"Athletic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... young manhood that makes for the winning of respect and enthusiastic friendship and worthy leadership in our modern college life. Full of energy and spirit, the youth steps forward, physically rugged, of athletic prowess and sportsmanly character, intelligent, frank, clearbrowed, fearless and straightforward of gaze, bearing his books with care and ease and draped with the academic gown, symbol of scholastic achievement. To give this figure of young manhood the solemnity ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... watchers by the beacon. Two have been described. Of the other six, two were stout herdsmen carrying crooks, and holding a couple of mules, and a richly-caparisoned war-horse by the bridle. Near them stood a broad-shouldered, athletic young man, with the fresh complexion, curling brown hair, light eyes, and open Saxon countenance, best seen in his native county of Lancaster. He wore a Lincoln-green tunic, with a bugle suspended from the shoulder by a silken ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... exciting scene at the store occasionally. Yesterday an athletic peasant, in a state of beer, smashed in a counter and emptied two tubs of butter on the floor. His father—a white-haired old man, who was a little boy when the Revolutionary war closed, but who doesn't remember Washington MUCH, came round in the evening and settled for the damages. "My son," ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... such things, there were among them some that further aided the solution of the problem. I saw the larger achievements of the later Romans; and the lesson that was still lacking was plainly there. I saw the Coliseum, a monument of that love of looking on at athletic sports, which is noted as a sign of decadence in the Roman Empire and of energy in the British Empire. I saw the Baths of Caracalla, witnessing to a cult of cleanliness, adduced also to prove the luxury ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... Morena turned the card over and over in his hand. "Holliwell. Holliwell. Frank Holliwell." Yes. One of the fellows that had dropped out. Big, athletic youngster; left college in his junior year and studied for the ministry. Fine chap. Popular. Especially decent to him when he had begun to play that difficult role of a man without a country. Now here was the ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... has been very much enlarged this year by the building of the Gymnasium, and consequent parking about it, and the grading of an athletic field. This will call for ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... of the sickroom. In spite (or, more probably, because) of his continued poor health, Henley never ceased to worship strength and energy; courage and a triumphant belief in a harsh world shine out of the athletic London Voluntaries (1892) and the lightest and most musical lyrics in Hawthorn ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... temperament, came young Hay Denver when released from the toil of the City; hither, too, came Dr. Walker and his two fair daughters, Clara and Ida, and hither also, champions of the lawn, came the short-skirted, muscular widow and her athletic nephew. Ere the summer was gone they knew each other in this quiet nook as they might not have done after years of a stiffer and ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... good humor, surveyed the dark, handsome face and lithe, athletic figure of Jumonville de Villiers. He again raised his cane with the gravity of a Roman pontifex, marking off his templum in the heavens. Suddenly he stopped. He repeated more carefully his survey, and then turned his earnest ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Stephen. He was a short, athletic man, with an extraordinary width of shoulders and a strong-featured and ugly face, still indicative of goodness and a strange power of sympathy. Three little mongrel dogs were sprawled about the study. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... other admirers, and to develop her curiosity about him into interest. He must size up her likes and dislikes; then adapt his salesmanship to her tastes, tactfully subordinating his own preferences to hers. If she is athletic, he will play tennis or go on tramps with her, however tired he feels after his work. If she is sentimental, he will take her canoeing and read poetry to her, though he may prefer detective yarns. Throughout his courtship he will do his utmost to stimulate in her a desire ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... had not yet seen any thing of their sports or athletic exercises, the natives, at the request of some of our officers, entertained us this evening with a boxing-match. Though these games were much inferior, as well in point of solemnity and magnificence, as in the skill and powers of the combatants, to what we had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... done and I was called Yo-me-kol-lick which interpreted is the white bearskin foalded. in the evening the indians run their horses, and we had several foot races betwen the natives and our party with various success. these are a race of hardy strong athletic active men. nothin worthy of notice transpired in the course of the day. Goodrich and McNeal are both very unwell with the pox which they contracted last winter with the Chinnook women this forms my inducement principally for taking them to the falls of the Missouri where during an intervail ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... 'generalship' over all beings (s[a]in[a]patyam, ix. 44. 43-49). There is even a 'celebration of Brahm[a],' a sort of harvest festival, shared, as the text tells, by all the castes; and it must have been something like the religious games of the Greeks, for it was celebrated by athletic contests.[33] Brahm[a], as the old independent creator, sometimes keeps his place, transmitting posterity through his 'seven mind-born sons,' the great seers (iii. 133; xii. 166. 11 ff.). But Brahm[a] himself is born either in the golden egg, as a secondary growth (as in xii. 312. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... from their birth brought up by Bhishma, as if they were his own sons. And the children, having passed through the usual rites of their order, devoted themselves to vows and study. And they grew up into fine young men skilled in the Vedas and all athletic sports. And they became well-skilled in the practice of bow, in horsemanship, in encounters with mace, sword and shield, in the management of elephants in battle, and in the science of morality. Well-read ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... on a rug, solemnly smoking a nargileh, and watching to see that no letter of his generous code of hospitality toward strangers is overlooked by the attendants. These latter seem to be the picked young men of the tribe; fine, strapping fellows, well-dresed, six-footers, and of athletic proportions; perfect specimens of semi- civilized manhood, that would seem better employed in a grenadier regiment than in hovering about the old Sheikh's tent, attending to the filling and lighting of his nargileh, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Violette had a college friend upon whom all the good marks had been showered, who, having been successively schoolmaster, journalist, theatrical critic, a boarder in Mazas prison, insurance agent, director of an athletic ring—he quoted Homer in his harangue—at present pushed back the curtains at the entrance to the Ambigu, and waited for his soup at the barracks gate, holding out an ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... party of typical American lads, courageous, alert, and athletic, who spend a summer camping on an island off the ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... the Wilkina Saga relates it of Egill, Voelundr's—our Wayland Smith's—younger brother. So also in the Norse Saga of Saint Olof, king and martyr; the king, who died in 1030, eager for the conversion of one of his heathen chiefs Eindridi, competes with him in various athletic exercises, first in swimming and then in archery. After several famous shots on either side, the king challenges Eindridi to shoot a tablet off his son's head without hurting the child. Eindridi ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... compulsory three times a week, and Murray took them as a duty rather than a pleasure. Keith them on the whole, and unlike most of the other boys, he preferred the slow routine of the setting-up exercises to the more athletic features. While he never consciously realized the cause of that preference at the time, it would not have been difficult for a fairly intelligent observer ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... tall young man of thirty or thereabouts, smooth-faced, good-looking and athletic. It was quite true that he wore a red coat when tramping through his woods and vales, not because it was fashionable, but because he had a vague horror of being shot at by some near-sighted nimrod from Manhattan. A crowd of old college friends had just left ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... sides of which were lined with barns, stables, and the houses of the retainers. Not unfrequently the thatched roofs of these outbuildings taking fire, compelled the castle to surrender. The Castle "green," whether within or without the walls, was the usual scene of rural sports and athletic games, of which, at all periods, our ancestors were so fond. Of the interior economy of the Milesian rath, or dun, we know less than of the Norman tower, where, before the huge kitchen chimney, the heavy-laden spit was turned by hand, while the dining-hall ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... was now in his thirty-sixth year. He had a handsome, jolly-looking face; stood six feet two in his stockings; and measured more than a cloth-yard shaft across the shoulders—athletic proportions derived from his father the dragoon. And, if it had not been for a taste for plotting, which was continually getting him into scrapes, he might have been accounted a respectable ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... athletic, and with a sudden wrench I freed my wrists from the fellow's grip, and, hitting him one from the shoulder right between the eyes, sent him spinning back against the chest of drawers. To act swiftly was my only chance. If ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... Right Reverend George Augustus Selwyn to take up the position of bishop of the divided flock. This remarkable man was then in the prime of early manhood, and he brought with him not only a lithe athletic frame well fitted to endure hardship; not only the culture of Cambridge and of Eton, where he had learned and taught, and the courtly atmosphere of Windsor, where he had exercised his ministry; but above all he brought with him ideals. These took the form of a strong centralised government ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... have reached power and influence here, but also the Malays, natives of India, Arabs, etc. The Chinese rickshaw men here are of superb physique, and the excellence of the service renders this the most agreeable method of getting about. Moreover, it is a pleasure to watch their athletic movements and long easy stride, as if they were half flying. Some of them pass the carriages. They are jolly, like big children, and are natural teetotalers, but they sometimes ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... same from the Arctic Ocean to Fuegia." The tribes differ somewhat, some being devoted to hunting, according to the ancient, uncivilised way, others take to the tilling of the ground. One tribe may be warlike, another will be more effeminate, while both sexes appear to have a liking for athletic exercises. The following descriptive passage is borrowed from Dr ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... however, exacted on these summer Sunday evenings, when practice with the bow and other athletic sports were enjoined by Government, and, moreover, the youths were with so trustworthy a member of the household as ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... was a year older than Teddy. Both were alert and vigorous young Americans, bright in their studies and fond of athletic sports. Teddy was impulsive and given to playing practical jokes, and a large part of Fred's time was taken up in getting his ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... shapeless level all, Lest aught impede the swiftly rolling ball; And trembling, shrinking from the fatal blow, Far, far away thy hapless children go. Ill fares the place, to luxury a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and minds decay: Athletic sports may flourish or may fade, Fashion may make them, even as it has made; But the broad Parks, the city's joy and pride, When once destroyed ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... performed the duty of pilot, remained silent and removed from all the merriment. He was a youth of athletic build and striking features, with large, sad eyes and compressed lips. His black hair, long and unkempt, fell over a stout neck. A dark striped shirt afforded a suggestion through its folds of the powerful ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... trip on which a "blow-out" occurs is, of course, to keep the ladies of the party amused during the delay. This can be accomplished by any of the conventional methods, such as card tricks, handsprings, and other feats of athletic agility, or making funny jokes about the host who is ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her heart failed her anew. Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since her engagement. Her voice was gruffer, her manner more downright, and she was inclined to patronize the more foolish virgin. Margaret was silly enough to be pained at this. ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... our respect by their intelligence. Whence do they come, these damsels, so young, so charming? It is that they have arrived from the metropolis at the request of their brothers, their cousins—what do I know of it? perhaps their pretendants—of whom they wish to enhance with their applause the athletic triumph. . . . . . After all, they are adorable, these English misses! . . . . . On the bank. . . . One hears the portentous echo of the Five-Minutes-Gun. Moment tremendous! They have started: one sees already the strokesman of the first-boat. One would say a whole University ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... grown more athletic; his eye, more steadfast and less restless, looks you full in the face. His smile is more open, but there is a melancholy in his expression almost approaching to gloom. His dress is the same as that of Pisistratus and Guy,—white vest ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with is quite a tragedy," she said unconcernedly, picking up the conversation where she had dropped it. "I knew him when he left college. He was an athletic fellow, a handsome man. His people were nice, but not rich. He was planning to go to Montana to take a place in some mines, but he got engaged to the daughter of a very wealthy man. He didn't go. He married Miss Prudence Fisher, and he ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... in words. He simply took one step forward, pounced upon his insubordinate follower, and with a single swing of his athletic frame sent him flying headlong through the door, so that this free and independent burgher lit upon his head in the passage, smashing his pipe and considerably damaging his best feature—his nose. "There," said Muller, shutting the door after ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... the reputation of the American boy, so far as regarded Stoke-Newington's opinion, by assuring his mates when they marvelled over his athletic triumphs and feats of skill that all the boys in ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... be denied. As to the assertion that man makes laws, or that his frame is of more robust material, it is no argument, as a revolt on the part of the other sex would soon do away with such advantage; and men, brought up as nursery-maids, would soon succumb to women who were accustomed to athletic sports from their youth upwards. After a great deal of cogitation we came to the conclusion, that there is a great difference between the action in the minds of men and women; the machinery of the latter being more complex than that of our own sex. A man's mind ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... afternoon Abellino sent his seconds to the carpenter. The first was named Livius. In all affairs of honour his opinion was a veritable canon to the jeunesse doree of the day. The other second, Conrad, was an herculean, athletic-looking fellow, whom, on that very account, every challenger tried to secure in those cases when a little judicious bullying might be necessary. This swash-buckler had, moreover, a most imposing countenance, and a voice capable of frightening ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... took a seat beside her with Evangeline clasped in her arms. Neither of the children had watched a game before, and Girlie, not being able to understand a single move, soon found it insufferably stupid. But Mary became more and more interested in watching a tall, athletic figure in outing flannels and white shoes, who swung his racket with the deftness of an expert, and who flashed an amused smile at her over the net occasionally, as if he understood the situation and was ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... baths. All through the days he complained of feeling chilled. He never seemed to get thoroughly warmed, and of us all he was the one who suffered most keenly from the cold. It was all the more surprising, for his appearance was always that of a man in the pink of athletic fitness—ruddy-faced, clear-eyed, ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... for three days, and on several occasions amused themselves by engaging in various games and other athletic exercises, in which Tecumseh generally proved himself victorious. His strength, and power of muscular action, were remarkably great, and in the opinion of those who attended the council, corresponded with the high order of his ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... United States squadron passed a gay winter in Messina in 1819. Farragut was not yet eighteen years of age, but his bodily development had kept pace with his mental, and he writes that he always held his own at this time in all athletic exercises. The succeeding spring and summer were again spent in routine cruising on board the Franklin, seventy-four, which had taken the place of the Washington. In the fall of 1819 the squadron was in Gibraltar; and there, "after ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... girl she drew; I promised to give her a signature of Mrs. Hemans (which I wrote for her that very evening); and described a fox-hunt, at which I had seen Thomas Moore and Samuel Rogers, Esquires; and a boxing-match, in which the athletic author of "Pelham" was pitched against the hardy mountain bard, Wordsworth. You see my education was not neglected, for though I have never read the works of the above-named ladies and gentlemen, yet I ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and clasped Matty in his arms; and half a dozen athletic fellows and one old and debauched-looking man followed, and the door was immediately ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... if untidy, was a very pleasant apartment, decorated extensively with evidences of Harry's athletic tastes. There were boxing-gloves, fencing-foils, dumb-bells, and other aids to muscular exertion; silver cups won at college sports were ranged on the mantelpiece; on one wall hung a selection of savage weapons which Harry had brought from Africa and the South Seas; on the ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the banks of the Angara, and were ushered into the presence of the Tsar's Viceroy, who governs a district about the size of Europe. General Panteleyeff was a middle-aged man, with white moustache, light blue eyes, and a spare athletic figure, displayed to advantage by a smart dark green uniform. The General is a personal friend of the Emperor, and the cross of St. Andrew and a tunic covered with various orders bore witness to their wearer's distinguished career. He received me most cordially, and asked many questions regarding ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... visits, with fresh school-notes and surprises,— With nettling pride they sprung the word "Athletic," With much advice and urgings sympathetic Anent "Athletic exercises." Wise as Lad might look, quoth Paul: "I've pondered o'er that 'Athletic,' but I mean to take, before ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... concealed ruler, and with a blow on the head, knocked the young giant sprawling, then utilizing all my athletic training, I tripped and banged his followers till they fled pell-mell to their benches. Finally, I hypnotized my audience with great eloquence, stating that I would give them teaching or clubbing as they ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Electric Tower. Temple of Music. Architecture. Coloring of the "Rainbow City." Symbolism of Coloring. Sculpture. Electrical Illumination. The Chaining of Niagara. The Midway. The Athletic Congress. Conservatory. The Spanish-American Countries Represented. United ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... approaching from the opposite bank. An athletic aboriginal native, in an attitude that seemed studiedly graceful, was bending to the stout rope, which, attached to either side of the river, served to propel the punt. He had been spearing fish; for his wife, or ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... to the old house. He has, too, his social duties; he is, perhaps, the head or mainspring of a church movement—this is not for profit, but from conviction. His lady is carried to and fro in the brougham, making social visits. He promotes athletic clubs, reading-rooms, shows, exhibitions. He is eagerly seized upon by promoters of all kinds, because he possesses the gift of organisation. It becomes a labour merely to catalogue his engagements like this. Let the rain rain, or the sun shine, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... though still a boy, had nearly attained his full stature and weight. He was athletic in his tastes, and given to riding the velocipede of those days, a heavy, bonebreaking machine, moved not by pedals but by thrusting the feet against the ground. This Sumner kept in his room, carrying it painfully up the stairs, and practised ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... with forests, orange groves, and rank vegetation, the site of the ancient Alachua, the capital of a famous and powerful tribe, who in days of old could assemble thousands at bull-play and other athletic exercises "over these then happy fields and green plains." "Almost every step we take," adds he, "over these fertile heights, discovers the remains and traces of ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... I answered, and it was with greatest mildness that we sauntered up Paradise Ridge and started down the other side. And as I drove along carefully my mind began to work out into the byways of the situation. I don't see how my athletic and executive generation is going to do its appointed work in its day if we are going to go on using the same set of social conventions that tied up our mothers. As we neared the cross-road that turned off to Sam's brier-patch I began to wonder how long it would take me ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... those who have recently escaped from the rigour of a stern winter. Rude, and sufficiently picturesque garden-seats, were scattered about, and on one of these were seated the captain and his wife; he, with his hair sprinkled with grey, a hale, athletic, healthy man of sixty, and she a fresh-looking, mild-featured, and still handsome matron of forty-eight. In front, stood a venerable-looking personage, of small stature, dressed in rusty black, of the cut that denoted the attire of a clergyman, before it was considered aristocratic to wear ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Somme were sown with the bodies of thousands of the finest specimens of the British race. What a cost was paid for the example and the lesson! Never again during the war had Britain such fine athletic men, such gallant and heroic sons to fight her battles. No horror or hardship could subdue their spirit. Again and again, through shattered ranks and over ground covered with the fallen, they went forward to the supreme sacrifice as cheerfully and as light-heartedly as if they were out for ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... the trail, and they were quite sure that they could have done all the paddling, too. And Betty did learn, in after years, not only to paddle, but also to carry her own canoe, for she grew to be a big, strong, athletic girl, with rosy cheeks ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... which passed off quickly. Remaining on his knees he contemplated sadly the athletic body of as fine a seaman as ever had drawn a cutlass, laid a gun, or passed the weather earring in a gale, lying stiff and cold, his cheery, fearless spirit departed—perhaps turning to him, his boy chum, to his ship out there rolling on the grey seas off an iron-bound coast, at the ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... and, while smoothing the way before it, would have subjected it to methods and robbed it of originality of feeling and conception. "Tragedy, born sublime, terrible, vigorous, heroic, the life of liberty, ... was, as it were, redeemed by Vittorio Alfieri, reassumed the masculine, athletic forms of its original existence, and recommenced the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Demonstration recently held in Exeter Hall, Sir RICHARD WEBSTER, the Attorney-General, said that it was supposed by many that it was impossible to enjoy athletic pursuits without becoming interested in a pecuniary sense. He should therefore like to add, not for the purpose of holding himself up as an example, that, during his entire interest in sports of all kinds, he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... instant heat through Bonbright. For an instant he meditated jerking the man from that gate by the nape of the neck and teaching him a lesson with his athletic foot.... It was not fear of the result that deterred him; it was the thought that this man was his own employee, placed there by him for this very purpose. If the guard made HIM bristle with rage, how would the sight of the man and his club affect the strikers? He was a ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... time that I returned to our hero, Dr. Wallis Budge. Although Budge is a golfer of world-wide experience, having "conducted excavations in Egypt, the Island of Meroe, Nineveh and Mesopotamia," it is upon his mental rather than his athletic abilities that the author dwells most lovingly. The fact that in 1886 he wrote a pamphlet upon The Coptic History of Elijah the Tishbite, and followed it up in 1888 with one on The Coptic Martyrdom of George of Cappadocia (which ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... The game is an athletic sport, and much skill can be developed in the throwing of the javelins and also in the tossing of the hoop so as to prevent scoring ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... a young man of medium height, whose great breadth and depth of chest made him look shorter than he really was. His jaw was square, and protruded slightly; and this, combined with a certain athletic jauntiness of carriage and a pair of piercing brown eyes very much like those of a bull-terrier, gave him an air of aggressiveness, which belied his character. He was not aggressive. He had the good-nature as well as the eyes of a bull-terrier. Also, he possessed, when stirred, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... no great variety in the Circassian festivals, for whatever be the object of them, there is the same roasting of sheep and oxen, the same singing and dancing, the same mark-firing, horse-racing, and athletic games. The private feasts, also, are accompanied with amusements very similar in character, excepting that there is generally a very long succession of dishes, with interchange of presents between hosts and guests, and also with the difference that religious ceremonies are practised ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... crowned when there began to be strange murmurings among the nobles. They said that my brother was such a clever fellow, and I so stupid, that he should be reigning in my stead. As he had always been noted throughout the kingdom as a very athletic young man, who found learning a great trouble, I was convinced that my sister-in-law was at the bottom of ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... trow-laughter or ghost-lights. No; nor by stone walls and high windows! The walls of Trullyabister were rugged, and, on that side at any rate, perforated by holes convenient for supporting the toe of a boot, and for otherwise assisting an athletic youth, thirsting for information, to solve the ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... greatly pleased its author. He makes Mrs. Caudle exclaim, when protesting against her spouse's lapse into billiards—"There's the manly and athletic game of cribbage!" ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... that he and the bishop were the same age, forty-eight. We contrasted Pavlovitch's spare athletic frame with the well-fed shape of the bishop, and felt instinctively which was the better Christian. Coffee and slatka were brought in. This slatka is always handed to callers in well-regulated Serbian households. It is jam accompanied by many little spoons and glasses of water. Each guest ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... person the united qualities of activity and strength. Even at the period we are describing, when this once celebrated character was forty years of age, it was well known that in fleetness of foot there was no man in the province able to compete with him. In athletic exercises that required strength and skill he never had a rival, but one—with whom the reader will soon be made acquainted. He was wrapped loosely in a gray frieze big-coat, or cothamore, as it is called in Irish—wore a hat of two colors, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... a pretty fine fellow, and I had come to like him; but I soon found myself wondering what he had ever done to deserve winning such a girl as Helen Bond. She was what I should describe as the ideal type of "new" woman,—tall and athletic, yet without any affectation of mannishness. The very first thought that struck me was the incongruousness of a girl of her type suffering from an attack of "nerves," and I felt sure it must be as Craig had said, ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... society journals had lately announced that she had few peers in all the great metropolis. Chestnut brown hair; dark, serious and steady eyes; an exquisite complexion and rarely regular features all conspired to render the young girl wonderfully attractive. Her stride was athletic, free and graceful; her slender form well poised and dignified. Patsy, the "plug-ugly," as she called herself, was so bright and animated and her blue eyes sparkled so constantly with fun and good humor, that she attracted fully as much attention as ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... up the pursuit, and to direct his march toward Dublin; and M'Murchad, when he could no longer impede their progress, solicited and obtained a parley with the Earl of Gloucester, the commander of the rear-guard. The chieftain was an athletic man; he came to the conference mounted on a gray charger, which had cost him four hundred head of cattle, and brandished with ease and dexterity a heavy spear in his hand. He seemed willing to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... told, quite meekly, looking up with a good deal of curiosity at this tall athletic creature, with the handsome head and masterful manner. Reay caught his enquiring ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... place and bring her back to us—el Fathah, yah Beshoosheh!' and we said it together. I could have laid my head on Sheykh Gibreel's wall and howled. I thanked him as well as I could for caring about one like me while his own troubles were so heavy. I shall never forget that tall athletic figure and the gentle brown face, with the eleven days' moon of Zulheggeh, and the shadow of the palm tree. That was my farewell. 'The voice of the miserable is with thee, shall God ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... ready for a row upon the clear, shining water. The evening was delightful, the sun just setting, the low, wooded shores (rising beyond into higher hills) flooded with golden light, the temperature elysian, our oarsman broad browed, broad shouldered, and athletic, our boat one of the fairy craft, sharp at both ends, and light as possible, borne by guides over portages from lake to lake, and the whole scene as placidly beautiful and reposeful as the most vivid imagination could desire. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... reaching up to extinguish the gas once more, when a big, athletic blonde man, whose appearance and garb proclaimed him ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... second in which the athletic baronet stood, as it were breathless and incredulous, and then his Herculean fist whirled in the air with a most unseemly oath: the girl screamed, and a crash of glass and crockery, whisked away by their ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... any gemman so ignorant as to require a traduction, I refer him to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism; who, I trust, still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour, and athletic as well as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... furniture, upon a mattress on the floor,— emaciated, ashy pale, with hollow voice and sunken eyes,— lay the boy George, whom we took out a small, bright boy of fourteen from a Boston public school, who fought himself into a position on board ship (ante, p. 295), and whom we brought home a tall, athletic youth, that might have been the pride and support of his widowed mother. There he lay, not over nineteen years of age, ruined by every vice a sailor's life absorbs. He took my hand in his wasted feeble fingers, and talked a little with his hollow, death-smitten ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... splendid physique, her athletic tendencies, her endurance and pluck, compelled Jock's masculine admiration. Her love for her brother, her tenderness and cheerfulness toward him, won his heart; but her mental make-up, her strange seriousness where her own private interests were concerned, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... embarrass her. He was too full of tact, and his sensibilities were so fine that, with his easy command of language, he must be agreeable quand meme; and such an opportunity would have given him an easy lead away from the athletic Kildare, whom I suspected strongly of being a rival for Miss Westonhaugh's favour. There is an easy air of familiar proprietorship about an Englishman in love that is not to be mistaken. It is a subtle thing, and expresses itself neither in word nor deed in ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... level brows. Next she met my eyes. If there was in her consciousness the slightest trace of doubt, or fear, or admission that her sex might be less responsible than ours, she did not show it. Rather in the blue eyes and the athletic poise of chin, and neck, and shoulders there was a ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... GAMES, national athletic contests in Greece—Olympian, at Olympia, Pythian, near Delphi, seat of Apollo's oracle, Isthmian, on the Corinthian Isthmus, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... had been prominent in all college athletic games; he had been a member of the 'varsity eight in one of its contests with Yale, and had won a game for Harvard with Yale at base ball by making a home run in the tenth inning on a tied score. He was a good musician and fine ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... answer for this, and looked perplexedly at Tom, who was lost in admiration of a neighboring group engaged in athletic exercises. He felt rather than heard the question put by the Mentor, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... off his drink and blinked at the fiery strength of it. Now why should Arnold say that? When had ECAIAC ever fouled up? He watched the man across the desk. Jeff Arnold was a vigorous, striking specimen, handsome in an athletic way, with long stubborn jaw and unhappy gray eyes beneath his unruly hair; the sort of face that intrigues women, Beardsley catalogued from past experience. And, he added, altogether too young a man to be ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... by the toe of Wolgast's football shoe, soared upward from the twenty-five-yard line. It described an arc, flying neatly over and between the goal-posts at one end of the athletic field. ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... emptied the bowl of his pipe, and thrust the pipe into the breast-pocket of his flannel shirt. He was bareheaded. His hair was blond, shot a little with gray. He was perhaps thirty-eight, no taller than the girl herself, slim-waisted, with trim, athletic shoulders. His eyes, as they rested on the still-fluttering curtains, were a cold and steady gray. His face was thin and bronzed, his nose a trifle prominent. He was a man far from handsome, and yet there was something of fascination and strength ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... offered the finest exhibition of the fox-chase that is known in Europe; and then, as now, this is the best adapted among all known varieties of hunting to the exhibition of adventurous and skilful riding, and generally, perhaps, to the development of manly and athletic qualities. Lord Carbery, during the season, might be immoderately addicted to this mode of sporting, having naturally a pleasurable feeling connected with his own reputation as a skilful and fearless horseman. But, though the chases were in those days longer than they are at present, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... mental originality. The idols of the place were good-humoured, modest, orderly athletes. The masters made friends with them because a good mutual understanding conduced to discipline, and they were, moreover, pleasant and cheerful companions. But boys of character and force, unless they were also athletic, were apt to be overlooked. The theory of government was not to interfere, and there was an absence of enthusiasm and inspiration. The headmaster was Dr. Hornby, afterwards provost, a courteous, handsome, dignified ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was still pursuing the tenor of his way. The interest of marriage was not, therefore, in his case a fresh burden on a soul already laden with a variety of side pursuits. He was neither socially nor philanthropically active; he was not a club man, nor an athletic enthusiast; he was on no committees; he voted on election days, but he did not take an active part in politics. For Selma's sake all this must be changed; and he was glad to acknowledge that he owed it to himself as well as to ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Chaldaea in the drawing and composition of their designs, and in the use of colour or chisel; but the qualities and defects peculiar to their own race give a certain character of originality to this borrowed art. They exaggerated the stern and athletic aspect of their models, making the figure thick-set, the muscles extraordinarily enlarged, and the features ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the chief indigenous athletic exercise of India. Nearly every village has its band of wrestlers and its gymnasium. The latter is often a substantial house as village houses go, much decorated with wall paintings inside and out. Besides the wrestling-pit, with its thick layer of soft earth, it often contains ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father's home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war. I was then a child of but five years, yet I well remember the tall, dark, smooth-faced, athletic man whom ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... drooping her head, unable to meet his searching, steady black eyes riveted upon hers; and, drawing his tall athletic figure to its utmost height, he ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Ormsby, club-man, gentleman of athletic leisure, and inheritor of the Ormsby millions, was pacing back and forth before the handful of fire in the drawing-room grate when ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... impressed man so much prided himself would have betrayed his origin, had other evidence been wanting. Still there was a tenacity about an English ship of war, in that day, that did not easily permit an athletic hand to escape its grasp, when it had once closed upon him. In a great and enterprising service, like that of Great Britain, an esprit de corps existed in the respective ships, which made them the rivals of each other, and ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of Ben Mayberry's fondness for athletic sports, and the great benefit he gained from the exercise thus obtained. When business permitted, I visited the ball grounds, where his skill made him the favorite of the enthusiastic crowd which always assembled there. He played shortstop, and his activity in picking up hot grounders and ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... are no mere trifles below the dignity of history; they help to explain the extraordinary hold Henry obtained over popular imagination. Suppose there ascended the throne to-day a young prince, the hero of the athletic world, the finest oar, the best bat, the crack marksman of his day, it is easy to imagine the enthusiastic support he would receive from thousands of his people who care much for sport, and nothing at all for politics. Suppose also that that prince were endowed ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... kindness of their uncle Sancho, who, to save them the troubles of the throne, assumed it himself and transmitted it to his children,—all this some half dozen centuries ago. At every coronation the duke formally protests; an athletic and sinister-looking court headsman comes down to his palace in the Carrera San Geronimo, and by threats of immediate decapitation induces the duke to sign a paper abdicating his rights to the throne of all the Spains. The duke eats the Bourbon leek ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... with such a sacrilegious load: "Pre-eminent is here my right. I stand "To those who strive to hoist him in, oppos'd. "Bold and outrageous, far beyond the rest, "Was Lycabas; from Tuscan shore exil'd "For deeds of murderous violence: he grasp'd "My throat with force athletic, as I stood, "And in the waves had flung me; but sore stunn'd, "A cable caught, and sav'd me. Loud the crew "The impious deed applauded. Bacchus rose, "(The boy was Bacchus!) with the tumult loud "Rous'd from his sleep;—the fumes of wine dispell'd, "His ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... horn panes of some homely, massive lantern. Speculative eyes of the sort that seem to search horizons and gather knowledge there, but shrink from the faces of women; a head of brown hair, short cut but untidy, an athletic, manlike form to which, bizarrely enough, a slight stoop, the stoop of a student, seemed to give distinction, and hands slender and shapely as those of an Eastern—such were the characteristics of Morris Monk, or at least those of them that the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Strong—why there's Billy Strong across the street. Come over and I'll present you, Carty. Just the chap you want to meet. He's a great athlete—on the water-polo team of the New York Athletic Club, you know—as much of an old sport as you are." And Reed found himself swung across and standing before a powerful, big figure of a man, almost before he could answer. There was another man with the distinguished Billy, and Reed had not regarded the two for more than one ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... youth exchanged the usual greetings with those who had gathered around him. He showed no striking peculiarity, except in his sombre dress, which was in deep contrast with that of the other persons present. His athletic build, his appearance, and every movement he made showed, however, that a fine mind and a healthy body had both been highly developed. You could see from his frank and vivacious face that he had Spanish blood in his veins. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... the fateful gate, I ran rapidly along the edge of the clearing, taking the ground in the mighty leaps that had first made me famous upon Barsoom. Thirty, fifty, a hundred feet at a bound are nothing for the muscles of an athletic Earth man upon Mars. ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... way through the crowd, and Tom and Bob keeping close in his rear, came directly up to the principal performers in this interesting scene, and found honest Pat Murphy holding the man by his collar, while he was twisting and writhing to get released from the strong and determined grasp of the athletic Hibernian. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Barkins; "he needn't make such a jolly mystery of it. It's Chinese athletic sports. Look, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... the last Saturday in October, was the first hard test of the season. The outcome of the struggle with Wilton had always been taken at Ridgley as an indication of the probable result of the game with Jefferson,—the final athletic event of the year and the crisis of the football season. If Ridgley pushed back the sturdy Wilton team and snatched victory from the wearers of the purple, then there were reasonable grounds for hoping that three weeks later there ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... go to his dressing-room and put on his white sweater, black breeches, black stockings: an athletic costume which he always kept at the theater in case of need. And quick, in the saddle: the moment had come! He must succeed, now or never! And Jimmy, calm and sure of himself, took his seat on the aerobike. A great ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... a tall, athletic young man, clad in evening dress, as also was the editor, a dyspeptic-looking gentleman named Maynard. There was the former's frail young wife, and also an elderly lady, who taught kindergarten in the settlement, and a young college student, a beautiful girl with an intense and earnest face. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... His Excellency, Sir Howard Douglas, was a man of no ordinary stamp. He had ability and coolness; the last named quality had gained him much favour from the veteran commander, and a desire to retain his service. Tall, slight and athletic, Mr. Howe was foremost in all feats of physical sports. Horse racing was his greatest mania. Few could manage a horse as he, and fewer still could own one faster than his favourite mare, Bess. Quickly he ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... himself each morning to the corner saloon of Flaherty Brothers, and there establish himself upon the sidewalk, with one foot resting on the bootblack's stand, observing the panorama of the street until the pace of time brought twelve o'clock and the dinner hour. And Mr. "Tiger" McQuirk, with his athletic seventy inches, well trained in sport and battle; his smooth, pale, solid, amiable face—blue where the razor had travelled; his carefully considered clothes and air of capability, was himself a spectacle not ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... horrible scarecrow, toothless and senile, lying here in its filthy rags, with the hand raised in an impotent menace, was once the brilliant Sesostris, the master of kings, and by virtue of his strength and beauty the demigod also, whose muscular limbs and deep athletic chest many colossal statues at Memphis, at Thebes, at Luxor, reproduce and try to make eternal. . ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... the slender, though athletic figure of the Circus Boy, almost knocking the breath ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... made no special study of the subject. The plain fact was that by his twenty-fifth year, Washington was an unusually presentable young man, more than six feet tall, broad-shouldered, very strong, slender and athletic, carefully polite in his manners, a boon companion, though he talked little, a sound and deliberate thinker; moreover, the part he had taken in the war with the Indians and the French made him almost a popular ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... must be seized upon by those who guide the children, as means for giving drive and direction to further development. A child who devotes too much time to athletics and too little to literature, may be drawn to reading through books about athletic contests of the classics, or through modern stories of college life. On the other hand, the boy who is prone to get his satisfactions vicariously and to neglect active participation in games and other activities, must be led through ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... his arms, as into those of a parent or benefactor. He was sitting by the fire in a large elbow-chair, smoking. He received us most kindly, and in a very few minutes we felt as old friends. He appeared a large, athletic man, then in his seventy-first year, with thick, bushy, black hair, retaining his sight so completely as to read aloud rapidly the smallest type of a newspaper. He was dressed in very plain, brown clothes, but of good quality, with large flaps to his waistcoat, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... permit an artist an extra half-inch of hair, and he must be very well groomed, very prosperous, businesslike, and, in appearance at least, athletic—even if he must ask his tailor to furnish the look of brawn. Personally, I prefer the mode of to-day, but with to-day's fashion we should not have had Chopin, such music as he drew from his familiar and daemon, the piano, and such letters as he wrote about the Gladkovska ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... painting were formed among themselves. They decorated their porticos and their saloons with the plunder of the East. The stage was never more than an artificial taste with them; their delight was the delight of barbarians, in spectacles, in athletic exercises, in horse-races and chariot-races, in the combats of wild animals in the circus, combats of men with beasts on choice occasions, and, as a rare excitement, in fights between men and men, when select slaves trained as gladiators were matched in pairs to kill each ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... clubs exist, also under the control of the corps, but they do not play a very prominent part, for the taste for athletic exercises is confined to a small minority. Considering the small number of players, the proficiency attained in the exotic games of football and hockey is surprisingly high. The rowing is even better, and attracts a larger number, being perhaps ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... an effort. I, the pale, serious girl, loved with a wild idolatry the gay and careless youth. Never, from that day till now, have I seen a man so perfect in all manly beauty. Strength and symmetry were united in his tall, athletic figure; his features were large, but nobly formed; his hair, of a sunny hue, fell in rich masses over a broad, white brow. So might Apollo have looked in the flush of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... of our hero was about thirty-four years. He was of a robust constitution, of athletic build, and so admirably proportioned and of so commanding an appearance that, if he had worn a uniform, he would have presented the most martial air and figure that it is possible to imagine. His hair and beard were blond in color, but in his countenance there was none of the phlegmatic imperturbability ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... two personalities presented an agreeable, almost a fascinating study. Dominey was six feet two in height and had to its fullest extent the natural distinction of his class, together with the half military, half athletic bearing which seemed to have been so marvellously restored to him. His complexion was no more than becomingly tanned; his slight moustache, trimmed very close to the upper lip, was of the same ruddy brown shade as his sleekly brushed hair. The woman, who ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... off, and Bainton watched him go. As the clap gate opened and swung to again, and his straight athletic figure disappeared, the old gardener still stood for a ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... and his suit-case climbed out of the mail-hack in Elmore, a little town five miles off the railroad down in the black-jack country of Arkansas. Jimmy, looking like an athletic young senior just home from college, went down the board side-walk ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... but the High School of Commerce, where it is optional. With one or two exceptions, the little given is mainly indoor gymnastics of a formal sort owing to the general lack of sufficiently large athletic fields, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... subject. The game of spinning, throwing and catching the diabolo was rapidly elaborated in various directions, both as an exercise of skill in doing tricks, and in "diabolo tennis" and other ways as an athletic pastime. From Paris, Ostend and the chief French seaside resorts, where it became popular in 1906, its vogue spread in 1907 so that in France and England it became the fashionable "rage" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... who conducted the seamen to prison, although stout athletic fellows, and, doubtless, capable of fighting like heroes, were short of stature, so that the British tars looked down on them with a patronising expression of countenance, and one or two even ventured on a few facetious remarks. Bill ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... gardener, with sumptuous drawing-rooms, like the Purple Parlor of the St. DuBarry, with body-servants in the beauty-shops, with coachmen on the taxi-cabs, with seclusion in the Ladies' Department of the Novellapolis Athletic Club—an infinitely resourceful estate, which Margaret knows as intimately as ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... in a metaphorical and spiritual sense.[7] In the sexual sphere sublimation is of vital importance because it comes into question throughout the whole of life, and our relation to it must intimately affect our conception of morality. The element of athletic asceticism which is a part of all virility, and is found even—indeed often in a high degree—among savages, has its main moral justification as one aid to sublimation. Throughout life sublimation acts by transforming some part at all events of ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis |
