"Merrymaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... couldn't ever understand what she meant by an old-time Christmas unless she could show him by some faint approach to its merrymaking, and it had been the dream of her life to do this. But every year she had failed, until now she was ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... another man, in whom I see and feel my fellow, who, like myself, is a god? Then, and then only, shall life be rich and beautiful.... Our daily life shall be a pleasurable toil, an enfranchised science, a wonderful music, an everlasting merrymaking. Love, free and sovereign, shall ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... smile on the master's face ere we preferred a request for some favor, a holiday or early release. There was wisdom in that. As we grow up we act more or less consciously upon intuitions as to time and place. My companion, I shall not invite you to a merrymaking when a bitter moment befalls you and the flame of life sinks into ashes in your heart; nor yet, however true and trusted, will I confide to you what inward revelations of the mysteries I may have while ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... could not have been gayer. To this place came all the pirates and buccaneers that infested those parts, and men shouted and swore and gambled, and poured out money like water, and then maybe wound up their merrymaking by dying of fever. For the sky in these torrid latitudes is all full of clouds overhead, and as hot as any blanket, and when the sun shone forth it streamed down upon the smoking sands so that the houses were ovens and the streets were furnaces; so it was little wonder ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... carnival. Succeeding days, succeeding nights, mounted each a stage to heights of folly. Starred all through was innocent merrymaking, license held in leash. But the gross, the whirling, and the sinister elements came continuously and more strongly into play. Measured sound grew racket, camaraderie turned into impudence. Came at last pandemonium. All without Rome—Campagna ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... mounted the dragon's horse and together she and the Prince returned to the beautiful city. The people came out to meet them and when they heard of the dragon's death a holiday was proclaimed and amidst music and dancing and merrymaking the Princess married the Prince. Then she was made Queen of that beautiful city and the Prince was made King. They ruled long and wisely and better than that they lived happily ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... personal religion, and consequently did not care for pictures that moved him to contrition or devotion. He preferred to have some pleasantly coloured thing that would put him into a mood connected with the side of life he most enjoyed—with refined merrymaking, with country parties, or with the sweet dreams of youth. Venetian painting alone among Italian schools was ready to satisfy such a demand, and it thus became the first genuinely modern art: for the most vital difference that can be indicated between the arts ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... the throng and a note of strained expectancy in its buzz of talk; and the likeness was strengthened about nine o'clock, when, in the broad field to the south-west, half a dozen merchants began to erect their sweet-meat booths or "standings,"— always an accompaniment of Cornish merrymaking. ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "it's not a parade, but it is a grand merrymaking, and it's because of it that I've brought you here. But I'm tired and hungry, for we've come a long way, so let us sit down by the roadside a bit, and while we rest I'll tell you all about the goings on and what we have ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... one long to be remembered by the two Rover boys, and they were sorry to think the twins had not been present to see what took place. There were some speeches and a good deal of merrymaking, and the two Rovers were congratulated over and over again on ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... was a merrymaking and piece of work in the large dancing-room of the "Sun." Once, during a pause, the hostess, a buxom portly widow, cried out, "Hold hard, fiddler; do stop—the cattle are all quarrelling with you, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... upon the sea anear; then will we return, I and thou; for that, an thou bring them up to us, they will be affrighted and there will betide them neither joy nor gladness. As for me, I wish but to be with them, that they may cheer me with their company neither give over their merrymaking, so peradventure I may broaden my breast with them, and indeed I swear that needs must I go down to them; else I will cast myself upon them." And she cajoled Jamrah and kissed her hands, till she said, "Arise and I will set thee down beside them." Then she took Tohfah under her armpit and flying ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... salutations, the hat raised high in air above a rigid head. She answered with the polite greeting of the true Parisian, hardly expressed by an imperceptible movement of the figure and a smile in the eyes; and, seeing that exchange of worldly courtesies amid the springtime merrymaking, no one would have suspected that the same sinister thought guided the footsteps of those two, who met by chance on the road they were both following, in opposite directions, but aiming for the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... winter sun, and whispering a prayer, walked out of the gate. He looked at the sky, then towards the manor-house, wondering how long the merrymaking was going to last. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... by the late Mr. Wirt Sikes.[11] It seems that on a certain day some men were drinking at an inn when one of them, to show his courage and want of superstition, affirmed that he was "afraid of no ghosts," and dared to go to the church and fetch a skull. This he did, and after an hour or so of merrymaking over the skull, he carried it back to where he had found it; but, as he was leaving the church, "suddenly a tremendous blast like a whirlwind seized him, and so mauled him that he ever after maintained that nothing ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... betrothed still single and true, and this afternoon the long deferred marriage was consummated. All the surviving friends of their youth were present, and many half forgotten associates came from neighboring towns and farms to join in the merrymaking. ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... a disagreeable sound, such as that of the blacksmith, carpenter, or mason, to be carried on in their city limits. They dressed in garments of deep purple, tied their hair in gold threads, and the city was famed for its incessant banqueting and merrymaking. It was such luxury as this that Pindar found at the court of Hiero, at Syracuse, whither Aeschylus had retired after his defeat by Sophocles at the Dionysian ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... gift of grace, it was not strange that the neighbours often called on her for some service of making beautiful. At a wedding or a merrymaking of any kind she would be sent for, and the neighbours, who were plain people, thought her gift more than natural. People still speak of her in all that part of the country, though she has been dead sixty odd years, little Mother Marie. She would have liked to make the meeting-house beautiful each ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... toast, "Good friends, French and English," was cheerily repeated from both sides. The nobles were emulated in this by their followers, and the good fellowship of the meeting was signalized by abundant revelry, night only ending the merrymaking. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... morning she was up early, and was as happy and ridiculously excited over the prospect of the day's merrymaking as if she had been Kitty. Busy as she was, she noticed a peculiar oppression in the air, which intensified as the day went on. The sky seemed to hang but a little way above the rolling stretch of frost-bitten grass. But Kitty laughing ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... passed away." This rite is curiously in harmony with the injunctions of the Tirokuddasuttam in the Khuddakapatha, which is probably an ancient work.[224] The rest of the day is usually devoted to pious merrymaking, such as processions by day and illuminations by night. On some feasts the laws against gambling are suspended and various games of chance are freely indulged in. Thus the New Year festival called Trut (or Krut) Thai ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... hearty welcome is accorded to every one. There were drinking and dancing and music behind the square-hewn log walls, and the big red stoves made havoc with the salt wind. The town was well filled and the merrymaking vigorous, and inasmuch as winter is a time of rest, during which none but the most foolhardy trust themselves to the perils of the sea, it caused much comment when late on Christmas afternoon an ice-burdened canoe, bearing three strange white ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... while they were all a-merrymaking, Heigho, says Rowley; A Cat and her kittens came tumbling in. With a ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... rustic merrymaking common in England after 1350, and still extant; is of disputed origin; the chief characters, Maid Marian, Robin Hood, the hobby-horse, and the fool, execute fantastic movements and Jingle bells fastened to their feet ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... yore, Whilst Canynge swathed yet in fleshly bed, And saw all actions which had been before, And all the scroll of Fate unravelled; And when the fate-marked babe acome to sight, I saw him eager gasping after light. In all his sheepen gambols and child's play, In every merrymaking, fair, or wake, I kenn'd a perpled light of wisdom's ray; He ate down learning with the wastel-cake; As wise as any of the aldermen, He'd wit enow to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... that Burns has a most extraordinary power of touching the hearts of common men. He is one of the most democratic of poets, he takes for his subject a simple experience—a family gathering at eventide, a fair, a merrymaking, a joy, a grief, the finding of a flower, the love of a lad for a lass—and with rare simplicity reflects the emotion that such an experience awakens. Seen through the poet's eyes, this simple emotion becomes radiant and lovely, a thing not of earth but of heaven. That is the genius of Burns, to ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... dancing-halls flamed gayly as the first glasses were merrily drunk and the first dance began. It was the great fortnightly pay-day, and the pavement was crowded with jostling revelers on the spree. There was a breath of merrymaking in the air—deuced fine revelry, but not objectionable so far. Fellows were filling themselves in the eating-houses; through the lighted windows you could see people feeding, with their mouths full and laughing without ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... to Ruth that these people who had a moment before been so devout and concentrated in church should in an instant switch their whole thought to a day of eating and merrymaking. But she soon found their light-hearted gaiety very infectious. Before she knew it, she was sputtering away in the best French she had and entering into the fun with all ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... swift season of merrymaking the money of his prizes ran through Stephen's fingers. Great parcels of groceries and delicacies and dried fruits arrived from the city. Every day he drew up a bill of fare for the family and every ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... marriage took place on the 16th, notwithstanding the public merrymaking. It rained that day, but there is always in the sky a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even when the rest of creation is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... spies at a distance, an ambuscade, and a battle; the scene then changes to ploughing and sowing, and the incidents connected with the gathering of a bountiful harvest; then are introduced a vineyard, the gathering of the grapes, and a merrymaking by the youths at the close of the day; then we have a wild outlying scene of herdsmen with their cattle, the latter attacked by two famished lions, and the tumult that followed. The ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... Jamie, too, came in for a good measure of attention, nor was Sadie Dean forgotten. Sadie, as Mrs. Carew plainly showed, was to be regarded as if she were quite one of the family; and Mrs. Carew was careful to see that she had full share in any plans for merrymaking. ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... never for me; so I made arrangements with the army chaplain, who fixed the time and we were duly united. It cost us nothing, for neither the parson nor clerk looked for any fee, neither were we troubled with any wedding-cake, but simply took ourselves off for a day's merrymaking. ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... name) was being held. Erik and the king sat at meat in different rooms, with a party-wall in common, and also entirely covered on the inside with hanging tapestries. Gunwar sat by Gotar, but Erik sat close between Kraka on the one side and Alfhild on the other. Amid the merrymaking, he gradually drew a lath out of the wall, and made an opening large enough to allow the passage of a human body; and thus, without the knowledge of the guests, he made a space wide enough to go through. Then, in the course of the feast, he began to question ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... days, a so-called orderly drinker—that is, one who lay in the gutter on Sundays and holidays, but during the week was as well behaved as any one, and so he had had no difficulty in wooing and winning a right pretty and wealthy girl. There was great merrymaking at the wedding. Mergel did not get so very drunk, and the bride's parents went home in the evening satisfied; but the next Sunday the young wife, screaming and bloody, was seen running through the village to her family, leaving ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... away back, my boy. And—say, Phil, mon gars,—don't let that young cub from Herm get ahead of you. He's been making fine play while you've been away." And I waved my hand and sped back to the merrymaking. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... himself acquainted with places of interest. Contains also remarks on terraces, which are expected to edify. There is a good deal about the weather of Prague, about the gardens at different seasons, also an account of merrymaking in bygone days, and some reflections, in the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... then in Florence. Lorenzo de' Medici was ruling the turbulent city by keeping it occupied with merrymaking, by beautifying its squares with priceless treasures, by helping its poor but ambitious children to win their heart's desires, by mingling with the citizens at all times, and writing them ballads to sing, and giving them masques to act. ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... mocking him, answered, "A great while indeed—two whole long days. And those thou'st spent merrymaking in the King's water pageant. Two days—a great while, a great, ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... escort of soldiers surrounding the carriage pressed into the King's service served to complete the illusion insisted on by Poluski, and Pauline rejoined her mistress, firm in the conviction that the tumult was an outlandish Serbian method of merrymaking. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... and "kittys washen clean," and "damsels bright," and "maidens mild?" That celebrated town was no other than our modern Leslie; and, though we cannot say that that once favoured haunt of the satyrs of merrymaking has escaped the dull blight that comes from the sleepy eye of the owl of modern wisdom, we have good authority for asserting that long after James celebrated the place for its unrivalled festivities, the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... "Merrymaking doesn't scare me," Retief said. "Come to think of it, I don't know what the word means." He started up, Magnan ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... her hand and her elbow on the arm of the chair, she sat picturing her doleful Christmas if she could have no part in the giving, and must be left out of all the merrymaking they had planned. Tears welled up into her eyes, and her miserable reverie might have ended in a downpour had it not been interrupted by the entrance of Gay and Betty. Having taken a hasty run across the terraces, they had obtained permission to ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... with a view to demanding condign punishment of the person in his inspection department, whoever she might be, who with wilful design had sought to debase the organisation of his office to purposes of ill-timed merrymaking. He cut me short to say he had no such testing department whatsoever. From his tone I was impelled to accept his statement as a truthful one, all of which but served to confirm my suspicions without in the least explaining the mystery which ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... son did not come back, and no tidings were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he could not withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and his country in the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... India has a merrymaking, he is out on the trail. At Delhi he was in the thick of the mummery, beaming on barbaric princes and paynim princesses, blessing banners, blessing trumpeters, blessing proclamations, blessing ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... lights and it is bright," said the duchess; to which Sancho replied, "Fire gives light, and it's bright where there are bonfires, as we see by those that are all round us and perhaps may burn us; but music is a sign of mirth and merrymaking." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... very much embarrassed during this conversation, and sought in vain to understand what Cinq-Mars could have to do with the people, who appeared to him merely merrymaking; on the other hand, he persisted in not owning his ignorance. It was, however, complete; for the last time he had seen his friend, he had spoken only of the King's horses and stables, of hawking, and of the importance ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... and the Blues marched side by side into the City, and there was great rejoicing and music and dancing and feasting and games and merrymaking that lasted for three full days. Trot carried Rosalie and Captain Coralie and Ghip-Ghisizzle to the palace, and of course Button-Bright and Cap'n Bill were with her. They had the Royal chef serve dinner at once, and they ate ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... spectres which would appear, for they were only soulless phantoms,[65] to try the seeker's courage. If it failed, he would return home with empty hands. The seeker must go to the hill on St. John's Eve, when the bonfires were burning and the people merrymaking. A third of the treasure was to be given to the poor; the rest ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... true, and some of them consume in the course of a holyday a tolerably large allowance of beer. But the beer is either very weak, or their heads are accustomed to it; for it is as rare to behold a Bohemian peasant drunk at a merrymaking or fete, as it is to find, under similar circumstances, an Englishman of the same ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... in London activity had begun to stir again in Polperro. The season of pleasure was over: the men had grown weary of idleness and merrymaking, and most of them now anxiously awaited the fresh trip on which they were about to start. The first run after March was always an important one, and the leaders of the various crews had been at some trouble to arrange this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... this same day, 1851 years ago, instead of being in the great city of Rome, we had been in the little village of Bethlehem in Judaea, we might have seen a sight stranger still; a sight which we could not have fancied had anything to do with that merrymaking of the slaves at Rome, and yet which had everything to ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... imagine the beauty of the great hall at Ferrara when hung with this brilliant series, which was completed in 1523 by the "Bacchus and Ariadne" of the National Gallery. The whole company of bacchanals is given up to wanton merrymaking. Above them broods the deep blue sky and great white clouds of a summer day. The deep greens of the foliage throw the creamy-white and burning colour of the draperies and the fair forms of the nymphs into glowing relief, while by a convention the satyrs are of a deep, tawny complexion. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... straw, needing to be warmed and fed and cherished. Christmas is the festival of the natural body, of this world; it means the consecration of the ordinary things of life, affection and comradeship, eating and drinking and merrymaking; and in some degree the memory of the Incarnation has been able to blend with the pagan joyance of the ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... who kept his chair, except Peter and myself, was a young fellow two seats away, whose eyes, brilliant with excitement, followed the merrymaking, but who seemed too much abashed, or too ill at ease, to join in the fun. I had noticed how quiet he was and wondered at the cause. Peter had also been watching the boy and had said to me that he had a good face and was evidently from out ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... happy till they are back home here under the roofs of thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage of the hours far past ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... is one of our great autumn holidays. It is a day of picturesque merrymaking and ceremony, when the stringent rule barring women out of a synagogue is relaxed. On that day, which was a short time before Election Day, I saw an East Side judge, a Gentile, at the synagogue of the Sons ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... a merrymaking was the community which surrounded the high school at Dexter engaged when the incident occurred which opened Fred's eyes to his own state. Both he and Elizabeth had been in the prize ranks that year, and their friends had turned out in full and made much of them. Even Eliphalet Hodges ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... room of the building, including the cellar, where the only survivors of the heroic band took up their final stand. The bloodshed stopped when each man of them was dead or dying, and not before. The moans of those lying in their last agony in this cellar of death were, when the laughter and merrymaking of the Russian officers died away with the course of the hours, the only sound that Niemcewicz heard, as by the couch of his passionately loved and apparently dying leader he lay through the bitter cold of the October night, weeping not only ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... be added, however, that with all their strictness in Sabbath keeping and catechising, in family and church discipline, there was great license in those days in speech and manner, much hard drinking, and rude merrymaking, due to their rough form of living. They were not what they wanted to be, nor what a loyal posterity perhaps longs to believe them. They had red blood in their veins. They were among the most enterprising ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... aid, and that the victory might come to his troops. Less than an hour had passed when two soldiers came with the news of the victory, and soon Father Melchor arrived with the enemy's flags. I will not write of the embraces, the merrymaking, and the joy in our camp, for your Reverence can imagine it better than I can describe it. His Lordship at once gave a banner to the soldiers who had brought the news, and by him he sent [the promise of] ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... seized by the natives and carried up into the woods. We knew pretty well what their fate would be, but we could not help them, for our crew was small, and if we had gone ashore they would likely have killed us all. We never saw the three men again; but we heard frightful yelling and dancing and merrymaking that night; and one of the natives, who came aboard to trade with us next day, told us that the long pigs, as he called the men, had been roasted and eaten, and their bones were to be converted into sail-needles. He also ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... had been sure of the largest harvest in the neighbourhood this summer festival had been brilliantly celebrated, and as long as Marcus's father had lived the family had still cherished the quaint rites and the merrymaking of a holiday especially dear to the common people of both city and country. But in these later years there had been neither time nor money for any fetes. Piety, however, was still left, and it was characteristic of the scrupulousness persisting in Marcus's mother through all ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... were the Tamworths full of joy—congratulating, sympathizing, merrymaking; and the three young ladies behaved admirably in the capacity of pink and silver bridesmaids; while George proved equally kind in attending (as he called it) Charles's "execution," wherein he was "turned off;" and the admiral, G.C.B. was so hand-in-glove with the general, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... interest in health, we may observe the number of Public Health bills that come into Parliament, and it is not strange that they get the most attention from the Conservative side of the House. As farther confirmation we observe the great number of holidays spent, not in merrymaking, but in a stroll in the fresh air of the country, and the fact that nearly all the families of the whole nation make as regular provision for one or more "outings" in the year, as they do for the extra wraps for the winter; and still farther, that almost the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... younger days; and when the inhibition against wearing tartan and the philabeg had been virtually removed, in consideration of the achievements of the "hardy and dauntless men" who, according to Chatham, conquered for England "in every quarter of the globe," he had celebrated the event in a merrymaking, at which the dance was kept up from night till morning; but though he retained, I suspect, his old partialities, he was now a sobered man; and when I ventured to ask him, on one occasion, why he too did ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... humor and merrymaking. In gay dancing trip serious subjects are treated jokingly (the great melody of the horns is mockingly sung by the harp),—in fits and gusts. At the height the (first) tempestuous motive once more dashes upwards and yields to a revel of the (second) whimsical ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... after a rapid but wearying journey, we arrived at R—sitten, late at night. We drove through the village; it was Sunday, and from the alehouse proceeded the sounds of music, and dancing, and merrymaking; the steward's house was lit up from basement to garret, and music and song were there too. All the more striking therefore was the inhospitable desolation into which we now drove. The sea-wind howled in sharp cutting ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and about her neck a strand of huge green glass beads. Her eyes glistened as she watched that night's events, and her comfortable ejaculations of approval were like the low purr of a satisfied cat. Then came the solemn pledges, the benediction and congratulations. There was merrymaking and singing, cake and unfermented wine of grapes for refreshing, and much ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... the little frigate Squirrel weighted down by artillery stores but under command of Gilbert himself, because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore. To keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking. Becalmed off Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship Delight, where the trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor jigs. "There was," says the old record, "little ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... abode with them in all honour and hospitality, for three months, spending his time in feasting and merrymaking, joy and delight, hunting and sporting. So fared it with him; but as regards his wife, she abode with his mother two days after her husband's departure, and on the third day, she said to her, "Glory be to God! Have I lived with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... thought I heard the sound of noisy merrymaking,—with music as if many were dancing. Here was the sound, but here I see no one. Alas! I should be sorry to meet rude youths, but where can I go, what can I do, left alone in this dark and gloomy wood? O my ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... merrymaking was disturbed by the presence among them of the officer charged with collecting the tithes, and Gaal did not lose the opportunity of stimulating their ire by his ironical speeches: "Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? is not he the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... ceremony was over Manabozho suggested to his friends, the assembled birds and animals, that the occasion was proper for a little merrymaking; and taking up ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... especially in the wine districts where the merrymaking sometimes lasts for days, these festivals are beautiful. In the city it depends largely, of course, on how much the commercial spirit enters into it; but whether they are beautiful or the reverse, they are always entertaining. ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... thou deluded by the sweetness of his words and the softness of his speech." The king hearkened [not] to his Vizier's speech, but made light of the matter and presently, [dismissing it from his thought], busied himself with that which he was about of eating and drinking and merrymaking and delight ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... legendary heavens, the human animal suddenly appeared, again asserted itself, and began to gorge. Moreover, under that dazzling Sunday sky, the scene was like that of a fair-field with all the gluttony of a merrymaking community, a display of the delight which they felt in living, despite the multiplicity of their abominable ailments and the dearth of the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... looked at themselves in the brilliantly lighted mirrors which repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have liked to. He looked inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... girl whose experiences have been limited, and who is ready for new impressions, can enjoy. And with the passing of the game November passed also and before she knew it Christmas was upon her, and Christmas hitherto for Peggy had meant merely gifts from Daddy Neil and a merrymaking for the servants. Without manifesting undue curiosity Mrs. Harold had learned a good deal concerning Peggy's life and nothing she had learned had touched her so deeply as the loneliness of the holiday season for the young girl. It seemed ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Tastes alreadie want raising, and she will onlie lower them, I feare,—a comely, romping, noisie Girl, that, were she but a Farmer's Daughter, woulde be the Life and Soul of alle the Whitsun-ales, Harvest-homes, and Hay-makings in the Country: in short, as fond of idling and merrymaking as I once was myself: onlie I never ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... I have brought to learn the noble art of merrymaking, of wine and wassail. We have both been literally starved at the palace—I should say monastery—of Monk Edred today. It is Friday, and we have been splendidly dining upon salt fish served up on golden salvers. My goodness! the flavour of that precious ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... doing God a service to destroy. He kept all the rites of the Church with rigid punctuality. He partook of the Communion (the Nachtmaal) once every three months, and the whole community gathered together from great distances to share it. The observances were made the occasion for rejoicing and merrymaking, for the holding of fairs, the transfer of cattle, the driving of bargains in hide or ivory, or other goods necessary to traders. He has been described by a friend of his people "as, according to his own lights, a citizen pioneer, a rough, God-fearing, honest, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... because the new minister and his daughter are coming?" pursued Minty. Jason's tastes, as she well knew, did not incline to ministers and schoolmasters as companions in merrymaking. "She's a big girl, almost sixteen, and she will go with Mary Ellen, and we shall have Mirandy and Augustus and the twins, and the Sedgell girls and Nehemiah Ham are coming in the evening, and we shall have such fun, and such ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... bear the rigours of the form of entertainment offered them. It was not that the affair differed much from affairs of its sort, but the fact that it did not materially differ might have been what made it seem so tiresome. Possibly the effect of a summer of out-door, home merrymaking, under the least conventional of conditions, had been to make formal entertaining under a roof seem more than ordinarily fatiguing and pointless. The handsome rooms were hot, in spite of open windows; the guests quite evidently were making heroic ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... crew was a scene of wild merrymaking. The eight muscular lads who had pulled off another victory for Old Eli were gathered in the middle of the car and surrounded by admiring friends, who cheered and sang and smashed one another's hats, and played the very ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... Jordaens and from Jordaens to Teniers, had exalted the joys of popular holidays, and it is remarkable that, during a century when there was so little to eat in the country and so little cause for merrymaking, the works of art which are the truest expression of the people's aspirations dwell on no other subject with so much relish and insistence. The tragic side of life was not represented, and one might venture to say that the admirers of such merry kermesses must often ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... Those boys who came from a goodly distance brought their sisters with them; but the greater number of the girls, living within a radius of a few miles of the Harding cabin, did not come until after dinner, having to remain at home to help their own mothers before attending the merrymaking. ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... fruit is sliced and strung for the winter; "shelling bees," where peas in bushels are shelled and barrelled; and "logging bees," where the decayed stumps in the clearings are rooted up by oxen. At the quilting, apple, and shelling bees there are numbers of the fair sex, and games, dancing, and merrymaking are invariably kept up ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... coachman, high up on his box, seemed as interested as herself; at least, he sat up very straight and stiff. But it was only his back that Lloyd saw. He had been at a fete the night before. There seems to be always a holiday in Geneva. He had stayed long at the merrymaking and had taken many mugs of beer. They made him drowsy and stupid. The American gentleman and his wife stayed long in the enameller's shop. He could scarcely keep his eyes open. Presently, although he never moved a muscle of his back and sat up stiff and straight as a poker, he ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Martin was to be married in ten days. Therefore, she must have her tin shower at the bleachery. Certain traditions of that sort were unavoidable. At Christmas time the entire Department 10 was decorated from end to end until it was resplendent. Such merrymaking as went on, such presents as were exchanged! And when any girl, American or Italian, was to be married, the whole department gave her a ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... doctrine of free love and free life, she leaves her parents to consort with him. The artist's jovial companions make her queen of a Montmartre festival for a purpose wholly extraneous to the story, but one that serves the composer, who is his own librettist, and in the midst of the merrymaking the mother appears and pleads with the girl to return to her home to comfort her dying father. Her lover permits her to do so on her promise to return to him. At home her father entreats her to give up her life of dishonor. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... arrived, and took possession of the Red Lion; and Englebourn was soon in a ferment of preparation for the wedding. East was not the man to do things by halves; and, seconded as he was by Miss Winter, and Hardy, and Tom, had soon made arrangements for all sorts of merrymaking. The school-children were to have a whole holiday, and, after scattering flowers at church and marching in the bridal procession, were to be entertained in a tent pitched in the home paddock of the Rectory, and to have an afternoon ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... custom, no matter to what denomination the people belonged. Those with contracted houses went quietly to parsonage or rectory with a few near friends; others were married at the bride's home, the ceremony followed by more or less merrymaking. A church wedding was regarded as so great a strain upon the families that the young people had no right to ask it, even if they ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... feasting and entertainment, of music and merrymaking. Spanish officials, prominent civilians of Matanzas and the countryside, drove up the hill to welcome Don Esteban's bride. But before the first fervor of his honeymoon cooled the groom began to fear that he had made a serious mistake. Dona Isabel, he discovered, was both vain and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... John did not seem to know. He only saw that every one was very kind; that the world might be a very happy place to live in, if love ruled the kingdoms of it. And he made ready for his share in the merrymaking with a light heart. It was great fun to play at being a mountebank once more for the people who loved him! Yet he was not sorry that the next day he and the Hermit were going back to the kingdom in the forest. He was longing for the peace and quiet of the woods, and the little ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... and the soldier were married, and if no couple had ever been happy in the world before, they were then. Nothing was heard but feasting and merrymaking, and at night all the sky was lit with fireworks. Such a wedding had never been before, and all the world was glad ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... many of the people continued to offer sacrifices to Jehovah at the great altar cut in native rock which stood before the ruins of their temple in Jerusalem. Priests were also doubtless found in the land to conduct these services. The ancient feasts, however, with their joyous merrymaking and the resulting sense of divine favor, were no longer observed. Instead, the people celebrated in sackcloth and ashes the fasts commemorating the successive stages in the destruction of their city (Zech. 7:3-7). While their lot was pitiable ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... curious to know the meaning of the mystic words. Most of them could make out a part of the sentence, but not enough to translate it. The business of the meeting was completed, and the members separated, all of them feeling that the mutiny of the Young America was more like a merrymaking than anything else. To be decorated with the white ribbon of the order by a beautiful young lady was a privilege which they appreciated, and all of them were thankful that they had not been led astray by the evil counsels which had prevailed in ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... and close friends and such like: only Master Banaster and Anstace come both times. Then on New Year's Day have we alway a great sort of childre, and merry games and music and such like. But the last night of the old year will Father have no gatherings nor merrymaking. He saith 'tis a right solemn time; and as each one of us came to the age of fourteen years have we parted at nine o' the clock as usual, but not on that night for bed. Every one sitteth by him or herself in a separate chamber, with a Bible or some portion thereof open afore. ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... Gilbert Hythe, if you touch me, darling, (he releases her) Listen, Izod; I've been here, on this bit o' land, resting under this old roof, and working in this old yard, since I was a mite—so high. I've been here in times of merrymaking and times of mourning, and I've seen the grass grow over all the Veritys but one—the Squire who gives me the same living that goes to the best table, and as soft a pillow as lies on the best bed. No, I'll keep the keys, Izod dear; you go and ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... the poet gives us an English sheepshearing, with its merrymaking, a pair of honest English country fellows in the old shepherd and his son, the Clown, and the greatest of all beloved vagabonds {204} in the rogue Autolycus, whose vices, like Falstaff's, are more lovable than other people's virtues. Fortune, which will not suffer him to be honest, makes ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... hand as he tries to penetrate a magic circle which Mephistopheles draws around himself. The men now suspect the true character of their singular visitor, and turn the cruciform hilts of their swords against him, to his intense discomfort. With the return of the women the merrymaking is resumed. All join in a dance, tripping it gayly to one waltz sung by the spectators and another which rises simultaneously from the instruments. Marguerite crosses the market-place on her way home from church. Faust offers her his arm, but she declines his escort—not quite so rudely ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... liturgy. Once touch anything, and where are you to stop? Our religion becomes a flux. Our old Judaism is like an old family mansion, where each generation has left a memorial and where every room is hallowed with traditions of merrymaking and mourning. We do not want our fathers' home decorated in the latest style; the next step will be removal to a new dwelling altogether. On page 3 you refer ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... told to few, but the Sultan was one of them. He consulted with the Grand Vizier, and, as both of these parents feared to expose the young couple to further dangers from unseen foes, the marriage was canceled, and all the merrymaking in honor of it was stopped. None but Aladdin knew the cause of all the trouble, and he kept his secret to himself. Least of all did the Sultan and Grand Vizier, who had quite forgotten Aladdin, suspect that he had a hand in ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... he found her. Childlike, also, she hung in raptures over the gifts which were showered upon her, nor ever dreamed that they were the price with which she was bought. She hung aloof, shyly, from the invasion of her home; in her eyes a child's longing to join the merrymaking, mingled with all its ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Ah, such a merrymaking as they planned for that evening! Robin was to receive the Prize for Good Luck, so much gold coin that it would take three carts and six mules to carry it back to the cottage. The king counted out money all the afternoon, and the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... and the dwellings were abandoned. However, after their abandonment, it was customary at times for the villagers to resort to them for drinking and dancing bouts. This tradition continues still in force, and on Easter Tuesday these cave dwellings are visited, and there is merrymaking in them. Between the caves at one time some little taverns had been erected, but these also fell into ruin some forty or ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... of the room where she had danced and been happy: the many lights, the pagan figures merrymaking on the panels, the goddess on the ceiling with her cupids and scattered roses, and, in the centre of it all, that dead face, ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is opened on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, December sixth; in fact bazaars are held from the first of the month, which is really one prolonged season of merrymaking. ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry." So the festivities set in, and the Palace was filled with laughter and dancing and merrymaking. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Tower thundered a loud welcome, and that all over England, at one season or another, maypoles rose and Christmas fires blazed? For Englishmen at heart are not only monarchists, but they are lovers of good cheer and merrymaking and ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Schumann, who blend profound melancholy with wild humor, the playfulness is sometimes of a kind which invites us to thoughtfulness instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian composers, whose scherzos have the desperate gayety which speaks from the music of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of exuberant spirits but a striving after self-forgetfulness. The Scherzo is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the composers down to Beethoven. It was he who substituted the ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the camp, however. Even the gluttonous Queenslanders had recovered from their woes of the morning; and, from end to end of the great enclosure, there was a spirit of merrymaking born of the feast day, the dinner and the unwonted allowance of rum. In the groups scattered about the camp fires, tongues wagged freely of home, of boyhood, of adventures in past years. War talk was tabooed that night. According ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... to them, "O my brothers, I will make a voyage with you, but first let me see what you are worth." So I looked into their affairs and found they had nothing left, having wasted all their substance in eating and drinking and merrymaking. However, I said not a word of reproach to them, but sold my stock and got in all I had and found I was worth six thousand dinars. So I rejoiced and divided the sum into two equal parts and said to my brothers, "These three thousand dinars are for you and me to ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... through this mocking inquisition in careless posture, elbows on the bar at his back, with as much good humor as if he were a member of the band taking his turn as the butt of the evening's merrymaking. Now, as the young Texan approached with the evident intention of searching him for a weapon, Morgan came suddenly out of his lounging posture into one of watchfulness and defense. He put up his hand in admonitory gesture to stay the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... last a week," she confided to Lieutenant Logan, when he paused beside her. "Don't you know, they did in the fairy-tales, some of them. There was 'feasting and merrymaking for seventy days and seventy nights.' This one is going by so fast that it will soon be train-time. I don't suppose they care," she added, with a nod toward the bride, "for they're going to spend their honeymoon in a ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... pulling out a purse, said to him, "Take this deposit and lay it on the tomb of the Prophet, whom Allah save and assain!" And he took it, knowing not what was therein. Then the Merman went forth with him, to bring him back to land, and by the way he heard singing and merrymaking and saw a table spread with fish and folk eating and singing and holding mighty high festival. So Abdullah of the Land said to his friend, "What aileth these people to rejoice thus? Is there a wedding among them?" Replied Abdullah of the Sea, "Nay; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... picnic place, though, they soon saw that all was not well. There was some resumption of the merrymaking as they dismounted and the girls put one stirrup over the saddle-horn and eased the cinch like the boys did, and proud of their knowledge, but the glances they now shot at Hetty wasn't bewildered any more. They ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... green climbs along the grey stones. We trace the old hearth and the outline of the stone staircase scarred upon the wall. We conjure up the rest of the structure, but the Northern Wizard is not with us here, as at Kenilworth, to repeople it with life and merrymaking, and it strains the imagination to depart far from the dull, dead present of Fuenterrabia. Perchance of old there came hither knights and ladies, pricking o'er the plaine, perchance here was dancing and wassail. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... door which led from the house into the smithy, "here, comrades," he cried, "Anton, Cuthbert, Dingwell, and Ringen! Let none of you stir from the place till I return. Be as true as the weapons I have taught you to forge: a French crown and a Scotch merrymaking for you, if you obey my command. I leave a mighty treasure in your charge. Watch the doors well, let little Jannekin scout up and down the wynd, and have your arms ready if any one approaches the house. Open the doors to no man till father Glover or I return: ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... already off on her pleasuring, he took the gray little governess for duenna, and a blither three never sat out a tragedy, or laughed over wine and oysters in the midst of a garden with its flowers and fountains afterwards. 'T was a long day since the poor little woman had known such merrymaking; and as for me, this playhouse, this mimicry of life, was a new sphere. We went again and again,—sometimes the painting-mistress, too; then she and the governess fell behind, and Angus and I walked at our will. Other times we wandered through the gay streets, or we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... or two ago there was a grand merrymaking at the house of one Charles Newcome, Esquire, late captain in her Majesty's army, to celebrate the tenth birthday of his son, Master Thomas James Newcome. The company was mostly juvenile, and included, of course, the gallant captain's ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... conflagration, no matter how distant. She was even afraid of the rockets and paper dragons which were used at the celebration at the conclusion of the grape harvest every year. On the evening of the merrymaking Marie was afraid to go to bed. She begged Ludwig to close the blinds and to read to her in a loud voice, so that she might not see the light of the fireworks or hear the tumult on the lake shore. That which ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... die. Spring will come never more. Oh! vanity! Death waits at the door. See! our friends are all forsaking The wine and the merrymaking. We are called—we must go. Laid low, very low, In the dark we must lie. The merry glees are still; The voice of the bird Shall no more be heard, Nor the wind on the hill. Oh! misery! Hark! death is calling While I speak to ye, The jaw is falling, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... by a still and sacred fire, That burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd, And in their eyes and faces read his doom; Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd, And slipt aside, and like a wounded life Crept down into the hollows of the wood; There, while the rest were loud in merrymaking, Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past Bearing a lifelong hunger in ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... presently the clapping of hands and loud deray of merrymaking, so I went to find out what it might be that ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett |
