"Dalliance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... summer evening, the churchwarden was charged to interview her husband, to point out to him privately the scandal that was being caused, and to show him how his duty lay in keeping his belongings in better order. Was a man trying to carry fire in his bosom by dalliance at the bar of the Blandamer Arms, then a hint was given to his spouse that she should use such influence as would ensure evenings being spent at home. Did a young man waste the Sabbath afternoon in walking with his dog on ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... chivalrous desire to protect a woman who had betrayed, however innocently, a sentiment for another man. When the Reverend Mr. Mullen inadvertently introduced an emotional triangle, he had changed the situation from one of mere sentimental dalliance into direct pursuit. By some law of reflex action, known only to the male mind at such instants, the first sign that she was not to be won threw him into the mental attitude ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... shall He say of you? I've watched for this, I've seen it coming. You keep long accounts, but there's One keeps longer—and in His head, as we read. To breaking mother's heart so much, to scandal of matrimony so much—and to perjury and dirty devices, wicked dalliance, so much. When she came here— this fine young lady, so fresh and sweet—I wailed. I shook my fist at you, Mr. Ingram; 'I know what this means,' I said, 'a false tongue and a young heart.' And I waited, I tell you—for I could do nothing else. She could have come to me ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... least a brief hour in it! 'Tis a right royal pavilion. Lo, there are thrones for high dalliance all gloriously canopied o'er! Lo, there are hangings of purple, and hangings of blue and vermilion, And there are fleeces of gold for thy feet on the ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... holy love, Only one in heaven will worship— Cloud-compelling Jove." Thus he; and from the god received The glorious gift of Jove, And with fond embracement clasped her, Thrilled by potent love; And in loving dalliance with her Lived from day to day, While her bounteous smiles diffusive ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... consistency, he has been unable to satisfy more zealous and one-sided liberals by giving his adhesion to their views and measures, or by adopting a denunciatory tone against those in the opposite ranks. Borne could not forgive what he regarded as Heine's epicurean indifference and artistic dalliance, and he at length gave vent to his antipathy in savage attacks on him through the press, accusing him of utterly lacking character and principle, and even of writing under the influence of venal motives. To these ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... cheap and vulgar prostitution, the inspiration of casual amours, and the chorus of habitual debauchery. He is at pains to let the world know that he is still fonder of roving, than of loving; and that all the Caras and the Fannys, with whom he holds dalliance in these pages, have had each a long series of preceding lovers, as highly favoured as their present poetical paramour: that they meet without any purpose of constancy, and do not think it necessary to grace their connexion ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... tucked away here and there in the favoured cellars of Provence and Languedoc, a few dust-covered bottles of their rich vintage: which has for its distinguishing taste a sublimated spiciness due to the alternate dalliance of the bees with the grape-blossoms and with the blossoms of the wild thyme. It is a wine of poets, this bee-kissed Chateauneuf, and its noblest association is not with the Popes who gave their name to it but with the seven poets—Mistral, Roumanille, Aubanel, Matthieu, Brunet, Giera, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... woman who would respond to bold measures. She is none of your woo-me-slowly ladies, her bosom, as it rose and fell in her French laces, being eloquent of that. She is a singularly fine animal to whom Providence has, by an unusual generosity, given a soul, though mostly, maybe, it hides in the silken dalliance which is the note ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... Geants gate he blew, That all the castle quaked from the ground, And every dore of freewill open flew. The Gyant selfe dismaied with that sownd, 40 Where he with his Duessa dalliance fownd, In hast came rushing forth from inner bowre, With staring countenance sterne, as one astownd, And staggering steps, to weet, what suddein stowre, Had wrought that horror strange, and dar'd his ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... Protest! It was not so that the first heroic reformers protested. They departed out of Babylon once for good and all; they came not back for an occasional contact with her altars—a dallying, and then a protesting against dalliance; they stood not shuffling in the porch, with a Popish foot within, and its lame Lutheran fellow without, halting betwixt. These were the true Protestants. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... and the vicious play indeed into each others hands; and neither of them love laughter. Sexual dalliance is either too serious a matter to be mocked by satyr-laughter; or it is too sad and deplorable to be laughed at at all. In a few hundred years, surely, the human race will recognize its absolute right to make mock at the grotesque elements in the sex comedy, and such ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... scarcely just then in a mood for dalliance. "The Queen of the Clouds comes hither to-morrow," he answered, casting a somewhat contemptuous glance at Ula's more dusky and solid charms. "I go to seek her with the wedding gifts early in the morning. For a week she shall be mine. And after that—" he lifted his tomahawk and brought it down ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... through that beautiful scenery, he had arrived one fine morning at the inn at Llangollen, in the romantic valley of that name. He had ordered his breakfast, and was sitting at the window in all the dalliance of expectation when a face passed, of which he took no notice at the instant—but when his breakfast was brought in presently after, he found his appetite for it gone—the day had lost its freshness in his eye—he was uneasy and spiritless; ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... [the letter said] "I have thought this thing to a finish. I want you to turn the Tigmores over to my cousin, Bruce Steering. Let him start at once on the jack trail, that primrose path of dalliance. As for me, my dear sir, by the time this reaches you, I shall be on the long trail. You needn't blow any trumpets about it, for B. G. will have no funeral. The name that I gave you as the name that I live here under is good enough to die here ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... the interest of biological progress in this country. It is now high time, so far as the so-called mutation hypothesis, based on the conduct of the evening primrose in cultures, is concerned, that the younger generation of biologists should take heed lest the primrose path of dalliance lead them imperceptibly into the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire."—Prof. Edw. C. Jeffrey (Harvard), ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... alas, my years are young! And fitter is my study and my books Than wanton dalliance with a paramour. Yet call the ambassadors; and, as you please, So let them have their answers every one: I shall be well content with any choice Tends to God's glory and ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... House to reflect, whether they are not about to abandon all reclamation for the unparalleled outrages, "insults, and injuries" of the French government; to give up our claim for plundered millions; and I ask what reparation or atonement they can expect to obtain in hours of future dalliance, after they shall have made a tender of their person to this great deflowerer of the virginity of republics. We have, by our own wise (I will not say wiseacre) measures, so increased the trade and wealth of ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... its wild mysteries to my ear, To the smooth silver of the birch-trees shine, Showing between the aspens straight and fair; With forest flowers, and delicate vines that crept From the rich soil far up among the trees, Seeking that light their boughs did intercept, And dalliance and caresses of the breeze. In midst of these, sheltered from sun and wind Glimmered a lake, in long and shining curves, Like a bright fillet that should serve to bind That scene to earth—if she the gem deserves! For gem it was, as proud upon her brow As jewels on the forehead of a queen; ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... his books,—for I had never before known him study till after the morning meal. Students are not usually early risers, for students, alas! whatever their age, are rarely young. Yes, the Great Book must be getting on in serious earnest. It was no longer dalliance with learning; this ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the underplot ought scarcely to be a "plot," but only some very slight thread of interest, involving no strain on the attention.[2] It may almost be called an established practice, on the English stage, to let the dalliance of a pair of boy-and-girl lovers relieve the main interest of a more or less serious comedy; and there is no particular harm in such a convention, if it be not out of keeping with the general character of the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... courtiers," says Evelyn, "and other dissolute persons were playing at basset round a large table, with a bank of at least L2000 before them. The King, though not engaged in the game, was to the full as scandalously occupied, sitting in open dalliance with three of the shameless women of the Court, the Duchesses of Portsmouth, Morland, and Mazarin, and others of the same stamp, while a French boy was singing love-songs in that glorious gallery. Six days after," he adds, "all was ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... the new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a free people—a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity, we forget right; that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed and rejected it. The argument ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... actress or another developed a part, and to Pantalone, Arlecchino, Dottore and Columbina were now added Pierrot—or Gilles—Mezetin, a sort of double of Pierrot, Scaramouche and Scapin. The vague web of courtship, dalliance, intrigue and jealousy called up by these characters attracted Watteau to employ them in his compositions, and to make them also the medium of the more sincere sentiments of conjugal love and friendship,—as in The Music Lesson, Gilles ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... Queenie, after hesitation, raised her hand with the disciplinarians. By one vote the libertarians were defeated, and the dalliance of the hospital staff in leisure hours received ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... the king's troops, was a gay fellow, framed to make women false; but when he met the rosy, sweet-natured daughter of farmer Jarrett, near Valley Forge, he attempted no dalliance, for he fell too seriously in love. He might not venture into the old man's presence, for Jarrett had a son with Washington, and he hated a red-coat as he did the devil; but the young officer met ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... court—for him to kiss, but when he merely pressed his lips lightly on it with no shadow of tenderness, she hastily withdrew it, exclaiming as if overwhelmed by sudden repentance: "This idle, hollow dalliance at such a time, with such a burden of anxiety oppressing the heart! It is un worthy, shameful! If Barine goes with Archibius, her time will scarcely hang heavy on his estates. I think I know some one who will speedily ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... marriage. When they were finally in bed, and the door shut, we seated ourselves outside the door of the bridal-chamber, and Quartilla applied a curious eye to a chink, purposely made, watching their childish dalliance with lascivious attention. She then drew me gently over to her side that I might share the spectacle with her, and when we both attempted to peep our faces were pressed against each other; whenever she was not engrossed in the performance, she screwed up her lips to meet mine, and pecked at me ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... enough, faith," said Hogan coolly. "The landlord of The Angel hath a daughter maybe 'twas after her he named his inn—who owns a pair of the most seductive eyes that ever a man saw perdition in. She hath, moreover, a taste for dalliance, and my brave looks and martial trappings did for her what her bold eyes had done for me. We were becoming the sweetest friends, when, like an incarnate fiend, that loutish clown, her lover, sweeps down upon us, and, with more jealousy ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... stand thus: The King is bringing, as is said, his family, and Navy, and all other his charges, to a less expence. In the mean time, himself following his pleasures more than with good advice he would do; at least, to be seen to all the world to do so. His dalliance with my Lady Castlemaine being publick, every day, to his great reproach; and his favouring of none at Court so much as those that are the confidants of his pleasure, as Sir H. Bennet and Sir Charles Barkeley; ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... this glowing dream, To sing of deeds of chivalry and sport, Of cushioned dalliance in the soft hareem (A really splendid theme), The pundits and tame poets at your court, And all such pride, but I must keep it short. Once let me off upon a thing so bright, And I should ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... assemble. King James, as above related, captured Lady Heron at Ford. She was beautiful and deceitful, and soon enthralled the gay king in her spells, while all the time she was in communication with the English. Thus James wasted his time in dalliance, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... he affirmed with a weary nod; the lateness of the hour rendered him quite indisposed for convivial dalliance. Even the sight of O'Hagan, seduction incarnated, in the vestibule, a bottle under either arm, clutching a box of cigars jealously with both hands, failed to move the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... sleep no single night." The anxiety, the despondency of the sovereign were shared by the friends of Prussia throughout Germany; its enemies saw with wonder that Bismarck in his struggle with the educated Liberalism of the middle classes did not shrink from dalliance with the Socialist leaders and their organs. When Parliament reassembled at the beginning of 1863 the conflict was resumed with even greater heat. The Lower Chamber carried an address to the King, which, while dwelling on the loyalty of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... But he chooses to convey his meaning, as usual, through the rich refracting medium of dramatic characters and situations quite unlike his own. So his "apology for poetry" becomes an item in Don Juan's case for the "poetry" of dalliance with light-o'-loves. Fifine herself acquires new importance; the emancipated gipsy turns into the pert seductive coquette, while over against her rises the pathetic shadow of the "wife in trouble," her white fingers pressing Juan's arm, "ravishingly pure" in her "pale constraint." Between ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than by calling it a habit of intense and continual thought, pervading even his most trivial actions—intruding upon his moments of dalliance—and interweaving itself with his very flashes of merriment—like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning masks in the cornices around ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of dalliance in the Temple, and not unfrequently on Sunday morning, leaving a lady love, L'Estrange would go to church—top hat, umbrella, and prayer-book—and having a sense of humour, he was amused by ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... hast made me, if this felicity have lasting: but I will try her further. Dear lady, I am courtly, I tell you, and I must have mine ears banqueted with pleasant and witty conferences, pretty girls, scoffs, and dalliance in her that I mean to choose for my bed-phere. The ladies in court think it a most desperate impair to their quickness of wit, and good carriage, if they cannot give occasion for a man to court 'em; and when an amorous discourse is set on foot, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... bad tea and thick bread-and-butter to the privileged in the office, opened the front door with bridling exclamations of astonishment. She had her best frock on; her hair was in curling-pins; she smelt delicately of beer; the excitement of the Sunday League excursion and of the evening's dalliance had not quite cooled in this respectable and experienced young creature of central London. She was very feminine and provocative and unparlourmaidish, standing there in the hall, and George passed by her as callously ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... only half deceived, tried to persuade himself of her innocence, and left her after an hour's dalliance with the half belief that she did not really merit the grave suspicions ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... talkative, silently and busily rolls about and makes much of the morsels it receives, presses them affectionately and benevolently against the palate, to double its pleasure by sharing it; and when this tender dalliance has been sufficiently indulged in, at length pushes them back almost unwillingly to its friend that swallows them down, and that indeed has the real enjoyment of them, the highest of all, though but for a moment, and ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... France, he might then have settled down and finished the story by "living happily ever after." But he was not. He was the King of France; so he pursued the royal road that his antecedents had blazed before him; and the way was made easy and pleasant for him. In treading the "primrose path of dalliance" he allowed no grass to ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... necessary to separate literature from painting, we should doubtless have had a very delicate and sensitive lyric poetry in book form. Titles for pictures like "Mirrored Dreaming," "Sicily-Flowering Isle," "Shell of Gold," "A Portal of the Night," "Mystic Dalliance," are all of them creations of an essentially poetic and literary mind. They are all splendid titles for a real book of legendary experience. The poet will be first to feel the accuracy of lyrical emotion in these titles. The paintings ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... rather a pity, and then gave our masculine adversary what is technically called "one to kill." I saw instinctively that I was the one, and I held my racquet ready with both hands. Our opponent, who had been wanting his tea for the last two games, was in no mood of dalliance; he fairly let himself go over this shot. In a moment I was down on my knees behind the net ... and the next moment I saw through the meshes a very strange thing. The other man, with his racquet on the ground, was holding his ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... immediate enjoyment, and, provided he has his mistress at his will, concerns himself not in the slightest degree as to what becomes of his companions, is not an every-day touch. Nor is the strong contrast of the chambers of feast and dalliance—undisturbed, voluptuous, terrestrial-paradisaic—with "the horror and the hell" in the courts below. Nor, last of all, the picture of the more than half innocent Marion, night-garbed or ungarbed, but with sword drawn, first hanging over ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... days of dalliance, When I wantoned with my fate; When I trifled with the knowledge That had well-nigh ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... exciting, perhaps; but it is singularly warm and sweet if the conjugal relations have not been strained in the meanwhile. And as the Thames narrows itself, the closer, the more genial, the more grateful and comforting this long-anticipated and tenderly intimate uxorious dalliance seems to grow. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... London which we inhabit we are come upon evil day's. The rage of the blasphemer, the laugh at the scoffer, the heartless lip-service of the worldling, and the light dalliance of the daughters of music, are offered every hour upon a thousand Baal-altars within this very parish. I would ask some of you who spend your evenings in the playhouses which multiply around us like weeds sown ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... holour* will her have; *whoremonger She may no while in chastity abide, That is assailed upon every side. Thou say'st some folk desire us for richess, Some for our shape, and some for our fairness, And some, for she can either sing or dance, And some for gentiless and dalliance, Some for her handes and her armes smale: Thus goes all to the devil, by thy tale; Thou say'st, men may not keep a castle wall That may be so assailed *over all.* *everywhere* And if that she be foul, thou ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Made the Feinne fair Erin's boast! Where the red cascade descended, Lovely Grinie's evil dalliance Held him thrall as though were ended Noble warring with ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... incongruous; it may be that the gracious femininity of her, her desirability as a woman, thus revealed by the lissome lassitude of her body, emphasized the fact that she was a creature created for joy and dalliance, not for the rasping stratagems of the market-place. Whatever the cause, it is certain that the lazy abandon of her posture irritated him, and it was with an attempt to veil his chagrin that ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... and went boasting Amongst his fellows—Doris toasting; And as his burgundy he sips, He showed the sugar on his lips. Away the greedy host then gathered, Where they thought dalliance fair was feathered. They fluttered round her, sipped her tea, And lived in quarters fair and free; Nor were they banished, till she found That wasps had stings and felt ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... went on with his dalliance with his feathered favourite, now giving, now withholding, the morsel with which he was about to feed the bird, and so exciting its appetite and gratifying it by turns. "What! more yet?—thou foul kite, thou wouldst never have done—give thee part thou wilt have all—Ay, prune thy feathers, and prink ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... a few days at the castle of Argenfels, whose owner was the father of two daughters. The younger of the pair, Bertha by name, soon fell in love with the guest, while he, too, was deeply impressed by her charm; but silken dalliance was not for him at present—for was he not under a vow to try to redeem the Holy Sepulchre?—and so he resumed his journey to Palestine. Here an arduous campaign awaited him. In the course of a fierce battle he was wounded sorely, and while trying to escape from the field he was ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... side of the room meant no more than the chirping of a grasshopper upon a mullein-stalk. I did not delude myself with the notion of providential use of the tongue that tripped at the consonants and lingered in liquid dalliance with favorite vowels. Yet, after ten motionless minutes of severe thinking, the letter was deliberately torn into strips and these into dice, and all of these went into the waste-paper basket at my elbow. I had concluded to "abide a wee." If the sun went down that once upon my anger, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Was I mad, or what? I was really frightened at my helplessness in the matter and decided on a course of conduct that ultimately brought me past this danger to better health and comparative happiness. I said to myself that there is always a certain amount of preliminary thought and dalliance before I do this deed; doubtless this it is that renders me incapable of resisting. I decided, therefore, never to let my thoughts commence to dwell on lustful things, but to think of something else on the first intimation of their appearance in my mind. I rigorously ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... satisfied in his object and averse to further dalliance, he gave Cimon and his companions the stiffest of nods and deliberately turned on his heel. Speech was too precious coin for him to be wasted on mere adieus. Only over his shoulder he cast at Glaucon ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... that the producer felt the actual radiations; then little by little he felt her begin to cool, and a chill ran up and down his own spine as Hawtry and Height held the stage alone in the first dash of Howard-"pepped" dalliance near the last of the first act. He held his breath, frozen within him, until the curtain went down, and then he refused to turn to the author at his side. He was in a panic and undecided what to do until Mr. Rooney relieved him ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the Stevensons, was not, like his, tuneful: though his father was imaginative, diverting himself with daydreams; and his uncle, Alan Stevenson, the builder of Skerryvore, yielded to the fascinations of the religious Muse. A volume of verse was the pledge of this dalliance. His mother, who gave him her gay indifference to discomfort and readiness for travel, also read to him, in his childhood, much good literature; for not till he was eight years of age was he an unreluctant reader—which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weather, When mortal men and maidens without fear, And forest-nymphs, and forest-gods together, Do worship Pan in the long twilight clear. And Artemis this one night spares the deer, And every cave and dell, and every grove Is glad with singing soft and happy cheer, With laughter, and with dalliance, and with love. ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... realised that a man if he be a man, has certain responsibilities. He saw clearly, now that he considered life seriously, that a man might err in dalliance and idleness just as he had erred; and he saw too that a man might, like Sledge Hume, go to the other extreme. A man might grow soft muscled literally and figuratively in slothful carelessness, or he might grow hard until ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... she recovers from the shock—if it be one—of this intelligence. The surest means of keeping alive a dying coal is to stir and blow upon it. And even we"—lifting the heavy locks of her husband's hair in playful dalliance—"even we are mortal. We have had our peccadilloes and our repentances, and have now our little concealments of affairs that would interest nobody but ourselves. Do you hear what I am saying, Herbert! Leave off your high tragedy airs and attend to reason, as ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... that the fathers had left to the country. He thought for a second and made me a wise answer. He said, "I think it was their character." That is indeed the heritage they left us; they left us their character. Wealth will not preserve that which they left us; not wealth, not power, not "dalliance nor wit" will preserve it; nothing but that which is of the spirit will preserve it, nothing ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... own conscience, Faust has plunged into a reckless life and experiences those after-dreams of intellectual and aesthetic extravagance which so often follow such riotous living. This period—that of sensual riot and aesthetic dalliance—Goethe has, I think, symbolized by two wild and curious scenes, the Walpurgisnacht and Oberon's Wedding, a kind of ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... object,—an unsullied, unscarified mirror! And how strictly true to nature it is that Banquo, and not Macbeth himself, directs our notice to the effect produced on Macbeth's mind, rendered temptible by previous dalliance of the fancy with ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... only leave Short and his companions in the Lust Haus, but the widow and the lieutenant in their soft dalliance, and now occupy ourselves with the two principal personages of this ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in its essence,—the novel gratification of the petty vanities and petty questionings which beset undecided men,—what wonder that persons not accustomed to sound analysis of evidence should be beguiled by these subtilest adaptations to their conditions, and hold dalliance with the feeble shades that imposture or enthusiasm vended about the towns? Historical personages—a nerveless mimicry of the conventional stage-representation of them—stalked the Colonel's parlor. Departed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... be true: doe not giue dalliance Too much the raigne: the strongest oathes, are straw To th' fire ith' blood: be more abstenious, Or ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... conscientiously. The idea of the height which he strove to attain, and the steps by which he mounted towards it, may be fathered from the Sufic poet Jami. Health, says Jami, is the best relish. A worshipper will never realise the pure love of the Lord unless he despises the whole world. Dalliance with women is a kind of mental derangement. Days are like pages in the book of life. You must record upon them only the best acts ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... gas-workers were all called up to the colours) the maire was not molested. It was here that we heard a shameful story (for the truth of which I will not vouch) of a certain straggler from our army, a Highlander, who tarried in amorous dalliance and was betrayed by his enchantress to the Huns, who, having deprived him of everything but his kilt, led him mounted upon a horse in Bacchanalian procession round the town. As to what became of him afterwards nothing was known, but the worst was suspected. The Huns have ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... youth of England are on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies: Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man: They sell the pasture now to buy the horse, Following the mirror of all Christian kings, With winged heels, as English Mercuries: ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... go; I grasped his arm and tore the muscle out of it[2] (as the string comes out of an orange); then I took him by the throat, which is not allowed in wrestling, but he had snatched at mine; and now was no time of dalliance. In vain he tugged and strained and writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath the iron of my strength—for God that day was with me—I had him helpless in two minutes, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... remarks to a friend passing in the street, or waved salutations with a duster. Swift upon such discoveries, she would execute a flank march across the few steps of garden and steal into the house, noiselessly ascend the stairs, and catch the offender red-handed at this public dalliance. But all such domestic espionage to right and left was flavourless and insipid compared to the tremendous discoveries which daily and hourly awaited the trained observer of the street that lay directly ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... snow-white breasts; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or full as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then recommence their dalliance with the surf-wave. You may behold their multitudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you reach the end of the beach, you become quite attached to these little sea-birds, and take much interest in their occupations. After passing in one direction, it is pleasant then to retrace ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... system; while the names of Cary, of Hay, and of Merivale, will remain as a bright encouragement to those who have sufficient strength of mind to prefer the "strait and narrow way" of masterly translation, to the "flowery paths of dalliance" so often trodden ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... evanescent spray. Their images—long-legged little figures, with gray backs and snowy bosoms—were seen as distinctly as the realities in the mirror of the glistening strand. As I advanced, they flew a score or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced their dalliance with the surf wave; and thus they bore me company along the beach, the types of pleasant fantasies, till, at its extremity, they took wing over the ocean, and were gone. After forming a friendship with ...
— Footprints on The Sea-Shore (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... passed over him suddenly. Those verses were youth, and youth was gone, with all its flushed and spirited dalliance and reckless expenditure of feeling. Youth was behind him, and love was none of his, nor any cares of home, nor wife nor children; nothing but ambition now, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... alone dancing has become a mere display of physical agility, a form of exhibition common to all males. As practiced by men and women together we have our social dances, so lacking in all the varied beauty of posture and expression, so steadily becoming a pleasant form of dalliance. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... were better, for this dalliance In the ev'ning, in a sequester'd grove, Is most unseemly, if not dangerous. Woman, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the goodly fence of the court, and there slay them with your long blades, till they shall have all given up the ghost and forgotten the love that of old they had at the bidding of the wooers, in secret dalliance.' ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... alliance with the East; some preferred the friendship of the West; others, a course of diplomatic dalliance; a few stood out for honest independence. Some said that what the country needed was an increase of wealth; some held that a splendid and luxurious court like that of Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar would bring prosperity; others maintained that the troubles of the land could ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... breaking in." Neither is it the point of view of a profound and erudite student, with a deep belief in the efficacy of useless knowledge. Neither am I a humorist, for I have loved beauty better than laughter; nor a sentimentalist, for I have abhorred a weak dalliance with personal emotions. It is hard, then, to say what I am; but it is my hope that this may emerge. My desire is but to converse with my readers, to speak as in a comfortable tete-a-tete, of experience, and hope, and patience. ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of dalliance By the reedy waters in spring, When we sang of home, and sighed, and dreamed, And wept on remembering. Now we are back in our ancient hills Out of the plains and the sun; But before we make it a dwelling-place There's a wonderful lot to ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... account. When a balance has to be filled by borrowing it can only mean that the State has spent more than its revenue from taxes permits, and that it is afraid to cut down its expenses by retrenchment or to increase its revenue by taxing more highly. And so it chooses the primrose path of dalliance with a moneylender. ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... he doth preserue: And on mee will he powre these miseries? VVhat burning torches, what alarums of warre, VVhat shames did he to my loues prophesie? O no hee comes as winged Mercurie, From his great Father Ioue, t'Anchises sonne To warne him leaue the wanton dalliance, And charming pleasures of the Tyrian Court, 1360 Then wake the Anthony from this idle dreame, Cast of these base effeminate passions: Which melt the courrage of thy manlike minde, And with thy sword ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... do what becomes you; but if you do not do so, I shall find out how it becomes me to act toward you. This arises from nothing, in fact, but too much idleness. At your time of life, I did not devote my time to dalliance, but, in consequence of my poverty, departed hence for Asia, and there acquired in arms both riches and military glory." At length the matter came to this,— the youth, from hearing the same things so often, ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... and, rather than it should not, Note what we fathers do! look how we live! What mistresses we keep! at what expense, In our sons' eyes! where they may handle our gifts, Hear our lascivious courtships, see our dalliance, Taste of the same provoking meats with us, To ruin of our states! Nay, when our own Portion is fled, to prey on the remainder, We call them into fellowship of vice; Bait 'em with the young chamber-maid, to seal, And ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... best mount and away with the ladies, Sir Guy," he said. "Yon scurvy loons are in poor humor for dalliance." ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... however, he gradually recovered, and resumed his usual habits. Accordingly, we find him engaged in "luxurious dalliance and prophaneness" with the Duchess of Mazarine, and visiting the Duchess of Portsmouth betimes in her chamber, where that bold and voluptuous woman, fresh risen from bed, sat in loose garments talking to the king and his gallants, the ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... looked in her lover's face, trusting to his wisdom and strength. She rested her courage on his, but her eyes stirred him like a trumpet-call. The burden of that cry had been calamity. Love is protean, makes but a step from dalliance to grandeur. Balder, no longer a sentimental bridegroom, stood forth ready, brief, energetic,—but more a lover ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... having all received, Little distributed, and much retained; He gave, however, to the Kings and Chiefs A portion, and they keep it. Me alone 410 Of all the Grecian host he hath despoil'd; My bride, my soul's delight is in his hands, And let him, couch'd with her, enjoy his fill Of dalliance. What sufficient cause, what need Have the Achaians to contend with Troy? 415 Why hath Atrides gather'd such a host, And led them hither? Was't not for the sake Of beauteous Helen? And of all mankind Can none ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a free people,—a sad evidence that feeling prosperity, we forget right,—that liberty as a principle ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... requires is our imaginative acceptance of certain incidents which he purposely leaves hovering on the border between the natural and the preternatural, the explained and the unexplained. In this play, as in The Lady from the Sea and Little Eyolf, he shows a delicacy of art in his dalliance with the occult which irresistibly recalls the exquisite ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... time for such dalliance, I bent my knee and rested my forehead upon her hand. As I rose, the minister's hand touched my shoulder and the voice spoke in my ear. "There is another way," he said. "There is God's death, and not man's. Look ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... sleep was sound,—her virtue firm as the everlasting mountains. Jacqueline, I have singled you from among hordes and tribes and legions upon legions of women, one among ten thousand, altogether lovely,—not for dalliance, not for idleness, not for dancing, which is well; not for song, which is better; not for beauty, which, perhaps, is best; not for grace, or power, or passion. There is an attribute of God which is ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Thirsts were on his Celtic soul that longed for dalliance with the Orient; but he well knew that tone of voice, and sadly ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... reassured to learn that he was not neglecting his duties. To be philandering with a commercial traveller who has finished a good day's work seemed less shocking than dalliance with a neglecter of business; it ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... snarled with wicked display of yellow tusks from the blackened plaster, now Cleopatra, in the full bloom of her mature charms, reclined with her stalwart Roman hero in tender dalliance. Where once the proud and stately head of the majestic stag had hung over door and panel, now classic nymphs bathed in a pellucid pool, and the only horns were those which adorned the head of him who, according to the story, dared gaze ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... verdure fresher and livelier, the air more temperate, and the sky more serene than ever I did before; even the feathered songsters seem to tune their tender throats with more harmony and pleasure; the murmuring rills invite to love-inspiring dalliance, while the blossoms of the vine regale me from afar with the choicest perfumes ... let us animate all Nature, which is absolutely dead without the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... out of his head, in whom Miss Tox recognised, as she herself expressed it, 'something so truly military;' and between whom and herself, an occasional interchange of newspapers and pamphlets, and such Platonic dalliance, was effected through the medium of a dark servant of the Major's who Miss Tox was quite content to classify as a 'native,' without connecting him with ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... reflected)! The devil it is (I reflected)! I tried to conceive what the invaders of the train would exclaim if confronted by one of Simon Fuge's pictures. I could imagine only one word, and that a monosyllable, that would meet the case of their sentiments. And his dalliance, his tangential nocturnal deviations in gondolas with exquisite twin odalisques! There did not seem to be much room for amorous elegance in the lives of these invaders. And his death! What would they say of his ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... discomfort and uncleanliness of all sorts. To this may be added the excessive fondness for sports and pastimes of all kinds, in which nations are aptest to indulge before or after the era of their highest efforts,—the desire to make life one long holiday, dividing it between tournaments and the dalliance of courts of love, or between archery-meetings (skilfully substituted by royal command for less useful exercises), and the seductive company of "tumblers," "fruiterers," and "waferers." Furthermore, one may notice in all classes ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... of course, is hocus-pocus, and the judicious are not deceived by it for an instant. What these virtuous bel dames actually desire in their hearts is not that the male be reduced to chemical purity, but that the franchise of dalliance be extended to themselves. The most elementary acquaintance with Freudian psychology exposes their secret animus. Unable to ensnare males under the present system, or at all events, unable to ensnare males sufficiently appetizing to arouse the envy of other women, they ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... low, Illileo—so low the leaves were mute, And the echoes faltered breathless in your voice's vain pursuit; And there died the distant dalliance of the serenader's lute: And I held you in my bosom as the husk may hold the fruit. Illileo, I listened. I believed you. In my bliss, What were all the worlds above me since I found you thus in this?— Let them reeling reach to win me—- even Heaven I would miss, Grasping ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... times—the antipodes of ours: Ladies were there, who oftener saw themselves In the broad lustre of a foeman's shield Than in a mirror, and who rather sought To match themselves in battle, than in dalliance To meet a lover's onset.—But though Nature Was outraged thus, she was not overcome. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... many chances they may never see their loved ones again. No wonder they turn towards the Del Norte with gloom in their glances and dark forebodings in their breasts. Men of less loyal hearts, less prone to the promptings of humanity, would trifle and stay; spend longer time in a dalliance so surely agreeable, so truly delightful. Not so the young Kentuckian and his older companion, the Texan. Though the love of woman is enthroned in their hearts, each has kept a corner sacred to a sentiment ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the capital town of Allaha stood in the center of the bazaars, a great square platform with a roof, but open on all four sides. Here the slaves were exhibited, the poor things intended for dalliance and those who were to struggle and sweat and ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... have been content to wander for hours, perhaps—he begging for assurances that she with an only half-feigned, pretty reluctance gave—but that their agreeable dalliance was cut short by a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... if my chains had been riveted in the strongest manner. To all this I submitted, not through any adoration of her beauty, which was indeed but indifferent. Her charms consisted in little wantonnesses, which she knew admirably well to use in hours of dalliance, and which, I believe, are of all things the most ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... later, which was but the worshiping put into things material. Of his love and the bath he would have fancies, and he wanted what touched her to be from him. She was surprised by a cumbrous package which, opened, revealed great things for a woman's dalliance with water—the soft Turkish towel, vast enough to envelop her, the perfumed soaps, and even the bath-mittens. And she was a little frightened, maybe, at the personality of it all, but she recognized the nature ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... jackets and hats are hung on the corner of the fancy wooden case in which an orange-tree is planted. They are certainly perspiring in the heavy heat of the early morning. They are also certainly in love. This lively dalliance is the preliminary to a day's desk-work. It seems ill-chosen, silly, futile. The couple have forgotten, if they ever knew, that they are playing at a terrific and long-drawn moment of crisis in a spot sacred to ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... and dread I 2 With power of many a hand And many hastening feet shall spring The Fury of the adamantine tread, Visiting Argive land Swift recompense to bring For eager dalliance of a blood-stained pair Unhallowed, foul, forbidden. No omen fair,— Their impious course hath fixed this in my soul,— Nought but black portents full of blame shall roll Before their eyes that wrought or aided there. Small force of divination would there seem In prophecy or solemn ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... limestone, imbricated with scales, rising in one bold flight to end in a point, and send up a vapour of prayer among the clouds; the new one, pierced like lace, chiselled like a jewel, wreathed with foliage and crockets of vine, rises with coquettish dalliance, trying to make up for lack of the inspired flight and humble entreaty of its senior by babbling prayer and ingratiating smiles; to persuade the Father ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... from those of many fashionable women, whose only aesthetic accomplishment is to play languidly and mechanically on an instrument, and whose only intellectual achievement is to have devoured a dozen silly novels in the course of a summer spent in alternate sleep and dalliance! Nor does familiarity always give a zest to the pleasure which arises from the creations of art or the glories of nature. The Roman beggar passes the Coliseum or St. Peter's without notice or enjoyment, as a peasant sees unmoved ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... soul, these friendly fields desert, Where thou with grass, and rivers, and the breeze, And the bright face of day, thy dalliance hadst; Where to thine ear first sang the enraptured birds; Where love and thou that lasting bargain made. The ship rides trimmed, and from the eternal shore Thou hearest airy voices; but not yet Depart, my soul, not yet ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or love.] Endearment — N. endearment, caress; blandishment, blandiment^; panchement, fondling, billing and cooing, dalliance, necking, petting, sporting, sparking, hanky-panky; caressing. embrace, salute, kiss, buss, smack, osculation, deosculation^; amorous glances. courtship, wooing, suit, addresses, the soft impeachment; lovemaking; serenading; caterwauling. flirting &c v.; flirtation, gallantry; coquetry. true lover's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... watched him. How much of a boy he was himself, anyhow! And yet how little he understood the complicated problems of a boy like Graham, irresponsible but responsive, rich without labor, with time for the sort of dalliance Clay himself at the same age had had neither leisure ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of his soldier-like nature and eagerness for action; but though the qualities are rendered magically the qualities themselves are few: Shakespeare still harps upon Hotspur's impatience; but even a soldier is something more than hasty temper, and disdain of love's dalliance. But the portrait is not finished yet. The first scene in the third act between Hotspur and Glendower is on this same highest level; Hotspur's impatience of Glendower's bragging at length finds ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... drawing to the front amid ironic cheers. When the grotesque racers had passed by, noble cavaliers displayed their dexterity at the quintain, and beautiful ladies at the balconies—not masked, as in France, but radiantly revealed—changed their broad smiles to the subtler smiles of dalliance. And then suddenly the storm broke—happy ally of the fete—jocosely drenching the semi-nude runners. On, on they sped, breathless, blind, gasping, befouled by mud, and bruised by missiles, with the horses' hoofs grazing their heels; on, on along the thousand yards of the endless ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... would feel restless and ill-at-ease whenas he ceased to look upon her. In like manner Peri-Banu was fulfilled with affection for him and strove to please her bridegroom more and more every moment by new arts of dalliance and fresh appliances of pleasure, until so absorbing waxed his passion for her that the thought of home and kindred, kith and kin, faded from his thoughts and fled his mind. But after a time his memory awoke from slumber and at times he found himself longing to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... go; I grasped his arm, and tore the muscle out of it* (as the string comes out of an orange); then I took him by the throat, which is not allowed in wrestling; but he had snatched at mine; and now was no time of dalliance. In vain he tugged, and strained, and writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath the iron of my strength—for God that day was with me—I had him helpless in two minutes, and his ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... son bringeth home with him all his kin, and his friends, and all the others to his house, and maketh them a great feast. And then all his friends make their vaunt and their dalliance, how the fowls came thither, here five, here six, here ten, and there twenty, and so forth; and they rejoice them hugely for to speak thereof. And when they be at meat, the son let bring forth the head of his father, and thereof he giveth of the flesh to his most special ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... conflagration, smoke and the suffocation of horrible stench; from the pool they would be driven to the marsh of Hell, that they might embrace and be embraced by the reptiles, many times worse than serpents and vipers; after allowing them half an hour's dalliance with these creatures the devils would seize a bundle of rods of steel, fiery hot from the furnace, and would scourge them till their howling, caused by the horrible inexpressible pain which they endured, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... will, and sing, and thy fond dalliance bear; We the grovy hills will climb and play the wantons there; Other whiles we'll gather flowers, Lying dallying on the grass; And thus our delightful hours, Full of waking ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... three would, in some unknown way, be particularly drawn together in a tie of inexpressible beatitude. He fretted at the delay; he would have taken me by the hand, and have joined her in the realms of holiness and light, at once, without this dreary dalliance with ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... at your door! What an incentive to flirtation is the wily imp who turns ever and anon from his careless gambols to throw his laughter-loving eyes upon you, calling up the mantling blush to both your cheeks! He seems to chronicle the hours of your dalliance, making your secrets known unto each other. We have gone through our share of flirtation in this life: match-making mothers, prying aunts, choleric uncles, benevolent and open-hearted fathers, we understand to the life, and care no more for such man-traps ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... in that triumphant hour, Shall yielding beauty wed with power; And blushing earth and smiling sea In dalliance deck ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... the curtains in the front-room window were nearly white. Two bare-armed ladies, with skirts hiked up most indelicately behind them, were sloshing down their respective doorsteps, and each wall was ragged with five or six frayed heads thrust from upper windows for the silken dalliance of conversation. However, it was sanctuary. It ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... or laziness, which has to be overcome before we can think with any degree of concentration. Interest says, "Follow this line, which is easy and attractive, or which requires but little effort—follow the line of least resistance." Will says, "Quit that line of dalliance and ease, and take this harder way which I direct—cease the line of least resistance and take the one of greatest resistance." When day dreams and "castles in Spain" attempt to lure you from your lessons, refuse to follow; shut out these vagabond ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... verify their name, and a knock at the door knocks at the heart—the fixed resolution of such a man to strike a bold stroke, for the sake of his home, is worthier of attention than the flitting fancy of boy and girl, who pop upon one another, and skip through zigzag vernal ecstasy, like the weathery dalliance of gnats. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... dear white Rose, and tell to am'rous airs They waste their sweetness on thy charms, and chide Their ling'ring dalliance, o'er the whole world wide Bid them on buoyant morning wings to move, And whisper "Love;" Fair winds, be tender of her blissful name, On soft AEolian strings weave dainty dream, Let but the dove Hear a faint echo of her happy ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... know," said he, "That Aspasia is of Miletus. That city which poets call the laughing daughter of Earth and Heaven: where even the river smiles, as it winds along in graceful wanderings, eager to kiss every new blossom, and court the dalliance of every breeze. Do ye not find it easy to forgive a woman, born under those joyful skies, where beauty rests on the earth in a robe of sunbeams, and inspires the gayety which pours itself forth in playful words? ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... greeting, no inquiry or explanation, no dalliance with emotion. His first words were a command, her inevitable response was to obey. Now, as always, she threw the whole responsibility upon him. And Emmet felt equal to the burden. He was like a god, knowing good and evil. He meant to do ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... eyes. Like the eyes of an eagle, they were clear and hard, just now warmed by the dalliance of the moment, but there was no light, no intelligence in them to prove he understood her. The instant separated Ellen immeasurably from him and from all ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... tell me, Jakko, dost thou see The same old sprightly crew Disport with unembarrassed glee, As we were wont to do? What youth, in brazen armour cased, With pliant arm the yielding waist To arduous dalliance ensnares? Who, foremost of his peers, exalts The labours of the devious waltz By sitting out ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum) |
