"Skittles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you put your charge," said Bob very sagely. "I'm going to make it lift the rock, and drop it down over the side, and then away it'll go and sweep a lot of those big bits with it, just as if they were skittles, and they'll all go down like a big ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... chief amusement, not to say their chief occupation, is gambling. In the middle of the day, at street-corners and in sunny spots, you see groups of working-men playing at pitch halfpenny, or gesticulating wildly over the mysterious game of "Moro." Skittles and stone-throwing are the only popular amusements which require any bodily exertion; and both of these, as played here, are as much chance as skill. The lottery, too, is the ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... mildest form which punishment could take. But sometimes the chevalier d'industrie is lucky enough to secure his spoils. It is related that certain white ghosts were in the habit of playing by night at skittles on a level grass-plot on the Lueningsberg, near Aerzen, in North Germany. A journeyman weaver, who was in love with a miller's daughter, but lacked the means to marry her, thought there could be no harm in robbing the ghosts of one of the golden ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... turf of some thirty yards in length, enough for a run and enough for a jump. A gravel walk ran around this green, beyond which was a wall and gate-sign—a field azure, bearing the Hanoverian White Horse rampant between two skittles proper, and for motto the name of the landlord and of the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assured us—"all surface water gone along the line already"; and then he hurled various items of news at us: "the horse teams were managing to do a good trip; and Mac? Oh, Mac's getting along," he shouted; "struck him on a dry stage; seemed a bit light-headed; said dry stages weren't all beer and skittles—queer idea. Beer and skittles! He won't find much beer on dry stages, and I reckon the man's dilly that 'ud play a game of skittles on any ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... skittles. And because you'd make me keenly alive again to all sorts of things that I see now don't matter—things that have lost some of their power to trouble me, but that I ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... should be guilty of flirting; nor was there any man within ten miles of Hamworth who would have dared to make the attempt. Women for the most part are prone to love-making—as nature has intended that they should be; but there are women from whom all such follies seem to be as distant as skittles and beer are distant from the dignity of the Lord Chancellor. Such a ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Hide and Seek High Kick Hockey Hop Over Hop Scotch Hunkety Hunt the Sheep Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America I Spy Jack Fagots Jai-A-Li Japanese Fan Ball Kick the Stick King of the Castle Knuckle There Lacrosse Lawn Bowls Lawn Bowling Lawn Hockey Lawn Skittles Lawn Tennis Last Tag Luge-ing Marathon Race Marbles Mumblety Peg Names of Marbles Nigger Baby Olympic Games One Old Cat Over the Barn Pass It Pelota Plug in the Ring Polo Potato Race Prisoner's Base Push Ball Quoits Racquets or Rackets ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... American outlook will be permanently enlarged by this tremendous experience. Materially and spiritually she will have been forced to witness and partake of the life, thought, culture, and troubles of the old world. She will have, unconsciously, assimilated much, been diverted from the beer and skittles of her isolated development in a great new country. Americans will find themselves suddenly grown up. Not till a man is grown up does he see and feel things deeply enough to venture into the ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... flocks hurrying nobody knew whither, every schoolboy reads; and our strong men to-day, without whose names and portraits no periodical is considered attractive, would surely have been of greater benefit to us if they had remained absorbed in their earlier skittles. If the famous magician, who, with several others, is winning the war by suggestion, and that true soldier, General FitzChutney, and that earnest and eloquent publicist, Mr. Blufflerlow, had been persuaded to stick to marbles, what misleading excitement and unprofitable ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... simpla, naiva. since : de kiam, cxar, tial ke. sinew : tendeno. situation : situacio, sido, ofico. size : grandeco, amplekso; for mato; glueto skate : glit'i, -ilo; (fish) rajo. skeleton : skeleto. sketch : skizi. skilful : lerta. skin : hauxto, felo. skirt : jupo. skittles : keglo. skull : kranio. slander : kalumnii. slanting : oblikva. slate : ardezo. -"s", tegmentajxo. slave : sklavo. sleeve : maniko. slipper : pantoflo. slime : sxlimo. sloe : prunelo. slope : deklivo. sluice : kluzo. sly : ruza, kasxema. smallpox : variolo. smart : eleganta; doloreti. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... mode of speaking was pleasant to her; whereas she was by no means sure that she liked Mr Maguire's speech. But Mr Maguire was by profession a gentleman. As the discreet young man, who is desirous of rising in the world, will eschew skittles, and in preference go out to tea at his aunt's house—much more delectable as skittles are to his own heart—so did Miss Mackenzie resolve that it would become her to select Messrs Stumfold and Maguire as her male friends, and to ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... has a deal to plan, For he's, chief of all, the Transport man. He finds the Fleet in coal and victuals (Supplying the beer—if not the skittles); He sees to the bad'uns that get imprisoned, And settles what uniform's worn (or isn't).... Even the stubbornest own the sway Of the Lord of Food and the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... were rare. No one thought of eating and drinking, and at 4 p.m. there were many spectators in the crowd who had not taken their customary lunch! A much more significant fact, even the national passion for gaming was allayed by the general emotion. Thimbles, skittles, and cards were left in their wrappings, and testified that the great event of the day absorbed ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... with a thick stick, the deed of certain drunken wiseacres who were persisting in playing in the dark the never very lucrative game of three sticks a penny, conducted by a couple of gipsies. Poor fellows! there was one excuse for them. It was the only thing there to play at, except a set of skittles; and on those they had lost their money every Saturday night for the last seven years each ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... this time next year, talking it all over together," Carew said, in a sudden, thoughtful burst of prophecy. "By the time we get home, we shall forget the blood and the dog-biscuit, and only remember the skittles and beer. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... Short blindfold races with wheelbarrows. Pig with a greasy tail, to be won by him who could catch him and shoulder him, without touching any other part of him; bowls of treacle for the boys to duck heads in and fish out coins; skittles, nine pins, Aunt ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... in for their first march, when they began to realise that a soldier's life was not all beer and skittles. They were much impressed with the size and bestial ferocity of the niggers whom they had now learned to call 'Paythans,' and more with the exceeding discomfort of their own surroundings. Twenty old soldiers in the corps would have taught them how to make themselves ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... a soul above the vulgar herd, and who, on account of his greatness, could only afford to be merry now and then, threw himself on a bench with the air of a man who was faint with dignity. He looked with an indifferent eye, alike on skittles, cards, and dice, thinking only of the locksmith's daughter, and the base degenerate days on ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... any of you are ready to pay my losses and take my winnings; I am tired of being as good as an annuity to you all,' for that is what you have been for the last ten years. Why, it would be cheaper for you to send home to England for skittles, and get ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... saints, whose skill in cavilling, Shock'd at skittles, cards, or dice, Thinks, except for Sunday travelling, Railway ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... without it?" she wondered, watching Prue and Grizzel as they loitered along just before her, Grizzel dragging weary little feet in the dust. "I suppose they are used to it. Life in Australia isn't all beer and skittles. I wonder what skittles are? If they are something nice to drink I wish we had some here. Even beer would be better than nothing. I am a beautiful Patrol Leader! Walking behind and grousing for all I am worth." She hurried her ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... back of the shop were some seats round a small table, on which was laid the newspaper of the day, and on each side of the parlour-door were hoops, bats, balls, traps, skittles, and a variety of toys ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... inhabitants keep carriages for their own private use; and near fifty have country houses. The relaxations of the humbler class, are fives, quoits, skittles, and ale. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... been present at the process one might little by little have mastered the result; but he was face to face, as matters stood, with the finished business. It had freely been noted for him that he might be received as a dog among skittles, but that was on the basis of the old quantity. He had originally thought of lines and tones as things to be taken, but these possibilities had now quite melted away. There was no computing at all what the young man before him ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... buried in St. Dunstan's, though L200 was offered for his body for dissection. At the 'Globe,' in 1717, was shown Matthew Buckinger, a German dwarf, born in 1674, without hands, legs, feet, or thighs, twenty-nine inches high; yet can write, thread a needle, shuffle a pack of cards, play skittles, &c. A facsimile of his writing is among the Harleian MSS. And in 1712 appeared the Black Prince and his wife, each three feet high; and a Turkey horse, two feet odd high and twelve years old, in a box. Modern times ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... it, the more he was satisfied of its feasibility, and he trotted over, the next day, to the Old Duke of Cumberland, to see his friend on the subject. Viney, like most victuallers, was more given to games of skill—billiards, shuttlecock, skittles, dominoes, and so on—than to the rude out-of-door chances of flood and field, and at first he doubted his ability to grapple with the details; but on Mr. Watchorn's assurance that he would keep him straight, he gave ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... against the inanity as long as I decently could, but at last, in a lapse of good-nature, I consented to masquerade as a book, only I warned them that it would take some time to carry out. They waited for the best part of forty minutes, while I went and played wineglass skittles with the page-boy in the pantry; you play it with a champagne cork, you know, and the one who knocks down the most glasses without breaking them wins. I won, with four unbroken out of seven; I think William suffered from over-anxiousness. They were ...
— Reginald • Saki
... interval was wont to elapse before the Militia could be assembled, living as they did in distant regions of the island. But nowadays, as befitted a laborious rural population, they were spending their morning in the wine-shops of the town, gambling, drinking, or playing skittles. This enabled a sufficient number of them to forgather, in an incredibly short space of time, at the outskirts of the market-place (occupied by a seething, howling tangle of humanity)—there to receive the plainest of instructions. They were to quell the disorder ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... gambling generally—a good thing to discourage gambling in every form—but in these thinly-populated outlying agricultural parishes, where money is scarce and wages low, there never existed any temptation to allure skittle-sharpers and similar cheaters to the spot. The game at skittles was a legitimate game—a fair and honest struggle of skill and strength. Nine times out of ten it was played only for a quart of ale, to be drunk by the loser as well as the winner in good fellowship. Why deprive the man who labours all day in wet and storm of so simple a pleasure in the evening? ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... in London, under the hands of scientific tailors. Evan wrote him an introduction to Mr. Goren, counted out the contents of his purse (which Jack had reduced in his study of the pastoral game of skittles, he confessed), and calculated in a niggardly way, how far it would go to supply the fellow's wants; sighing, as he did it, to think of Jack installed at Beckley Court, while Jack, comparing his luck with Evan's, had discovered it to be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nothing they can't do," says Tommy, who is plainly revelling in the storm he has raised. Her open fright is beer and skittles to him. "Why did you stir? He was as good as gold, until then; and there wasn't anything to be afraid of. I was watching him. When he got to your ear I'd have told you. I wouldn't like him to make you deaf, but I wanted ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... for the goose, for the gander Is sauce, ye inconsequent fair! It is better to laugh than to maunder, And better is mirth than despair; And though Life's not all beer and all skittles, Yet the Sun, on occasion, can shine, And, mon Dieu! he's a fool who belittles This ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... Skittles!" I said. "She must have seen they were impossible. I'm convinced, Burton, that she's seen it all along; she's merely testing you to see how you'd behave, how far you'd go for her. You needn't worry. You've gone far enough. She'll let ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... immense tide of Irish immigration to America. And England fanned and favored this exodus, for it was very certain that there were too many mouths to feed in Ireland—half the number would not so jeopardize the beer and skittles of the landlords. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... walked about a little, and seen some of the views which the wood afforded, and some old ruins within its borders, the party should dine, and then that various sports should take place, pony races, archery, quoits, nine-pins, skittles, throw-sticks or batons, single-stick; indeed, more than I can well remember; while swings were hung up between the trees, and two or three long planks had been placed on some felled trees, to serve as see-saws, so that all ranks and ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... second division of the regiment were in the habit of going occasionally to the Auer, a lonely forest tavern, during the summer months, to play skittles. The Auer was about an hour's distance from the garrison, and lay nearly in the middle of the pine forest, which extended over the mountains and beyond the frontier. The younger men bicycled there and back, while their elders either rode or drove. Major Schrader ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... sir. If you'll excuse me saying so, a spirited young gentleman like yourself, sir, should be very careful. I was perhaps a trifle inclined to atheistical opinions myself." For (perhaps with a deeper wisdom than we are inclined in these days to admit) he plainly bracketed agnosticism with beer and skittles. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at the dinner-table, and the usual excesses committed; for at that time it was thought a mark of low-breeding for a man to remain sober all the evening. Out-of-doors there were bullocks roasted whole, barrels of cider and butts of ale set constantly flowing, with dancing, cricket, and Devonshire skittles, and other country games and comforts for the amusement ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... Gousset did not appear to be in any haste to arrive. At the last houses of the suburbs he offered some cider; after some hundred yards the gendarme returned the compliment and they stopped at the "Sauvage." A league further, another stop was made at the "Vieille Cave." Gousset then proposed a game of skittles, which the gendarme and Morin accepted. It was nearly seven in the evening when they passed Potigny. The evening was magnificent and the sun still high on the horizon; as they knew they would not see another inn until the next stage was reached, they made a fourth stop there. At last Gousset and ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... and exalt it into a symptom. When he had given the disease a name, he went for the quack doctors who professed to remedy it. He goes to Letchworth, in which abode of middle-class faddery he finds a teetotal public-house, pretending to look like the real thing, and calling itself "The Skittles Inn." He immediately raises the question, Can we dissociate beer from skittles? Then he widens ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... much—full o' joy an' happiness, 'appy an' free—'appy an' free. Just like you might have noticed to-night, I noticed a knot of Chinks scrappin' on the ground all amongst the dust right in front of me. I rammed in, windmillin' all round and knocking 'em down like skittles. Seemed to me there was about ten of 'em, but allowin' for Jimmy's whisky, maybe there wasn't more than three. Anyway, they all shifted and left me standin' there in the empty street with this ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... you are about the poorest 'and at a yarn!' cried the clerk. 'Crikey, it's like Ministering Children! I can tell you there would be more beer and skittles about my little jaunt. I would go and have a B. and S. for luck. Then I would get a big ulster with astrakhan fur, and take my cane and do the la-de-la down Piccadilly. Then I would go to a slap-up restaurant, and have green peas, and a bottle of fizz, and a chump chop—Oh! and I ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... better of you for saying that; although you are an enemy you ought to stick to your General, and not sneak away from the front". But the Free-Stater was not a bit impressed by my rhetoric, and simply said, "Oh, skittles!" ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... snapdragon; cross questions and crooked answers.; crisscross, hopscotch; jacks, jackstones^, marbles; mumblety-peg, mumble-the-peg, pushball, shinney, shinny, tag &c; billiards, pool, pingpong, pyramids, bagatelle; bowls, skittles, ninepins, kain^, American bowls^; tenpins [U.S.], tivoli. cards, card games; whist, rubber; round game; loo, cribbage, besique^, euchre, drole^, ecarte [Fr.], picquet^, allfours^, quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in Rice. "Do you remember, Ralph, the night that Professor Torts had his little beer-and-skittles party in his lair, and Burns, who roomed across the passage and who was the worst bummer in Encina, went down to Fessler, and complained that he couldn't study because of the noise in that number? ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... man. He had come back because the Furies had driven him with their whip of knotted snakes, and he could do nothing but yield to their hounding. If Lois thought that traveling in the West was beer and skittles when hunted and scourged by yourself like that—well, she had ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... the holidays had plenty of sport, outdoor and indoor, which kept out the cold by wholesome exercise and recreative games. Many a hard battle was fought with snowballs, or with bat-and-ball on the ice; the barns were the scenes of many a wrestling match or exciting game at skittles; and in the evenings they played such romping games as blind-man's-buff, hunt the slipper, and others of a similar character. While the company sat round the yule-log blazing on the hearth, eating mince-pies, or plum porridge, and quaffing a bowl of well-spiced ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... himself describe how they travelled post to Paris, occupying five days. "We got through the journey charmingly, though not quite so quickly as we hoped. The children as good as usual, and even Skittles jolly to the last. (That name has long superseded Sampson Brass, by the bye. I call him so, from something skittle-playing and public-housey in his countenance.) We have been up at five every morning, and on the road ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the battle of life outweighs the "beer and skittles"; as does the interest. Johnny McLean found interest in masses, in the drab-and-dun village on the prairie. He found pleasure, too, and as far as he could reach he tried to share it; buoyancy and generosity were born ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... which extend alone: the shore towards the Needles. The ground is high and broken, and very picturesque, with bays, and points, and headlands. On our starboard, or northern side, appeared the long spit of sand at the end of which Hurst Castle stands, with two high red lighthouses like two giant skittles. Besides the old castle, a line of immensely strong fortifications extend along the beach, armed with the heaviest guns, so that from the batteries of the two shores an enemy's ship attempting to enter would be sunk, or would be so shattered as to be unable to cope with any vessel ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Oriental turn. The Ministry refused to resign, and the Mikado prorogued the Diet for a week to think things over. The Japanese papers are now at issue over the event. Some say that representative government implies party government, and others swear at large. The Overseas Club says for the most part—'Skittles!' ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... devices," said Mr. Gibney indulgently. "Mac's just as Irish as if he'd been born in Dublin instead of his old man. Nobody yet overcome the prejudice of an Irishman so we'll do the honours ourself, Scraggsy, old skittles, and leave Mac in charge of ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... the actor's life is one of bevo and skittles sally along with a new play on its try-out in the one-night circuit. When one sees the delightful humour, fortitude, and high spirits with which the players face their task he gains a new respect for the profession. It is with a sense of shame ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... as rowing, skating, cricket, quoits, foot-ball, rackets, single-stick, bandy, bowls, skittles, and all gymnastic exercises. Such games bring the muscles into proper action, and thus cause them to be fully developed. They expand and strengthen the chest; they cause a due circulation of the blood, making it to bound merrily through the blood-vessels, and thus to diffuse health and happiness ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... loud, joyful, and steeplechasing Lord, in the pursuit of pleasure and distant wars, dons the golden cords for a season, the world understands that this is masquerading, skittles, and a joke. One must not confound the ideal A.D.C. ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... and skittles,' said a reflective sportsman, and all books are not fairy tales. In an imperfect state of existence, 'the peety of it is that we cannot have all things as we would like them.' Undeniably we would like all books ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... In Professor SKITTLES' chair—with the sun in my eyes. He has not begun to read my character yet; he is still measuring—with tape this time. I must say he takes great pains. Blazer contingent has moved up closer; they pretend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... spirits about still, and now that an heir is coming to Rush they are keener than ever to try and work some mischief. No use saying anything to Tom (his brother). He will only laugh, and say it is all skittles. But tell my little sister-in-law to PRAY—PRAY—PRAY. That is all they need and all ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... on a slippery floor! Am I any happier now than I was before I married? Well, I am! There's more worry in one way, but there's less in another. And of course I've got Bobbie! But it isn't all beer and skittles, and I let 'em know it, too. I can't do what I like! And I'm just a sort of exile, you know. I used to enjoy being on the stage and showing myself off. A hard life, but one does enjoy it. And one gets used to it. One gets to need it. Sometimes I feel ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... musical director. They passed the morning of the day which Chopin and Hiller spent in the town at Mendelssohn's piano, and in the afternoon took a walk, at the end of which they had coffee and a game at skittles. In this walk they were accompanied by F. W. Schadow, the director of the Academy of Art and founder of the Dusseldorf School, and some of his pupils, among whom may have been one or more of its brightest stars—Lessing, Bendemann, Hildebrandt, Sohn, and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... of the federal body organic, and finally, this running away from somebody. But he quickly perceived that the last was serious enough. The skipper lowered his glasses, and shook his perky head a number of times. "Who said life was all beer and skittles?" he demanded defiantly, and glared at Driscoll as though he had. But getting no answer, he seemed mollified, as though this proved that the man who had said it was an imbecile. Murguia, by the way, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... number games, but dominoes and card games introduce the number groups. In "Old maid" the children pair the groups and so learn to recognise them; in dominoes they use this knowledge, while "Snap" involves quick recognition. Any one can make up a game in which scoring is necessary. Ninepins or skittles is a number game, and one can score by using number groups, or by fetching counters, shells, beads, etc., as reminders. The number groups are important; they form what Miss Punnett calls "a scheme" for those who have no ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Black Watch in front made an attempt to charge the position, but we had to retire and simply run for it, the enemy blazing at us all the way and dropping our fellows like skittles from their splendid positions. There was nothing for it but to lie down and pretend to be dead, and this I did about 5.30 A.M. till I suppose 6 P.M., the sun pouring down on me all the time, and not a drink of water all day, and dare not stir hand or foot, and ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... wife, and when I looked again a row of Wenuses with closed lids stood before the Crinoline. Suddenly they opened their eyes and flashed them on the men before them. The effect was instantaneous. The deputation, as the glance touched them, fell like skittles—viscous, protoplasmic masses, victims of the terrible Mash-Glance of ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... the gun started to boom. The beast, then, urshed and gone away from the village. On the knoll a german section had just taken place. The bull fell amongst, his horns forward, fool of rage. He knocked down the Germans like skittles." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... without becoming exhausted, and in the evening the air is delightfully cool, falling just below 70 degrees the night we slept there. There is a tennis court, and the manager spoke of laying down another, and with billiards and skittles in the evening and a hot spring swimming bath, near the Governor-General's villa, for healthful recreation in the daytime, one need not feel too much the absence of city life and companionship. The tariff is the moderate one ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... application in him, and though we all pitied him when father first broughte him home, a pillaged, portionlesse client, with none other to espouse his rightes, yet 'twas a pitie soone allied with contempt when we founde how emptie he was, caring for nought but archerie and skittles and the popinjaye out o' the house, and dicing and tables within, which father w^d on noe excuse permitt. Soe he had to conform, ruefullie enow, and hung piteouslie on hand for awhile. I mind me of Bess's saying about Christmasse, "Heaven send ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... at least fifteen stone, the dress he wore did not become him quite so much as slimmer and taller men. Flanked by his tall Majors, Thrupp and Gutch, he looked like a stumpy skittle-ball between two attenuated skittles. The plump little Colonel received me with vast cordiality, and I speedily became a prime favorite with himself and the other officers of the corps. Jowler was the most hospitable of men; and gratifying my appetite and my love together, I continually partook ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... men. Of the real value and motive of poetry she had a most exalted idea. 'Poetry,' she says, in the preface of one of her volumes, 'has been as serious a thing to me as life itself; and life has been a very serious thing. There has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my work so far, not as mere hand and head work apart from the personal being, but as the completest ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... of earth was rolling down on the coffin he had a feeling of disgust, as if skittles were being played in his head, and when the bare hillock began to arise, he thought, "To-morrow already there must be some green turf put ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... leave the subject of the Staff. There has been of late a good deal of pestilential gossip by luxurious gentlemen at home about the Staff and its work. It is, they say, very bad—mostly beer and skittles. I have already referred to these charges elsewhere; here I will only add one word. A Staff is known by its chief. He it is who sets the pace. During the time I was attached to it, the G.H.Q. Staff had ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Tale" were a lesson in fortitude. They taught me once and for all that an actress's life (even when the actress is only eight) is not all beer and skittles, or cakes and ale, or fame and glory. I was cast for the part of Mamilius in the way I have described, and my heart swelled with pride when I was told what I had to do, when I realized that I had a real ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... is strong and active, pitches the bar admirably, wrestles with amazing dexterity, and is an excellent cricketer. He runs like a buck, leaps like a wild goat, and plays at skittles like a wizard. Then he has a fine voice for singing, he touches the guitar so as to make it speak, and handles a foil as well as any fencer in Spain.—Cervantes, Don Quixote, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... at the baths of Bormio that we came together. I had bribed a waiter to seat me next her father at dinner; but, when the time came, I could say nothing to him, so anxious was I to create a favorable impression. In the evening, however, I found the family gathered round a pole, with skittles at the foot of it. They were wondering how Italian skittles was played, and, though I had no idea, I volunteered to teach them. Fortunately none of them understood Italian, and consequently the expostulations of the boy in charge were disregarded. It is not my intention to dwell upon the never-to-be-forgotten ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... it is, but one wholly forgets the danger one is in, and thinks only of the effect of one's own bullets, rejoicing like a child at the sight of the enemy falling like skittles, and having scarcely a compassionate glance to spare for the comrade falling at one's side. One ceases to be a human being, and turns into a brute, ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... nutty upon Bill, and according to my thinking they manages things pretty veil together, only you see as how she is too many for him: so, vhen she comes back, b———tme if Bill vasn't a playing at skittles, and hadn't sold a dab all day; howsomdever he was a vinning the lush, so you know Bill didn't care—but, my eyes! how she did blow him up vhen she com'd in and see'd him just a going to bowl and tip, she tipp'd him a vollopper right across the snout vhat made the skittles ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... all beer and skittles, is it?" I said to Prince ARTHUR just now, trying to put the best face on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... Duke Louis d'Orleans ordered billes et billars to be bought for the sum of eleven sols six deniers tournois (about fifteen francs of our money), that he might amuse himself with them. There were several games of the same sort, which were not less popular. Skittles; la Soule or Soulette, which consisted of a large ball of hay covered over with leather, the possession of which was contested for by two opposing sides of players; Football; open Tennis; Shuttlecock, &c. It was Charles V. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... comments of "The Fancies," the life of the Military Police was not all beer and skittles. The control of the traffic at some of the cross-roads, favoured by the Boche heavy gunners, was nerve-racking in ordinary times, and tenfold more so during an action, and several awards were given to the Divisional Military ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... chosen one of the unlucky days to back his lordship). He will eat his supper as gaily after a great victory as after a signal defeat; and we know that to win with magnanimity requires much more constancy than to lose. His sleep will not be disturbed by one event or the other. He will play skittles all the morning with perfect contentment, romp with children in the forenoon (he is the friend of half the children in the place), or he will cheerfully leave the green table and all the risk and excitement there, to take a hand at sixpenny ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... up very fresh and alert, with zest for every moment of life. He worked and rode and drove to market, he went out with companions and got tipsy occasionally and played skittles and went to the little travelling theatres. Once, when he was drunk at a public house, he went upstairs with a prostitute who seduced him. He was ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... should judge, the work of the Servian kings, all that remained to accomplish was the bombardment of its walls, which became a sort of spectacle, to which we went day after day to watch the effect of the fire, as we should have done with a game of skittles. I climbed up on the top of a neighboring mountain, and, with my field-glass, inspected the town. Women went and came with their water-pitchers on their heads, moving in serene tranquillity, without quickening a step, and the life of the place seemed ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... down, on either bank, were covered houses built of stone, square and roughly cornered, set as if the brook were meant to be the street between them. Only one room high they were, and not placed opposite each other, but in and out as skittles are; only that the first of all, which proved to be the captain's, was a sort of double house, or rather two houses joined together by a ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Spurstow, who had been watching Hummil's white face narrowly. 'Take a pill, and don't be an ass. That sort of talk is skittles. Anyhow, suicide is shirking your work. If I were Job ten times over, I should be so interested in what was going to happen next that I'd stay on ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... of my hand, sipping sugar-water out of his own private bowl and, in fact, doing everything I suggested. I did not suggest impossibilities. A friendship should never be strained to breaking-point. Had I cared to risk such a calamity, I might have taught him to play skittles.... ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... "'Skittles!' he says (that was a great word of his), 'you'll take parole, and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle heavier in the working parts—I would. We've got more prisoners than we know what to do with as it is,' he says. 'You'll only be an additional expense to me as a ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... scarce interest you on Broadway, is all of fuafua and tuitui, and black boys, and planting and weeding, and axes and cutlasses; my hands are covered with blisters and full of thorns; letters are, doubtless, a fine thing, so are beer and skittles, but give me farmering in the tropics for real interest. Life goes in enchantment; I come home to find I am late for dinner; and when I go to bed at night, I could cry for the weariness of my loins and thighs. Do not speak ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in his veins the vital force to procreate a child, found in this moment of fury more vigour than was necessary to undo a man. He seized with his hairy right hand his heavy club, lifted it, brandished it and adjusted it so easily you could have thought it a bowl at a game of skittles, to bring it down upon the pale forehead of the said Rene, who knowing that he was greatly in fault towards his lord, remained placid, and stretching his neck, thought that he was about to expiate his sin for his sweetheart in this ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... his mouth, with the fingers, thereby giving him a sort of lion-like countenauce. To tip the velvet; tonguing woman. To tip all nine; to knock down all the nine pins at once, at the game of bows or skittles: tipping, at these gaines, is slightly touching the tops of the pins with the bowl. Tip; a ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... oft as "our mutual friend" takes aim, Long odds may be laid on the rising game, And against your gaiters level; There's danger even where fish are caught, To those who a wetting fear; For what's worth having must aye be bought, And sport's like life and life's like sport, "It ain't all skittles and beer." ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... a little inn with a big yard. The yard was well stocked, and better than all, was provided with a complete set of skittles, so our boys soon turned the detention into a frolic. The wind was troublesome even in that sheltered quarter, but they were on good standing ground ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... that glorious band of free lances of art. They took a studio apartment and set up their crafts jointly. If either had had the real stuff of the artist, it might have gone well; but two idle and rather uninformed persons in the same studio produce disaster. Munich soon became an affair of beer, skittles, and music in company with the more careless spirits that gathered there that winter. Among them ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... time; it was still quite early. "You must go for a bit of a stroll, father," said Madam Stolpe. "We can't eat anything for a couple of hours yet." So the men went across to Ventegodt's beer-garden, in order to play a game of skittles, while the women prepared ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... occasion just referred to, shortly after Dave had gone on a visit to the tenant of the belted Earl, Uncle Mo having gone away for an hour, to spend it in the parlour of The Rising Sun, a truly respectable house where there were Skittles, and Knurr and Spell. He might, you see, be more than an hour: there was no ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... they were somewhat of a low order. Quoits hung up on several large nails driven into a wall, and there was a covered skittle alley. For there were a good many small farmers of the class just above that of the a labourer in the neighbourhood, and some of them frequented Slam's, and were partial to skittles. ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... gentleman means having nothing to do,' said he, smiling, 'I can certainly lay no claim to the title. Life isn't all beer and skittles with me, any more than it is with you. Which is the better reason for enjoying the present moment, don't you think? Suppose, now, like a kind little girl, you were to show me the way to Beacon Point, which you say ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... proposing to play a game of mental skittles," said the clerical author. "It is enough for me, as I said before, to cut at the roots of ignorance wherever I see it flourishing, not to pull off the leaves one by one as you would have me do by ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... remarked, when the confidings of the Dentist had got so that you could understand what he was driving at. "Though you're being shy with us now, after all we went through together in the summer, is simply skittles." ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... as I prized you, when roaming afield, Loved you, when Life was metheglyn and skittles, Wished you the spell of remembrance to wield, Calling the scenery back and the victuals; Still, when it blows and it rains, and it irks, Here in apartments adjoining a seaview, After a meal that would terrify Turks, Somehow I feel I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... think!" said Gerald, cheerfully. "That's what it was made for, you see. A door that does not fulfil its destiny might just as well be something else, skittles, or a ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... with ghostly kisses. "It seems an eternity that I've been struggling back to you through the outer void and what-not. Sometimes, I confess I all but despaired. Life is not, I assure you, all beer and skittles for the disembodied." ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... 'Skittles!' said John. 'On what? The Pink Un and a measly religious paper? I had to leave Browndean; I had to, I tell you. I got tick at a public, and set up to be the Great Vance; so would you, if you were leading ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... 'That's skittles!' exclaimed the youthful sceptic, using a favourite expression of his father's to express incredulity. 'The reason Brian doesn't come to Kingthorpe is, that he has other fish to fry elsewhere. As if anybody would come to Kingthorpe ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... showed such perfect discipline that Robin was invited to knock them down, as if they had simply been three skittles in a row; he recovered his presence of mind and did it; and looking back at Mary, received signal to be off. Perceiving that his brave love would take no harm—for the tanner was come forth blustering loudly, and Mrs. Popplewell with shrieks and screams enough to prevent ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of "pewters?"—we would have to search for them now. Long cut glasses have taken their place. Where, too, is the invariable Porter, drunk almost exclusively in Pickwick? Bass had not then made its great name. There is no mention of Billiard tables, but much about Skittles and Bagatelle, which were the ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... experience of my life. Already the temporary discomforts produced by heat and soiled garments had faded into insignificance, and assumed a most trivial aspect when I reviewed the journey as a whole. They were part of the game. To again quote "Trilby," tramping "is not all beer and skittles." Your true tramp learns to take things as he finds them and never to expect or ask or the impossible. He will drink the wine of the country, even when sour, without a grimace; pass without grumbling a sleepless night; plod through dust ankle deep, without a murmur; ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... left alone to contemplate the novel and strange scene which presented itself on all sides. There were two quadrangles, each of sufficiently limited dimensions. In the first, there were several young Monks playing at skittles in the centre of the lawn. Both the bowl and pins were of unusually large dimensions, and the direction of the former was confined within boards, fixed in the earth. These athletic young Benedictins (they might ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... groom from the great house, and the publican, and even the two skittle-players (and here note that, howsoever busy all the rest of village human-kind may be, there will always be two people with leisure to play at skittles, wherever village skittles are), what encouragement would be on us to plait and weave! No one looks at us while we plait and weave these words. Clock-mending again. Except for the slight inconvenience of carrying a clock under our arm, and the monotony of making the bell ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... just it. That's just what I thought." He colored more deeply, with a hectic spot in each cheek. "Life isn't all beer and skittles to me, don't you know—and you'd be the kind of thing I haven't got, don't you know?" He leaned toward her beseechingly. ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... she had the skeleton secret of every soul in the place confided to her sacred keeping at some one time or other; and love stories! why, she must have been cram full of them—from the heart-breaking affair of poor little Polly Skittles, the laundress' pretty daughter, up to ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Major used to drop in after that, and show me his new suits and the latest thing in sticks—nobby things, with a silver band round them and his name. Then he got a terrier, and learned to be knowing as to bars. I envied, but luckily had no money. Besides, that's all skittles any way, and you've to pay for it sweetly through the nose in the long-run. Now ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Browns. Now, then, for a polka!—the rattling "Post knock Polka!"—Off! away they go, after a great deal of reluctance and playful diffidence as to who should lead off—Miss Charmer with Arthur Beau, twirling round and round, in and out (like an eel among skittles); followed by Mr. Latimer and Miss Jemima, who evidently intended to do great things, but only cause confusions and contusions, until they get knocked into the open space, in the centre of the human vortex—the ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... shall be damned, or starved, or put in prison, or subjected to the perils of villainous saltpetre, or prevented from doing just what he likes, and that all existence ought to be and shortly will be a vaguely refined beer and skittles—did not lend itself very well to verse. Nor are Hunt's lyrics particularly strong. His best thing by far is the charming trifle (the heroine being, it has been said and also denied, Mrs. Carlyle) which he called a "rondeau," though it ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... together of air to fill the vacuum caused by the transit of the electric fluid? to her the thunder-clap was the utterance of the Almighty. Still in North Germany does the peasant say of thunder, that the angels are playing skittles aloft, and of the snow, that they are shaking up the feather-beds ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... such doctrine as a sinful crime," said Sennacherib. "The fiddle is a recrehation, and was gi'en us for that end. So, in a way, for them as likes it, is skittles. So is marvils, or kite-flyin', or kiss-i'-the-ring. But to talk of a man sittin' on his hinder end, and draggin' rosined hosshair across catgut hour by hour and day by day for 'ears, is a doctrine as I should like to hear Parson ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... still remain, and I am going to put a stop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play at skittles? The whole ancient world fell in ruin, when the big ball rolled. Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches that Louvre where the monarchy displayed itself in furbelows. We have forced its gates. On that day, King Charles X. did not stick well ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... you have made me," said Jin Vin; "since I have given up skittles and trap-ball for tennis and bowls, good English ale for thin Bordeaux and sour Rhenish, roast-beef and pudding for woodcocks and kickshaws—my bat for a sword, my cap for a beaver, my forsooth for a modish oath, my Christmas-box ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... at the pleasure of individuals, without fee or reward from those who employ them. Nor are they cooped up, so as to be excluded from the benefit of fresh air, there being an open area, of a considerable extent, adjacent to the building, on which they may exercise themselves in walking, skittles, bowls, and a variety of other diversions, according to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Pool is pool with three balls and twelve little skittles, placed in order round the table. A stake is determined on, and a price paid out of the pool for every skittle knocked over after striking a ball. An amusing game for a party of ladies ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... rhythmical that one longs for more. His pantomime is larger in movement than hers; his passion less terrible. He too has tricks; he is over-fond of playing with the chairs; in Malia one might say that he plays skittles with them. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... institution is shaped like a long gallery or hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on either hand. Here they work, read, play at skittles, and other games; and when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise out of doors, pass the day together. In one of these rooms, seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a throng of mad-women, black ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... enamoured of his good qualities; while, in like manner, his love for her went on increasing, if that were possible: such were the virtues, the good sense and beauty of his Preciosa. Whenever the gipsies engaged in athletic games, he carried off the prize for running and leaping: he played admirably at skittles and at ball, and pitched the bar with singular strength and dexterity. In a short while, his fame spread through all Estramadura, and there was no part of it where they did not speak of the smart young gitano Andrew, and his graces and accomplishments. As his ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... quartered themselves in Gohlis; and so had Dr. Albrecht and his wife, Sophie, the actress. These with one or two others were enough for converse and for jollity; and there were merry evenings, with wine and talk, and cards and skittles and nonsense. Though ordinarily he 'joked wi' difficulty', Schiller could be jovial enough in a company of congenial spirits. Nevertheless there was but little of the bohemian about him. That dignified seriousness which pervades all his later ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... charge; and the lieutenant, reading the battle in their faces—and no ordinary battle either—shouted to close the door. He shouted none too soon. In a flash the pair were upon us, and at the first blow two sailors went down like skittles. There must have been at least twenty sailors in the room, and all of them willing, yet in that superb charge the pair drove them like sheep, and the naked man had even time to drag the dresser from the clamps fastening it to the wall and hurl it down between himself ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Catholic. They have not got far beyond Plotinus. We do not think it worth while to quote Calvin on this point, for he, as everybody knows, was an invalid for his whole lifetime. But we do take it hard, that the jovial Luther, in the midst of his ale and skittles, should have deliberately censured Juvenal's mens sana in corpore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... paper, as you call it, cost us the hard savings of years, it cost us weeks and months in the bush and amongst the swamps—it cost a man's life, not to mention the niggers we lost. Come, I'm not here to play skittles. Are you on for a deal or not? If you're doubtful about it I've another market. Say the word and we'll drink and part, but if you want to do business, here are my terms. Five thousand for a ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... my servants, who have all decamped. They have taken my wife's jewel-case, containing diamonds to the value of L7,000, cash-box full of securities, fifteen gold repeaters, all the silver plate in the house, together with the dining-room sideboard, set of skittles, twelve-light gas chandelier, drawing-room grand piano, two original landscapes by TURNER, a set of family portraits, dinner service, all my clothes, roasting-jack, and the umbrella-stand. Instantly summon Policeman from over ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... can't help ourselves; the general will get him replaced by some Parisian devoted to his interests," continued Rigou. "If he gets a place in Paris for Gendrin and makes Guerbet chief-justice of the court at Auxerre, he'll knock down our skittles! The gendarmerie is on his side now, and if he gets the courts as well, and keeps such advisers as the abbe and Michaud we sha'n't dance at the wedding; he'll play us some scurvy ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... it without a diagram showing the positions of the players, who have all different names, like men fielding at cricket. The jeu de boule, which you may hear mentioned in Belgium, is quite different from the jeu de balle, and is much the same as skittles. ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... again by half-past nine on Sunday night; and if you're late, you'll have your next week-end knocked off. And there you'll be—and you'll be quite happy. They'll give you plenty to eat, and a can of beer a day, and a bit of bacca—and they'll provide dominoes and skittles for you to play with. And you'll be the most contented set of men alive.—But you won't be men. You won't even be animals. You'll go from number one to number three thousand, a lot of numbered slaves—a new sort ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... it," said Uncle Richard. "One has struck the other, and the great elms have gone down like skittles." ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... when the hardest part of the business was done—let me tell you, for your personal safety, that if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you are in our power, while we are not in yours. Silence and submission! or I shall join your game and upset the skittles. Lucien de Rubempre is under the protection of the strongest power of the day—the Church. Choose ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... understand that he spoke of bees in an allegorical sense only. And my father said reproachfully: "Barbe, you're a holy and worthy woman, but many a time I have noticed that you have a peevish liking to throw yourself thoughtlessly into serious conversation like a dog into a game of skittles." ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... rolling stones that keep going round after a soft job. They talk about looking for gold at the end of a rainbow; if a man wants an employment that'll last him till he dies, let him start out on the soft-job hunt. There's meat and drink in it too, and beer and skittles, for you never hear of them starving, and rarely see them sober; and as for steady sport, cock-fighting isn't in the same county with it. Anyway, this beachcomber carried the woman and her daughter all over the shop, but mostly to out-of-the-way islands, where there were no ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prophesied evil things. My lips parted into a smile as I thought of her words. Did she indeed think me a creature so weak as to pile gloom on the top of sorrow, to shut my eyes to all the joys of life, because supreme happiness was denied me, to play skittles with my self-respect, and—marry a kitchen-maid? I, who had turned over great pages in the book of life! I, who had known Feurgeres! Wallace had left the room for a moment, and I raised my glass full of clear ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... truly religious than all the stupid stillness which the streets of London ever inspired where the Sabbath is so decorously observed. I recollect, in the country parts of England, the churchwardens used to go out during the service to see if they could catch any luckless wight playing at bowls or skittles; yet what could be more harmless? It would even, I think, be a great advantage to the English, if feats of activity (I do not include boxing matches) were encouraged on a Sunday, as it might stop the progress of Methodism, and of that fanatical spirit which ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... than this to happen. Even more than this. Sir Joseph Bowley, Baronet and Member of Parliament, was to play a match at skittles—real ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... fellows find out that they are no better off for the change, and that a Republic does not mean beer and skittles, or, as they would like, unlimited absinthe and public workshops, with short hours and high pay, they will begin to get savage, and then there will be trouble. The worst of it is one can never rely upon the troops, and discipline is certainly more relaxed than usual now that the Emperor has ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... would be better still. Soon it would be spring, summer, going with her mother to Gorbiki. Gorny would come for his furlough, would walk about the garden with her and make love to her. Gruzdev would come too. He would play croquet and skittles with her, and would tell her wonderful things. She had a passionate longing for the garden, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her shoulders shook with laughter, and it seemed to her that there ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... roofless, half-ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles. The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague feeling that in the main it ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... athlete in strength, and was fully conscious that to be a good animal is the first requisite. He swam, rowed, walked, and could tire out any of his colleagues at swordplay or skittles. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... across all the associations of serious-minded men. He was gay, but by no means careless. His practical jokes were more in earnest than verbal ones. Though not an optimist in the absurd sense of maintaining that life is all beer and skittles, he did really seem to maintain that beer and skittles are the most serious part of it. 'What is more immortal,' he would cry, 'than love and war? Type of all desire and joy—beer. Type of all battle ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... spite of his idleness and comparatively early death, he left as many as two hundred pictures, rendered him extremely popular. Besides his favourite subjects, such as 'The Family Jollification,' 'The Feast of the Bean King,' 'Game of Skittles,' he has pictures in a slightly higher atmosphere, such as 'A Pastor Visiting a Young Girl,' 'The Parrot,' 'Schoolmaster with Unmanageable Boys,' 'The Pursuit of Alchemy.' Among the latter a good example is 'The Music ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler |
