"Croquet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perhaps look quite fit for a croquet party as he stands now, with a flour-scoop in one hand and a pound of tobacco in the other. But he looks like a man at work, and also like a gentleman, as he is. "Jack ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... as much as he can impart to her; while a man who, not caring much about books, is still gentleman enough to value good breeding, felt a relief in exchanging the forms of his native language without the shock of hearing that a bishop was "a swell" or a croquet-party "awfully jolly." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tell you something of the history of these attempts by the elders to curb the everlasting spirit of youth. At one time they would have eliminated all the sports. But we didn't let croquet become the national game! You ask what this nation of ours will become, and in reply I ask you what will you make ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... played with one zero, and at which the smallest sum admitted is 5frs., and the largest 6000 frs. or 240. The fourth room, ornamented with panel paintings by Clairin and Boulanger, representing young lady riders, croquet-players, fencers, fishers, archers, mountaineers, shooters, and sailors, is devoted to trente-et-quarante, at which the smallest sum admitted is 20 frs., and the largest 12,000 frs. or 480. Only French coin and notes taken ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... of Scottish extraction. The climate is not unlike that of Scotland. The winters are misty and rainy, but not excessively cold. So violent are the winds that it is said to be impossible to play tennis or croquet, unless walls are erected as shelter, while cabbages grown in the kitchen-gardens of the shepherds, the only cultivated ground, are at times uprooted and scattered like straw. The surface, much of which is bogland, is in some parts ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... and croquet for them, and they are all jolly well treated. Besides other amusements, they have a band twice a week, and the other day they got ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he, the Celestial Observer, proceeds to describe our billiard matches, our tennis tournaments, our croquet parties. Maybe it never occurs to him that a large section of our race surrounded by Eternity, would devote its entire span of life to sheer killing of time. A middle-aged friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, a M.A. of ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... to play. There were trees for hide-and-seek, flat spots for croquet, and little hills and hollows for everything else. The village children used this for a sort of park, and the river seemed to look on and laugh to see them so gay. It was a very sober, steady river above and below, ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... 'sixties of the last century that cigarette-smoking by women began to creep in. Mortimer Collins, writing in 1869, in a curious outburst against the use of tobacco by young men, said, "When one hears of sly cigarettes between feminine lips at croquet parties, there is no more to be said." Since that date cigarette-smoking has become increasingly popular among women, and the term "sly" has long ceased to be applicable. "Punch's Pocket-Book" for 1878 had an amusing skit on a ladies' ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... cheat at cards. Croupiers in gambling halls know things much worse. They say that they must watch women much more than men because they are not only more frequent cheaters, but more expert. Even at croquet and lawn-tennis girls are unspeakably smart about cheating if they can thereby put their masculine opponents impudently at ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... morocco travelling-bag, stereoscope with six views, silver napkin-ring, compound microscope, lady's work-box, sheet-music or books worth $5.00. For twenty, at $1.60 each, select any one of the following: a fine croquet-set, a powerful opera-glass, a toilet case, Webster's Dictionary (unabridged), sheet-music or ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... absorbed in a folio containing the works of the sainted Father Parsons, and then the Earl showed Logan and Father Riccoboni over the house. From a window of the gallery Scremerston could be descried playing croquet with Miss Willoughby, an apparition radiant ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... sense of the humorous, but the holy lids were down; only the mouth trembled a little. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar were finishing a game of croquet with the one set of those implements which the Basin possessed, dedicated for Sundays, and to the school-house yard, as being dimly understood to be a sort of Sabbatical pastime. Their voices pealed in with unconscious vigor through ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... strokes of their hammers upon the iron plates of a new 20,000 barrel tank. Along the canon are scattered the houses of the employes of the company, most of whom have recently come from Pennsylvania. Near one of the houses was a graded and leveled croquet ground, with a little oil tank on a post, for lighting it at night. Farther up we came to a cluster of producing wells, with others at a little distance on the sides of the mountains, or even at the top, hundreds ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... landed in his boat; and then we all went back to the house and had breakfast. After breakfast we had a merry time at croquet, and then a ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... GAMES.—A complete and useful little book, containing the rules and regulations of billiards, bagatelle, backgammon, croquet, ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... not in love with my husband, he was twenty years older than I. When I was eighteen I was very much in love with a young fellow who used to come to play croquet at our place. But my parents wouldn't hear of it. I was not at all strong when I was a girl; they said I wouldn't live, so I didn't care what became of me. Lord Seveley admired me; it was a very good match, I was anxious to get away from home, so I married him. You are quite wrong ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... for a moment, and then murmuring, "I prefer croquet," floundered away through the waving grass. Davy, who for once felt sorry for the ridiculous old creature, was just setting off after him, when a voice cried, "Come on! Come on!" and Davy, looking across the ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... that point in the avenue which gave a good view of the old Manor, with its castellated walls and its square towers at each end. The gardens were laid out in terraces after an old-world fashion. There was one terrace devoted to croquet, another to tennis. As Molly approached she saw Cicely and Merry playing a game of croquet rather languidly. They wore simple white frocks which just came down above their ankles, and had white washing-hats on their heads. Their thick, rather fair hair was worn in a plait down each young back, ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... came to her under the quaint trellised arch, "I always feel like a croquet ball going ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... to vary in numbers to a certain extent in different years. This year, 1878, they came out in great force, especially on the lawn at Candie where they availed themselves to a large extent of the croquet-hoops, from which they kept a good look-out either for insects on the wing or on the ground, and they might be as frequently seen dropping to the ground for some unfortunate creeping thing that attracted their attention as rising in the air to give chase to ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... England I made the acquaintance of the curate, a boyish young fellow not long from Oxford, who was devoted to sport and a great killer. He was not satisfied with cricket and football in their seasons and golf and lawn tennis—he would even descend to croquet when there was nothing else— and boxing and fencing, and angling in the neighbouring streams, but he had to shoot something every day as well. And it was noticed by the villagers that the shooting ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... awe-inspiring passage. A little farther on there was a dark lobby, with cupboards surrounding it. Any one examining these cupboards by daylight would have found that they contained innocuous cricket-bats and stumps, croquet-mallets and balls, and sets of bowls. But as soon as the shades of night fell, these harmless sporting accessories were changed by some mysterious and malign agency into grizzly bears, and grizzly bears are notoriously the ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... was late in August. The summer had broken; there had been rain, and, though fine, the temperature was fitter for active sports than anything else. Croquet was not yet invented, and, besides, most of the party were of the age for regular games at play. Ellen and Emily did their part in starting these—finding, however, that the Reynolds boys were rather rough, in spite of the objurgations ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of everything. I have read all my books, and I hate my piano. The croquet isn't up, and there is nobody to play with me, if ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... knocked up forty in twenty minutes while Mike was putting the finishing touches to his century. Now, however, with his host's warning ringing in his ears, he adopted the unspectacular, or Bagley, style of play. His manner of dealing with the ball was that of one playing croquet. He patted it gingerly back to the bowler when it was straight, and left it icily alone when it was off the wicket. Mike, still in the brilliant vein, clumped a half-volley past point to the boundary, and with highly scientific late cuts and glides brought ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... as I recorded the passage of the fifth or sixth bridge. "It's like a game of croquet. Go on. What is ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... daughter," whom he met at "Lady Cray's" and who perfectly recollects the conversation she had with him at dinner, his sudden indisposition, and his long interview with the "Duchess of Towers," under the ash-tree next morning; she was one of the croquet-players. ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... acknowledged to be very beautiful even by people who shared his acquaintance with the Opera houses of Paris and Vienna. The foreground, to the footlights, was covered with emerald green cloth. In the middle distance symmetrical mounds of woolly green moss bounded by croquet hoops formed the base of shrubs shaped like orange-trees but studded with large pink and red roses. Gigantic pansies, considerably larger than the roses, and closely resembling the floral pen-wipers made by female parishioners for fashionable clergymen, sprang from the moss beneath ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... Think how much the birdies love it! See them in their dozens drawn, Dancing, to the croquet lawn— Could our little friends have dined If there'd been no worms ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... run the risk of being burned out on top. But what do castles in Spain care for the cost? We can have fireproof roofs in miniature copy of Alpine peaks or we can use them for billiard tables and croquet grounds." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... the neighborhood. It had many interesting features, among which was the large Hotel Byron, very attractive and almost empty, which we passed every day on our way to the post-office in Villeneuve, and noted two pretty American shes in eye-glasses playing croquet amid the wet shrubbery, as resolutely cheerful and as young-manless as if they had been in some mountain resort of our own. In the other direction there were simple villas dropped along the little levels ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... Dr. Scroggie Park, of Kilspindie, strongly advocates the abolition of the hole altogether and the substitution of a bell, as in the old form of croquet. But, as he wisely adds, variety, not cast-iron uniformity should be our aim. The principle of self-determination should in his opinion be conceded to all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... back to the house to drink tea, after which we play croquet and listen to one of the variegated young ladies singing a song: "No, no, thou lovest not, no, no." At the word "no" she twists her mouth till it ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... senior, had agreed, with almost feverish eagerness, to the proposed change. Life had been very pleasant in Cheshire, with picnics, water-parties down the Dee, drives to show-places, lawn billiards, and croquet, but a month of it was enough. Sir Victor was immersed in his building projects and his lady-love; Lady Helena, ever since the coming and going of the lady in black, had not been the same. Powyss place was a pleasant house, but enough was enough. They were ready to say ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... should be more croquet, for one thing," young Clintock; "I am usually away, but if I were more here I should go in for a croquet club. You are one of the archers, I think. But depend upon it croquet is the game of the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Plays Fair Play Indoor Games Chess Bridge Billiards and Croquet Outdoor Games Lawn Tennis Golf Some Important Rules about Golf Football Automobile Etiquette Automobile Parties Riding ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... I'm doubtful about cricket. You must have another one for cricket, and I'm afraid the warder wouldn't play. But golf, and squash rackets, and bowls, and billiards—and croquet— ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... at him again and thought how glad he must be to get into mufti for a few days. I tell you this to show how unprejudiced I was. The only other signs of life were the two super-aborigines who inhabit the croquet patch and detest all other mankind. I approached one of them warily and asked a question. He regarded me with a ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... ill-kept croquet ground and some patches of garden where those who were so disposed could raise vegetables or flowers. There was something pathetic about the figures bending with childlike faith over their labor of love—attempting to make nature smile upon them. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... morals and religion. When I went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles; they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given under their bare feet; for of course the Dyaks do ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... on preparing the ground, sowing seed, and after-management. Illustrated with numerous reproductions from beautiful photographs of Lawns, and including plans of Tennis Lawn and Croquet Ground. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... evening, the night before the final and crucial meeting the young minister was walking briskly down the road from the Oa. He had been taking tea with one of his most friendly families and had stayed rather late playing croquet with the young ladies. As he went along the winding thoroughfare it suddenly occurred to him that he could save time if he went over the fields and through the woods, coming out on the road again ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... had heard a great deal of this Anna von Hummel, a little round-faced German, with flaxen plaits and china-blue eyes, like a doll; and Jessie and I had often wondered at this strong Teutonic attachment. Most of the girls were playing croquet—they played croquet then—on the square lawn before the drawing-room windows; the younger ones were swinging in the lime-walk. Jessie and I had betaken ourselves with our books to a corner we much affected, where there was a bench under ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... an hour and a half; sit in the grounds and hear the music of the band; ride to the lake; see who comes by the evening train; dress for tea; get tea; dress for the hop; attend the hop; chat awhile in the parlors, and listen to a song from some guest; go to bed. Varied by croquet, ladies' bowling alley, Indian camp, the mineral springs, grand balls twice a week, ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... business. These "dug-outs" were strange fellows, some of them. Territorial officers who had held commissions in the Yeomanry, old soldiers who had served in India, Egypt, and South Africa, before playing interminable games of chess in St. James's Street, or taking tea in country rectories and croquet mallets on country lawns; provincial schoolmasters who had commanded an O.T.C. with high-toned voices which could recite a passage from Ovid with cultured diction; purple-faced old fellows who for years had tempted Providence and apoplexy by violence to their valets; ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... a game of croquet when you come back. I do like croquet, though papa laughs at me. I think I like all games. It is so ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... a croquet lawn, on which I perceived, as through a glass darkly, three figures. The mist cleared from my eyes and I recognized ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... When she came to the warren, the rabbits were out feeding, and she amused herself by throwing stones at them with her left hand. She had the use of both hands, and would not have noticed if her knife had been put where her fork should have been at table; but she threw stones, bowled, batted, played croquet, and also tennis in after years, with her left hand by preference, and she always held out her left hand to be handed ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Farnham; the houses she visited, the somewhat limited circle of her intimates and the vastly wider one of her acquaintances, her comings and goings in the town, her preference for church dissipations over the other sort, and for croquet ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... persuade herself that it was a relief not to see the critical artist at breakfast, nor to meet him as she strolled from the parlors to the piazza and thence to the croquet-ground, where she listlessly declined to take part in ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... croquet It's really refreshing to see. She wins in the cheerfullest way, Or loses (but rarely!) with glee. She chooses the ball that is blue, And dashes straight into the fray. I want to be present—don't you?— When Charlotte ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... Claygate stood just without the village, well surrounded with trees, and commanding a pleasant view. A piece of the garden was turfed over to form a croquet-green, and Fleeming became (I need scarce say) a very ardent player. He grew ardent, too, in gardening. This he took up at first to please his wife, having no natural inclination; but he had no sooner set his hand to it than, like everything else he touched, it became with him a passion. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old Place de Greve, "partly for heresy and for celebrating the Lord's Supper in their house; partly"—so it was pretended—"for having assisted in demolishing altars." In the great number of similar executions with which the sanguinary records of Paris abound, the fate of Nicholas Croquet and the two De Gastines—father and son—would have been forgotten, but for the extraordinary measures taken in respect to the house where the impiety had been committed of celebrating the Lord's Supper according to the simple ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... all our uses of land, we must not forget a little corner for the hammock and the croquet hoops for the wife and the children. In the Province of Quebec, where the land is held in great tracts under the Seigniors, I have seen croquet grounds no bigger than a bed quilt in front of the ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... and lastly, whether the dragon was a hero at heart or not, it made no difference, for St. George would most undoubtedly cut his head off. "Arrange things indeed!" he said bitterly to himself. "The dragon treats the whole affair as if it was an invitation to tea and croquet." ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... the door open, and sat down at the writing-table. The room was a friendly heterogeneous place, the one repository, in the well-ordered and amply-servanted house, of all its unclassified odds and ends: Effie's croquet-box and fishing rods, Owen's guns and golf-sticks and racquets, his step-mother's flower-baskets and gardening implements, even Madame de Chantelle's embroidery frame, and the back numbers of the Catholic Weekly. The early twilight had begun to fall, and presently a ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... principal of the High School; they were simple and kindly people, who became fond of Corydon, and would beg her to visit them. The girl was craving for companionship, and she would plead with Thyrsis to accompany her, and subject himself to the agonies of "ping-pong" and croquet; and once or twice he submitted—and so one might have beheld them, at a lawn-party, hotly pressed by half a dozen disputants, in a debate concerning the nature of American institutions, and the future of religion and ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... firmament powdered with stars of multitudinous splendor. The conditions inspired Dunham with a restless fertility of invention in Lydia's behalf. He had heard of the game of shuffle-board, that blind and dumb croquet, with which the jaded passengers on the steamers appease their terrible leisure, and with the help of the ship's carpenter he organized this pastime, and played it with her hour after hour, while Staniford looked on and smoked in grave observance, and Hicks lurked at a distance, till Dunham ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... he repeated, with a chuckle. "It is not so long ago since it was you and I who were standing like that, and I don't remember that we were very unhappy either. It was croquet in our time, and the ladies had not reefed in their skirts quite so taut. What year would it be? Just before the commission ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... play Croquet through the summer day On the turf, Then at night ('tis no great boon) Let me study how the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... then we may suppose that he is not happy. His length and accuracy are mechanical; they are not the result, as so often in our case, of some suddenly applied maxim or some suddenly discovered innovation. The only thing which can vary in his game is his putting, and putting is not golf but croquet. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... Genevieve Maud happy with her mud pies and her stripped dolls, the two sought the nursery and there made a discriminating collection of her choicest treasures. Her Noah's Ark, her picture-books, her colored balls and blocks, her woolly lambs that moved on wheels, her miniature croquet set, all fell into their ruthless young hands and, as a crowning crime, were dumped into the little go-cart that was the very apple of Genevieve Maud's round eyes. It squeaked under its burden as the children drew it carefully along the hall. They carried it down-stairs with exaggerated caution, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... life without shooting barely endurable by the help of croquet! I trust so! He was very patient and tolerant—made holidays for me that first summer which it ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... children were playing croquet near the veranda, he came running across the lawn and triumphantly dropped at Billy's feet a beautiful ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... as yet of passing on Poirot's message to Lawrence. But now, as I strolled out on the lawn, still nursing a grudge against my friend's high-handedness, I saw Lawrence on the croquet lawn, aimlessly knocking a couple of very ancient balls about, with a still more ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... a lovely summer evening, toward the end of July, that the party of friends were all together upon the lawn; they had drawn the garden chairs up, and, after the game of croquet in which Madeleine and Howard had succeeded in beating Ethel and Martin, were prepared to devote the remainder of the evening to chat. Seeing this, Mr. Morton had put away his book, and drawn up his chair beside them, while Mrs. Morton, regardless ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... abandoned the struggle. With a feeble oath, he sat down on a box containing croquet implements, and gave ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... is so kind, and makes one feel perfectly at home. A number of people were assembled upon the croquet lawn and in the great tent playing bridge when we arrived, and as no one seems to introduce any one it has taken me two whole days to find out people's names. Some of them, indeed, I have not grasped yet! ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... Mrs. Bonteen, that the conversation between them was not slow. And on the next morning the Duke and Madame Max Goesler were together again before luncheon, standing on a terrace at the back of the house, looking down on a party who were playing croquet on the lawn. ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... theology of the third and fourth centuries. She had planned the new flower-garden,—though Lady Fawn thought that she had done that herself. She had been invaluable during Clara Fawn's long illness. She knew every rule at croquet, and could play piquet. When the girls got up charades they had to acknowledge that everything depended on Miss Morris. They were good-natured, plain, unattractive girls, who spoke of her to her face as one who could easily do anything to which ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... LET, FURNISHED, cosily FURNISHED COUNTRY HOUSE, offering rest, recuperation, recreation, and the acme of comfort; 10 bedrooms, 2 bath, 4 reception; stabling, garage, billiards, tennis, croquet, miniature rifle range, small golf course, fringed pool, gardens, walks, telephone, radiators, gas; near town and rail; rent L3 3s. weekly, including gardener's wages."—The Devon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... That's right. Now let it down slowly. Not so hard on the nigh side there. Ease off there, Bill. Push, Patsy. What do you think this is—a game of croquet? There you go. Right. Now let's see if you woodenheads know enough to keep the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... glory of the Small House at Allington certainly consists in its lawn, which is as smooth, as level, and as much like velvet as grass has ever yet been made to look. Lily Dale, taking pride in her own lawn, has declared often that it is no good attempting to play croquet up at the Great House. The grass, she says, grows in tufts, and nothing that Hopkins, the gardener, can or will do has any effect upon the tufts. But there are no tufts at the Small House. As the squire himself has never been ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... trifled with concerts and croquet, Then she daintily dusted her face; Then she sprinkled herself with "Ess Bouquet," Fished out from the foregoing case; And we chattered of Gassier and Grisi, And voted Aunt Sally a bore; Discussed if the tight rope were easy, Or Chopin ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... this discussion was all of a sudden puffed as a lily, because she ceased to be observed, can attend to nothing if a man is by; she can't work, she can't play, she is so eaten up with sexuality. The frivolous soul can just manage to play croquet with females; but, enter a man upon the scene, and she does even that very ill, and can hardly be got to take her turn in the only thing she has really given her mind to. We were angels compared with this paltry creature, and she ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... A croquet-ground and tennis-court were laid out, and Vailima was the scene of balls, dinners, and parties of all kinds. No birthday or holiday, English, American, or Samoan, was allowed to pass unnoticed, and the natives were included ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... Brown liked her. She was a mighty pretty girl, the kind Peter called a "queen," and the active manager took to her like a cat to a fish. They was together more'n half the time, gitting up sailing parties, or playing croquet, or setting up on the "Lover's Nest," which was a kind of slab summer-house Brown had rigged up on the bluff where Aunt Sophrony's pig-pens used to ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... eyes actually lighted a spark in the being of Joe Buttle. Young ladies in villages—gentry—usually visited the cottagers a bit if they were well-meaning young women—left good books and broth or jelly, pottered about and were seen at church, and playing croquet, and finally married and removed to other places, or gradually faded year by year into respectable spinsterhood. And this one comes in, and in two or three minutes shows that she knows things about the place and understands. A man might then take ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a 'boom' in 1853-60, is now an abandoned amusement. It is deserted, like croquet, and it is even less to be regretted. But its existence enabled disputants to illustrate the ordinary processes of reasoning; each making assertions up to the limit of his personal experience; each attacking, as 'superstitious,' ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... of the visitor who insisted on being taken over the small domain was trying to the temper of its proprietor, uneasily conscious already that the lawn was only half big enough for the croquet-hoops ostentatiously set forth thereon; that the furniture in the dining-room was much too big for it, and that in the drawing-room absolutely unsuited to its purpose. He wished to forget these defects, which the other thought it his ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... diamonds, and on its silk was the cruel story of Pyramus and Thisbe set forth in brilliant colours, but in what wondrous manner no one quite knew. For it was true that Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had walked with kings, danced with dukes, and played croquet with counts, and it was therefore inevitable that she should be regarded as the Empress of Woodbridge. She would have been considered so quite apart from the fact that she had great possessions—in addition to the Court fan and ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... cartridges, chimney-caps, stamps, tools, lathes, files, wire-cloth, scales, steel wire, paper boxes, music stands, mouldings, carriages, sleighs, shuttles, doors, sashes, blinds, furniture, asbestos covering, blotters, crayons, drain-pipe, glue, lamp-black, machine brushes, matches, croquet sets. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... lots of things you do very nicely indeed. I've seen you play croquet beautifully. But I've always thought it a pity you ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... all her life. She was the youngest daughter, he the youngest son of equal Yorkshire families. Separated by about a mile of pasture and woodland, these families had for generations lived unanimous lives. In England the hunting field, the grouse moor, the croquet and tennis lawn, with its charming adjunct the five-o'clock tea-table, have made life in certain classes almost communal; and Mrs Norton and William Hare had stood in white frocks under Christmas trees and shared sweetmeats. He often thought of the first ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... you to leave off this minute!' She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. 'But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, 'to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... heavens, the lake is rippling in placid beauty under a gentle breeze, and the long lines of natives, as well as vehicles of all sorts, form a quaint but picturesque sight. After breakfast calls are made upon all the camps and bungalows round the station. Croquet, badminton, and other games go on until dinner-time. I could linger lovingly over a camp dinner; the rare dishes, the sparkling conversation, the racy anecdote, and the general jollity and brotherly feeling; but we must all dress for the ball, and so about 9 P.M. the buggies are again in ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... tasty paraffin lamps at frequent intervals give sufficient light, and, at all events, do not smell worse than modern metropolitan gas. There is a large tent standing en permanence during the summer for flower shows, and terrace after terrace of croquet lawns, all of which it will, I fear, shock some Sabbatarian persons to learn were occupied on that Sunday afternoon, and the balls kept clicking like the week-day shots of the erratic riflemen on the Scrubbs. I had a young lady with me who was considerably ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... hour a day for three days in the week. Here is a poetic version of the future life which completely outclasses the 'Divina Commedia.' It is compounded out of the experiences of forty-three thousand moderate drinkers who became total abstainers, seventy disbanded croquet associations, and 1,125 obsolete ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... confidence by saying that if it doesn't rain any more we will have a long dry time. The man then goes away inflated with the idea that he has a pointer from Mr. Gould which will materially affect values. A great many men are playing croquet at the poor-house this summer who owe their prosperity to tips given ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... himself up in his prickles. The crickets crept into the grass, quite silenced. The nightingale sang as if its throat would burst. It was guitars, guitars. The Salvation Army marched forward under the beeches. The people started up from their rest under the trees. The dancing-green and croquet-ground were deserted. The swings and merry-go-rounds had an hour's rest. Everybody followed to the Salvation Army's camp. The benches filled, and listeners sat on every hillock. The army had waxed strong and powerful. About many a fair cheek was tied the Salvation ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... found in every neighborhood, and especially at every school center, all kinds of plays and games, each in its own time and place and having its own patronage—marbles, tops, swings, horseshoes, "I spy," anti-over, pull-away, prisoner's base, tennis, croquet, volley ball, basketball, skating, coasting, skiing, baseball, and football. Horizontal bars, turning pole, and other apparatus should be provided in every playground. In the social centers, if the boys can be organized as Boy Scouts, ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... houses, the shutters are tied with strips of mournful, black alpaca for a year and a day. Engineers, dockmen, express-drivers and mechanics largely make up the citizens of Camden. Of course, Camden has its smug corner where prosperous merchants most do congregate: where they play croquet in the front yards, and have window-boxes, and a piano and veranda-chairs and terra-cotta statuary; but for the most part the houses of Camden are rented, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... 91. At croquet, if your ball was about to be sent flying, the safeguard was to draw an imaginary X with your mallet, saying, "Criss cross." It made your enemy's foot slip, and many a girl would get "mad" and not play, if you did it often. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... books as an "outrage." He was considered a very well-read man. He disliked anything that was "not quite nice," and detested a strong light, whether it were thrown upon life or landscape; in bright sunshine he always carried a white umbrella lined with green. The game he played best was croquet, and here he was really first class; but he was also skilled in every known form of Patience, and played each evening unless he ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... said, going up to her. 'We are waiting for you to complete our eight hand croquet, and I claim ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... little pea! Klondike croquet, the packer's pastime. Who'll risk a dollar to win a dollar? It's a healthy sport. It's good for young and old—a cheeild can understand it. Three Eskimo ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... "You know that Lucy has chased everyone out of the house. And now that Rod has finished setting out the lawn sports, what is there left to do? By the way, did Sam mend that croquet mallet, the one ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... big farm and chickens and two cows, and a tennis court and croquet. And there are lovely walks. And hammocks ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... Living was cheap there, so the other members of the family spent the summer there; they were joined by Anton when he had taken his degree, and the Chekhovs soon had a large circle of friends in the neighbourhood. Every day the company met, went long walks, played croquet, discussed politics, read aloud, and went into raptures over Shtchedrin. Here Chekhov gained an insight into military society which he afterwards turned to account in his play "The ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... for it is barbed with innocent seduction, and her bull's-eye is the soft military heart. She wears a cricket-cap and breaks Aunt Sally's nose seven times; she puts her pretty little foot upon the croquet-ball—and croquet'd you are completely! With what glee she would have rinked and tennised if he ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... take it so hard? It's all in the game—and you've lost. You're a poor sort of sport, Crenshaw. You'd be better at ping-pong or croquet. This matter of—letters, and cabs, is far beyond your calibre; it's ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... had been firm about sending the children home under escort, and they found a steady old groom waiting ready to mount a spirited horse when they went down to the courtyard to get on their ponies. They had discovered a box of croquet mallets on their way downstairs, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... his sisters' games began to bore him. His strong arms no longer wanted to play battledore and shuttlecock, they longed to throw stones. The squabbles over a petty game of croquet, which demanded neither ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... in search of free admissions for the theatres, hunting "Ragamuffins" and members of the Cibber Club, and other privileged creatures, at all their places of resort. He watched for the advent of novels adapted to Georgy's capacity—lively records of croquet and dressing and love-making, from smart young Amazons in the literary ranks, or deeply interesting romances of the sensation school, with at least nine deaths in the three volumes, and a comic housemaid, or a contumacious "Buttons," to relieve the gloom by their playful waggeries. He read ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... took his hand and kissed it. And then she went to one of the three tall French windows and looked out on the square. There, between the trees, was a space of beautiful soft green, and some children dressed in bright dresses, and attended by a governess in sober black, had just begun to play croquet. An elderly lady with a small white dog was walking along one of the graveled paths. An old man was pruning ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... she tried to appear interested in things, and was very attentive to me. Charlotte Benson and Henrietta laid strong-minded plans for the day, and carried them out faithfully. First, they played a game of croquet, under umbrellas, for the sun was blazing on the ground: that was for exercise; then, for mental discipline, they read history for an hour in the library; and then, for relaxation, under veils and sunhats, read Ruskin for two hours by ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... the historian; and Trench, the late Archbishop of Dublin; Sir Richard Burton, the traveller; and Owen Meredith, the poet. There was a portrait of Swinburne when quite a young man, together with his autograph. "I have known Mr. Swinburne all my life," remarked Mrs. Henniker. "I used to play croquet with him when I was quite a little girl, and laugh at him because he used to get in such a passion when I won the game." There was John Bright's signature, there was that of Philippe d'Orleans and General Chanzy, and last, but not least, there was ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... mental relaxations. Dancing is unsuitable, swimming dangerous, athletics too tiring and exciting. Bowls, croquet, golf, walking, quoits, billiards, parlour games and quiet gymnastics without apparatus are good, if played in moderation and much more gently than normal people play them. Play is recreation only so long as a pastime is not turned into a business. ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... his last mouthful of cake, "we're going to have one more game of croquet. Come on, you girls, and help me ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery |
