs, and gallop over the ground with the prints trailing fifty yards behind them. In the frenzied frolic that had seized hold of them they forgot their slain comrades, still unburied. They whoop, shout, and laugh till the cliffs, in wild, unwonted echo, send back the sound of their demoniac mirth. A riot rare as original—a true saturnal ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... anticipating a frolic, at once made up her mind to be in it. She lifted her heavy little head and started eagerly toward her stronger sisters; but the progress was slow, for Calico was feeble, and the weak little legs would slide apart, while her tail waved wildly from side ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... manikins, whom they describe as between two and three feet high, but exceedingly strong, just as the Scottish peasantry speak of the Picts of folk-lore—'wee fouk but unco' strang.' Every night the gorics dance in circles round the stones of Carnac, and should a mortal interrupt their frolic he is forced to join in the dance, until, breathless and exhausted, he falls prone to the earth amid peals of mocking laughter. Like the nains, the gorics are the guardians of hidden treasure, for the tale goes that beneath one of ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... that had dawned upon her. That the spinster herself knew the truth, and had long known it, she was sure; and she recalled with a shudder the look of those uncanny eyes upon the evening of their little frolic at the Elderkins. She dreaded the thought of ever meeting them again, and still more the thought of listening to the stiff, cold words of consolation which she knew she would count it her duty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... mathematicians, would be extremely glad of a correspondence with any such, who are willing to be at the expense of the same; or if this be thought too much, will pay the postage of his answers to their letters. But no letters, except post-paid, can be received by him; otherwise a door would be opened for frolic, imposition, and impertinence. Any new geometrical propositions, either theorems or problems, would be received with gratitude, and if sent without solutions, he would use his best endeavours to return such as might ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... or when Shall we, thy guests Meet at those lyric feasts Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun; Where we such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad? And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... of life is so rigorous and constant here in New York that we have learned not to take our pleasure sadly. When you become accustomed to their way you will realize that they are no less serious at heart because they frolic now ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... would be looking at him, would endeavour to catch his eye, and would turn him into ridicule as they had already turned the lecturer? In this he did injustice to one of the ladies, unconsciously. Miss Dunstable, with all her aptitude for mirth, and we may almost fairly say for frolic, was in no way inclined to ridicule religion or anything which she thought to appertain to it. It may be presumed that among such things she did not include Mrs. Proudie, as she was willing enough to laugh at that lady; but Mark, had he known her better, might ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... clouds are at play in the azure space And their shadows at play on the bright-green vale, And here they stretch to the frolic chase, And there they roll ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... to the Lieutenant to add to this narrative of his mischievous frolic the fact, that he defrayed, though a poor man, all the heavy expenses of replacing the rock. Just before his death, he paid the last remaining debt, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... of a Turkish Effendi on my voyage—a Commissioner of Inland Revenue, in fact, going to look after the tax-gatherers in the Saeed. I wonder whether he will be civil. Sally is gone with some English servants out to the Virgin's tree, the great picnic frolic of Cairene Christians, and, indeed, of Muslimeen also at some seasons. Omar is gone to a Khatmeh—a reading of the Koran—at Hassan the donkey-boy's house. I was asked, but am afraid of the night air. A good deal of religious celebration goes on now, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... honest Richard, whose fate I must Sigh at; Alaq, that such frolic should now be so quiet! What spirits were his! what wit and what whim! Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb; Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball; Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all. In short, so provoking a devil ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... some new group, fresh from their tea-tables, would emerge from one of the houses, poise like a flock of pigeons on the top step, listen to the guiding sound of the distant laughter, and then swoop down in mad frolic, settling in the midst of the main covey, under the big sycamores until roused at the signal of some male bird in a straw hat, or in answer to the call of some bare-headed songstress from across the Square, the whole covey would dash out one of the rickety gates, only to alight again on ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... woman now, but she still bears the mark of her last frolic in the shape of a long scar on her cheek, where she struck on the rake when ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blest time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into the glen: he found the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... hop gathering came, the children had a grand frolic, as this kind of labor, in which they took a part, was a real pleasure to them. The hops were so light and fragrant, and the picking of them was such fun, and so many men and women assisted at the work, and the long summer ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... The frolic of Shakspeare in deer-stealing was the cause of his Hegira; and his connection with players in London was the cause of his writing plays. Had he remained in his native town, his ambition had never been excited by the applause of the intellectual, the popular, and the powerful, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... hoof, to carry aside his oyster with its possible pearl before he opened it. In earnest about everything, he must work out his liberty before he could gambol. A slave will amuse himself in his dungeon; a free man must file through his chains and dig through his prison-walls before he can frolic. Sunlight and air came through his open windows enough to keep Richard alive and strong, but not enough yet to make him merry. He was too solemn, thus, for most of those he met, but, happily, not for his tutor. Finding Richard knew ten times as much of English literature as himself, he became ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... stands in your way that another may snatch something from you, or scatters your sheep or your oxen, that another may steal them, like the man in the old books, who waved a red cloth to frighten a herd. If the same thing were done as a frolic, without the intention of assisting a theft, the proper action is not theft, but on the case. Where, however, Titius commits theft with the aid of Maevius, both are liable to an action on theft. A man, too, is held to have aided and abetted a theft who places a ladder under a window, or ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... a jungle of facetiae and frolic, with one or two serious incidents, such as the beginning of Death and the coming of Night. His mother was, or became, a stone; stones playing a ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... soothed. White locks of the octogenarian in thin drifts across the white pillow—fresh fall of flakes on snow already fallen. Children with dimpled hands thrown put over the pillow, with every breath inhaling a new store of fun and frolic. ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... tell what to make of it; and ran off, as a dog would be likely to have done, jumping over the fences, barking, and uttering the usual canine ejaculations. Dogs sympathize with their masters, and, if there is a frolic or other acting going on, are fond of joining in it. The whole thing was in consequence of Westgate's not having profited by Alice Parker's rebuke, and discontinued his visits by night to Beadle's bar-room. The only reason why he saw the "black hog with the open mouth," and the dog did not see ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... expanded and enlightened ideas of men and things, did I, Perigrinus Americanus, quit my father's house ease and plenty, to make a short trip in a Privateer, more for a frolic than for any thing serious, being very little concerned whether I was taken or not, provided my capture would be the means of carrying me among the people whom I had long adored for their superior bravery, magnanimity, religion, knowledge, and justice; which opinions I had ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... that Lady Howard, from the beginning of the transaction, suspected some contrivance of the Captain; and this letter, I am sure, must confirm her suspicion: however, though she is not at all pleased with his frolic, yet she would not hazard the consequence of discovering his designs: her looks, her manner, and her character, made me draw this conclusion from her apparent perplexity; for not a word did she say that ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... crockery, some laying the dust with the liquor they couldn't drink, some ringing the bells till they pulled them down, others beating them with pokers till they beat them into fragments: more men still—more, more, more—swarming on like insects: noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans, plunder, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... her so spirited and responsive: the womanly armour of half-reserve was put away. We chatted with a fresh-hearted natural young creature who forfeited not a particle of her ladyship while she made herself our comrade in talk and frolic. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... baby's face was clean, and that it looked attractive. Babies know their friends instinctively, and this particular baby was soon in a frolic with its young guardian. ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... taught to be on the alert—to steal about on tiptoe, to elude their mother's watchful ear, to have recourse to a thousand little methods of deceiving her, and to baffle her with her own weapons. The mother, if she suspected that any prohibited frolic was likely to be carried on, at a late hour, would tell her daughters that she was going to bed, and would shut herself up for a couple of hours in her bed-room, and then steal out eavesdropping, peeping through key-holes and listening at door-handles; and the daughters, knowing their mother's ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... latter to be the reason; so, being, like a true Irishman, devoted to the sex, and at all times ready for a frolic, he bounced into the room, calling to the musician to strike up "Paddy O'Rafferty," capered up to the clothes-press and seized upon two handles to lead her out:—When, whizz!—the whole revel was at an end. The chairs, tables, tongs, and ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving |
