"Playtime" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; The young birds are chirping in the nests; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west: But the young, young children, O my brothers! They are weeping bitterly. They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... that instead the money might be spent to further the industry that M. Bretton had cherished? And since what we work for becomes the centre of our interests it logically followed that all three of them found their task an absorbingly fascinating one. Playtime and study were cast cheerfully aside, and in place of them the boy and girl received each day the more vital compensations that come ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... and continued to talk. "Yes, I think I may claim to understand boys," he said, smiling thoughtfully. "One has been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our young scholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics, as I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wear glasses. He must be careful not to strain ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... voices! but the little boy will never hear. The dimpled hands that caressed you are indeed folded upon his breast; the lips that kissed your honest faces are sealed; the baby voice that sang your playtime songs with you is hushed, and all about him are the fragrance and the beauty of flowers. Call on, O honest friends! but he shall never hear your calling; for, as if he were aweary of the love and play and sunshine that were all he knew of earth, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... this facility I owe the good terms on which the editor and I worked so pleasantly and for so long. Being accustomed to work at high pressure for the illustrated papers and magazines since boyhood, I confess that Punch work to me was my playtime. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... rose the morrow morn, And stood by Algar's bed, and spake: 'Arise! Playtime is past; the great, good work returns; To Jarrow speed we!' Homeward, day by day, Thenceforth they sped with foot that lagged no more, That youth, at first so mournful, joyous now, That old man oft in thought. Next day, while eve Descended dim, and clung to Hexham's groves, He passed its ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... procure drinks and make all other necessary preparation for school at playtime, and keep their places ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... he loved his brother dearly, had found it quite too great a sacrifice of his own enjoyments, to spend all his playtime in a darkened chamber. Edward, on the other hand, was inclined to be despotic. He felt as if his bandaged eyes entitled him to demand that everybody, who enjoyed the blessing of sight, should contribute to his comfort ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... till my birthday, and then I'll have a fairy feast, and invite Flop and Towzer," was Maggie's secret determination, which, however, she communicated to no one. And though she spent a great part of her playtime unobserved in arranging and rearranging the pretty bon-bons, not one found its way to her mouth. Her birthday was ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... in the spring and playtime of the year, That calls th' unwonted villager abroad, With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prink their heads ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... is dangerous for lesser folk to attempt essays in their praise? All that artists have done to amuse the august monarch "King Baby" (who, pictured by Mr. Robert Halls, is fitly enthroned here by way of frontispiece) during the playtime of his immaturity is too big a subject for our space, and can but be indicated in ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... I want to write most seriously to you upon a matter of great importance. You know I have been doing "Music" as an "extra." Well, it does not agree with me. The fact is, it is an hour every week in my playtime, when the Doctor says it is good for my health that I should be enjoying myself. And "Music" is an extra, like "Sausages for breakfast." And, of course, one has to think of all that. How hard dear Papa works to get his living; and, of course, I oughtn't to waste anything, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... His youth and playtime had now left him for good. The time for half-hearted or three-quarters-hearted attempts to forge ahead were over. He had pledged his heart and shortly hoped to pledge his hand in the service of the loveliest young lady in the world, none less. At present he was only a young ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... observations of the records we infer that Lamarck never had any long, lingering illness or suffered from overwork, though his life had little sunshine or playtime in it. He must have had a strong constitution, his only infirmity being the terrible one (especially to an observer ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... group of lusty children romping on the brae, below the very prettiest, thatch roofed and hill-sheltered hamlet within many a mile of Edinboro' town. The bairns were lunching from grimy, mittened hands, gypsy fashion, life being far too short and playtime too brief for formal meals. Seeing them eating, Bobby suddenly discovered that he was hungry. He rose before a well-provided laddie and politely begged for ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... after Louise, feeling much abused. She had not intended to take a nap, and now here she had slept away good playtime and was certainly warmer and more uncomfortable than she had been before she went ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... equipped girls, and none held a higher standard in college examinations. A Sunny Bank diploma was a sure passport. When the girls worked they worked hard, and when playtime came it was enjoyed to the full. Naturally, with so many dispositions surrounding her, Miss Preston often in secret floundered in a "slough of despond," for that which could influence one girl for her good might prove a complete failure when brought to bear upon another. ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of a candle in Eyebright's room that night, for the shutters stood open, and a bright full moon shone in, making every thing as distinct, almost, as it was in the daytime. She was not a bit sleepy, but she didn't mind being sent to bed, at all, for bedtime often meant to her only a second playtime which she had all to herself. Getting up very softly, so as to make no noise, she crept to the closet, and brought out a big pasteboard box which was full of old ribbons and odds and ends of lace and silk. With these she proceeded to make herself fine; a pink ribbon went round ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... missed when ye stay to home makin' pies, an' a good deal ye can learn if ye live out-door. Why, there's Tolman's cows! He dunno why they dry up; but I do. He, sends that little Davie with 'em, that don't have no proper playtime; an' Davie gallops 'em all the way to pastur', so't he can have a minute to fish in the brook. An' then he gallops 'em home ag'in, because he's stole a piece out o' the arternoon. I ketched him ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... all this playtime, Best of all in tune, Girls more glad than Maytime, Boys more bright ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... childish impulses were softly creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which seemed quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of Pansie) had met one another at the two extremities of the ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... says: "Children rarely have but one object in reading, and that is to amuse themselves"; and surely in this playtime of life this aim should be the chief ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... Give him an audience, and he will show off for hours. The boy at the top of the class gains his feeling of superiority by beating the others at arithmetic, while the dunce at the bottom of the class gains his in more original ways . . . punching the top boy at playtime, scoring goals at football, spitting farther than anyone else in school. I have seen a boy smash a window merely to draw attention to himself, and thus to gain a momentary ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... For these during playtime some semblance of solitude is exceedingly desirable at school where the great want is to be sometimes alone. It is good for them not to be always under the pressure of competition—going along a made road to a definite ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... night from dusk to daytime Under her feet the hours were swift, Under her feet the hours of playtime Rose and fell with a rhythmic lift: Music set her adrift, adrift, Music eddying towards the day Swept her along as brooks in Maytime Carry the ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... might have said more. He might have told us that he had been recommended once for a D.S.O., and twice for a court-martial, because he persisted in devoting his playtime to sharpshooting and sniping in No Man's Land, and to leading unauthorised patrols on to the enemy's wire. But it was not till later that we were to learn why he had been known throughout his Army Corps as ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... And in the rush of relief Harry failed to note the significant omission of the adverb. "But it's to be a square bargain between us. No more shroffs; no more betting, or I come down on you like a ton of coals for my eight hundred. Stick to whist and polo in playtime. Polish up your Pushtoo, and get into closer touch with your Pathans. Start Persian with me, if you like, and replace Roland with the money you get for passing. But first of all write to your mother, and tell her the chief part of the truth. Not my share in it, please. That remains between ourselves ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... some time back to Herr Sesemann to tell him that his daughter very much wished to have a companion, and had added how desirable she thought it herself, as it would be a spur to Clara at her lessons and an amusement for her in her playtime. Fraulein Rottenmeier had privately wished for this arrangement on her own behalf, as it would relieve her from having always to entertain the sick girl herself, which she felt at times was too much for her. The father had answered ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... am, ma'am! I'm having a merry playtime this summer with my little friends, and as I have to work hard all winter, ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... are not interesting to me in any way, but it is altogether otherwise with playtime and holidays. School began at seven in the morning during half the year, but later in winter. At half-past eight or nine there was an interval of an hour for breakfast. It was over when I got home, ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... train had passed. But Della drained her draught of joy to the dregs, and then tilted her cup anew. With croquet came her supremest joy,—one that leavened her days till God took her, somewhere, we hope, where there is playtime. Della had no money to buy a croquet set, but she had something far better, an alert and undiscouraged mind. On one dizzy afternoon, at a Fourth of July picnic, when wickets had been set up near the wood, she had played with the minister, and beaten him. The game opened before her an ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... Diana had spent most of their playtime that summer on and about the pond. Idlewild was a thing of the past, Mr. Bell having ruthlessly cut down the little circle of trees in his back pasture in the spring. Anne had sat among the stumps and wept, not without an ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... least see that the gifts that are laid in the child's cradle by nature are not obliterated by the cruel fortune of the accident of birth: that its brain and body are not stunted by lack of food and air and by the heavy burden of premature toil. The playtime of childhood should be held ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... and the outdoor life, and the necessity of stirring around a little lively these days we feel pretty good. And yet we get kind of low in our minds, too. The harvest is past, the summer is ended. It's gone, the good playtime when we didn't have to go to school, when the only foot-covering we wore was a rag around one big toe or the other; the days when we could stay in swimming all day long except mealtimes; the days of Sabbath-school picnics and excursions ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... during all the lean months on Kon Klayu. They had shared elemental things; together they had hunted food that they might live, battled against storms, endured hardships. Together they had sung and laughed and made a playtime of it all, and slowly there had grown up between them a love as clean and wholesome as the summer winds that swept the tundra of their Island. Hitherto they had felt no need of caresses or words to express their joy in one another. They had been happy as children are happy, ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... now. I'm going to stay over that long, anyhow. Promised myself three good days—maybe more. A man's got to break away from his work once in a while. If I didn't, life wouldn't be worth living. I'm willing to grind—but I've got to have my playtime, too. Say, I want you to try this rod of mine Sunday. You'll want one like it yourself, if I'm any good at guessing. Just got it, you know—it's the one I was talking to yuh about last ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... a sign as happy friend sets on his friend's dear brow When meadow-pipings break and blend to a key of autumn woe, And the woodland says playtime 's at end, best unclasp hands ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... winter, with poor, pretty, frivolous, young Lady Tobermory—spoilt child of society and of wealth—now half-crazed, rendered desperate, by the fear that disease, which had laid a threatening finger on her, might lay its whole hand cutting short her playtime and breaking her many toys. Of anything other than toys and playtime she had no conception.—"Those brutes of doctors tell Tobermory I must give up low gowns," she wrote. "And I adore my neck and shoulders. Every one always has admired them. It makes me ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... perilous but less menacing to personal vanity, is not the least of the finenesses of character which the war has brought out; and the thought of that and of their hard work and their gay courage made the spectacle of the happy high spirits of this evening of playtime even more a satisfaction. ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... we bid good-by to the virgin wilderness, for it's explored; to the Indian, for he's conquered; to the pioneer, for he's dead; we've finished our wild, romantic adolescence and we find ourselves a recognized world power of eighty million people, and of general commercial endlessness, and playtime over." ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... one of strict discipline. The boys rose at 5.30, and every hour until evening had its task, or was assigned {8} for mealtime or playtime. Once a week, on Wednesday afternoon, came a glorious half-day excursion to the country. There was ample provision for play. But the young student from St Lin was little able to take part in rough and ready sports. His health was extremely delicate, ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... his playtime Full of songs loud mirth takes pride in; Night and morrow Weave round sorrow Thoughts as soft ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the Dr. Seuss title "Bartholomew and the Oobleck"; the spelling 'oobleck' is still current in the mainstream] A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and water. Enjoyed among hackers who make batches during playtime at parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonian behavior; it pours and splatters, but resists rapid motion like a solid and will even crack when hit by a ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... learn now to be men, for you'll have to look after things and the women. And you girls must help your mothers all you can. It's going to be hard times, little folk! You've played a long time at fighting Indians, and latterly I've noticed you playing at fighting Yankees. Playtime's over now. It's time to work, to think, and to try to help. You can't fight for Virginia with guns and swords, but every woman and child, every young boy and old man in Virginia can make the hearts easier of those who ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the forehead of one of these children. I did not reason on the subject, alas! I was only eight or nine years old; but I felt this antipathy in every fibre of my being. The others knew it too; and, in revenge, they ironically styled me 'the lady,' and left me severely alone. But sometimes, during playtime, when the good sisters' backs were turned, the children attacked me, beat me, and scratched my face and tore my clothes. I endured these onslaughts uncomplainingly, for I was conscious that I deserved them. But how many reprimands my torn ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... in rhythm in elementary schools, provided it be given regularly, completely and sufficiently. The exercises should be begun at the age of six, with half an hour's lesson three times a week, but these lessons can quite well be taken from playtime. By the age of twelve two lessons a week are sufficient. This training will not only develop the feeling for beauty and form by accustoming the eye to distinguish beautiful movements and lines from ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... I should be," he said, "but the fact is I am not. I cannot understand a life purely for personal pleasure myself. But she is only a girl, and this is her playtime. When she is a woman in her own home, then she will be different, will ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... live at Lenox, in the mountains of western Massachusetts. In their delightful home in this place the novelist produced a second great romance, The House of the Seven Gables, and then gave up four months to rest. This vacation was largely a playtime spent with his two older children, Una and Julian, the younger daughter Rose being then only a baby. He had worked so hard that he was ready for plenty of fun, and this he and his two young playfellows found in excursions for wild ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... old days are as dead as—as Queen Anne. When I was young enough and foolish enough to believe in disinterested affection, and in the right of every creature to be happy, I adored dogs—or thought I did. Now I am wiser, and know that life is not all bones and playtime, so to speak. Besides, they always die when one is fond of them, and I quite agree with Kipling that with so much unavoidable discomfort to put up with, it's the height of folly to 'give one's heart to a dog to tear.' In future I yield no fraction of my heart to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... little else to tell of my father's boyhood, as most of his time was spent in the schoolroom. Outside the schoolroom he was conspicuous for high spirits in play, daring in mischief, and independence in everything. But a boy's playtime was so short in Yuchovitch, and his resources so limited, that even a lad of spirit came to the edge of his premature manhood without a regret for his nipped youth. So my father, at the age of sixteen and a half, lent ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... too disconsolate, Miss Tuppence," he said in a low voice. "Remember, holiday-time isn't always all playtime. One sometimes manages to put in ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... I am ready. I am a better writer now, I hope, so want to tell you what I never have yet. I do thank you with all my heart for being so kind to a homeless lad and taking him in and giving him a happy home. And I thank you much more for teaching him to read and write and giving up your playtime to get him on. But if I was to thank you for a hundred years, I couldn't thank you enough for telling me about my Saviour and showing me the way to heaven. Every word you ever said is sticking to me. I mind all our talks, and if I may have had some ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... boss. I guess he'd set the grease box of a driving shaft hot with a look. His temper 'ud burn holes in sheet iron. As for work—work? Holy Mackinaw! I've worked hired man to a French Canuk mossback which don't leave a feller the playtime of a nigger slave, but that hell-hired Scotch machine boss sets me yearnin' for that mossback's wage like a bull-pup chasin' offal. I tell you right here if that guy don't quit his notions there'll be murder done. Bloody murder! An' it's ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... that Glyn was there to keep the juniors from tumbling down; for the slow, steady lowering and drawing up of the big buckets had a peculiar fascination for some of the youngest boys, notably the little set whose playtime was nearly all monopolised by hard work—to wit, the bowling and fielding for Slegge. Their anxiety was wonderful. If Glyn was not constantly on the watch, one or other would be getting in the men's way, to peer down into the darkness or rush to where the full buckets ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... is some truth in what you say—exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different. Playtime shall be over, and ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... In that faint light, in those deep shadows, she could trace all the scene as though the brightness of the moon shone on it; it was all, in its homeliness and simplicity, intensely dear to her. In the playtime of her childhood, in the courtship of her youth, in the joys and woes of her wifehood and widowhood, the bitter pains and sweet ecstasies of her maternity, the hunger and privation of struggling desolate years, the contentment ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... you know, and keep it up. Everybody has to rest and sleep. Yes, and everybody has to play a little to be at their best. So it wasn't quite true that Paddy worked all day after working all night. But it was true that Paddy had no time to play. He had too much to do. He had had his playtime during the long summer, and now he had to get ready for the long, ...
— The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver • Thornton W. Burgess
... I was twenty, and going to seek my fortune, as you are," said Jack; and the other boys agreed with him, for something in Ralph's new plans and purposes roused the manly spirit in all of them, reminding them that playtime would soon be over, and the great world before them, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... try you, dear if—— Wait, Kent, wait! Let me have my playtime, Kent. I've never had a real one, you know, till now. Let me finish college, then ask ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the home in the evening after the day's work is ended has many a father laid the foundation for an influence that controlled when other ties seemed strained to the breaking point. It is in this playtime that the boy expresses himself most fully. Every animal has its playtime, and the most savage of the beasts play with their little ones to educate them to succeed in the struggle for existence. If ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... it, with all my heart, but, Teddy, we never can be boy and girl again. The happy old times can't come back, and we mustn't expect it. We are man and woman now, with sober work to do, for playtime is over, and we must give up frolicking. I'm sure you feel this. I see the change in you, and you'll find it in me. I shall miss my boy, but I shall love the man as much, and admire him more, because he means to be what I hoped he would. We can't be little playmates any longer, but we will ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Fredericksburg), he says: "My father, Lewis Willis, was a schoolmate of General Washington, his cousin, who was two years his senior. He spoke of the General's industry and assiduity at school as very remarkable. Whilst his brother and other boys at playtime were at bandy and other games, he was behind the door ciphering. But one youthful ebullition is handed down while at that school, and that was romping with one of the largest girls; this was so unusual that it excited no little comment among the other lads." It is also ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... circulate amidst the calls, the answers, and the contradictory orders which nobody executed. And meanwhile, let loose amidst this frightful scramble, little Sophie Couteau, who remained with the Sisters, and was very gay, imagined that it was playtime, and ran, and jumped, and hopped in turn, called and petted first by one and then by another, dear as she was to all alike for the miraculous hope ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... daisy faces, Millions and millions—not one or two. And they call to the bluebells down in the wood: "Are you out—are you in? We have been so good All the school-time winter through, But now it's playtime, The gay time, the May time; We are out and at play. Where ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... lovers send to dreamy Mays, Of the proud hearts within a billet bound, Of all the soft silk paper that men wound, The messages of love that mortals write, Filled with intoxication of delight, Written in April, and before the Maytime Shredded and flown, playthings for the winds' playtime. We dream that all white butterflies above, Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love, And leave their lady mistress to despair, To flirt with flowers, as tender and more fair, Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies Flutter, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... fellow; now perhaps you will understand that this is not playtime, but a working day extending into the night," she said, as she patted the great beast in an affectionate manner to show that it was repression, not punishment, which was intended by the ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... are several families living near together, little paths lead from mound to mound. He comes out mostly at night, probably because he feels it to be safer then. Then, too, in that hot country it is cooler at night. The dusk of early evening is his favorite playtime. If Longfoot has a quarrel with one of his relatives they fight, hopping about each other, watching for a chance to leap and kick with those long, strong hind feet. Longfoot sometimes drums with his hind feet after the manner ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess |
