"Avocation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though it were good to be careful how they were found breaking the peace and men's heads. I would mention here, that this singular admonition was induced by the presence of some six or seven of Don Fernando's old friends among the throng outside. And these worthy men commenced their favorite avocation with such shouts as-"Go it Fernando! Fernando and liberty!" And when they had thus deported themselves to their satisfaction, they took to demolishing the trombones of the players, as if such ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... touched with pity and with sorrow for suffering humanity. "I asked him," says Mr. Tweddel, "if after the massacre of Ismail he was perfectly satisfied with the conduct of the day. He said, he went home and wept in his tent." Though Suwarrow spared but little time from his military avocation for social intercourse, his tenderness for children was so great that he could not bear to pass them without notice. He would stop, embrace, and bless them whenever he met them: that he fondly loved his own is sufficiently proved by ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... the Genesis of Beadles. Was a beadle ever a baby? What like was he before he appeared in his office? Was he lying as a cardinal in petto till the right moment, and then simply showed himself to be appointed as one born unto this end? No one dared to hint that John had ever followed any other avocation, and an effort to connect John with the honourable trade of plumbing in the far past was justly regarded as a disgraceful return of Tammie Ronaldson's for much faithful dealing. Drumtochty refused to consider his ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... bar, in the pulpit, in the medical profession, and especially in political life, tact is the sine qua non to the highest degree of individual success. However gifted one may be, he cannot win conspicuous laurels in any calling or avocation, if he be deficient in tactfulness. The man who best understands human nature, knows how to approach people, and possesses the art of leading them, is the one who will invariably have the largest following and will possess the greatest amount of influence over his fellows. The fact ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... afterwards frightened the host's family by telling it, since they were not aware of any stranger in the house. The room over the great door had always been considered the haunt of peculiar people, who molested nobody living, but appeared there in some quiet avocation, and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... meeting takes place: a meeting which bears a family resemblance to our own Public Dinner, in respect of its being a main part of the proceedings that every gentleman present is required to drink something nasty. These Mataboos are a privileged order, so important is their avocation, and they make the most of their high functions. A long way out of the Tonga Islands, indeed, rather near the British Islands, was there no calling in of the Mataboos the other day to settle an ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... who felt that their loyalty to the advancing Imperator was beyond dispute, or who deemed themselves too insignificant to fall beneath his displeasure. In the hour of crisis the old ties of religion and superstition reasserted themselves. Senators and magistrates, who had deemed it a polite avocation to mock at the gods and deny the existence of any absolute ethical standards, now, before they climbed into their carriages for flight, went, with due ritual, into the temples of the gods of their fathers, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... none comparable in the world as it then existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems to have squandered his booty ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... in the year of our Lord 1192, a pirate vessel touched land on the coast of Sclavonia, at the port of Yara. Those were days in which it was not easy to distinguish between pirates and true mariners, either in aspect or avocation, neither being afflicted with much inconvenient honesty, both being hungry for spoil. From this vessel were landed a number of passengers,—knights, chaplains, and servants,—Crusaders on their way home from the Holy Land, and in need, for their overland journey, of a ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... in the arrangement and expression of thoughts, in her avocation of translator, and compiler, which was no doubt of great use to her afterward. It was not long until she had occasion for them. The eminent Burke produced his celebrated "Reflections on the Revolution in France." ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... words so nearly alike. Vocation is the employment, business or profession one follows for a living; avocation is some pursuit or occupation which diverts the person from such ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... got a patient and very favourable hearing. But certainly these great exertions of friends and enemies have forced many a poor fellow out of the common paths of life, and obliged him to make a trade of what can only be gracefully executed as an occasional avocation. When such a man is encouraged in all his freaks and follies, the bit is taken out of his mouth, and, as he is turned out upon the common, he is very apt to deem himself exempt from all the rules incumbent on those who keep the king's highway. And ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... the relative respectability of the various professions is not quite the same as it is with us. There the profession does not disqualify if the man himself be right, nor the claim to the title of gentleman depend upon the avocation followed. I know of one or two clowns in the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the less gentlemen because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests instead of prescribing pills ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... florid, stout, and sandy man, who spent most of his life driving over evil country roads in a buggy, securing orders for dairy furniture and certain allied lines of farm utensils. This practice had given him a loud voice and a deceptively hearty manner, to which the other avocation of cheese-buyer, which he pursued at the Board of Trade meetings every Monday afternoon, had added a considerable command of persuasive yet non-committal language. To look at him, still more to hear him, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... without their wives, or any other women. Every year, in the month of March, the men came to the Female Island, and tarried there three months, to wit, March, April, and May, dwelling with their wives for that space. At the end of those three months they returned to their own island, and pursued their avocation there, selling ambergris to the traders from Sumatra. As for the children whom their wives bore them, if they were girls they stayed with their mothers; but if they were boys their mothers brought them up until they were fourteen years old, and then sent them to their fathers. ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... a big subject that must be treated broadly, for circumstances alter cases. There is a sane way to look at every problem, and the matter of living beyond our means is one of the major problems we have to face. If every man was alike and every avocation in life was on a parity, it would be possible to dispose of this subject in a paragraph. But men are not alike. What one could do successfully might easily baffle another. Therefore, it seems advisable to consider the subject by looking ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... the same avocation in the city concerning which you have advised us from time to time by letter, I ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... urged the mastiff on the track of the deer; yet they failed to see that the Creator, and peculiar conditions unchanged for centuries, had moulded the races of men to different forms of government, modes of life, and varieties of avocation. The Roman conqueror of the world knew better than to put in his heavily-armed legions the flying Parthian, the light-armed horseman of Numidia, or the slinger of the Balearic Isles. The American of the past had at his disposal ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... of M. Thiers's political antagonists, seeking to annoy him, volunteered to circulate in the form of a card the following advertisement for a lady who appears to be related to M. Thiers, and also to carry on an honest avocation:— ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... questions addressed to him, the accused replied that his name was Fernand Wagner; that he was a native of Germany; that he had no profession, avocation nor calling; that he was possessed of a large fortune; and that having traveled over many parts of the world, he settled in Florence, where he had hoped to enjoy ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... nature in accomplishing a work which is laid upon them as a duty. One of the greatest artists of New England took care of his brothers and sisters and his father's farm, at a crisis, and kept a little shed outside the house where he painted at odd moments. He had an avocation as well as a vocation. He gave up his trip to study in Europe as he wished to study; he did a vast amount of work which was regarded by many as drudgery, and he was compelled to study his art only ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... baritone voice could reach her admiring ears and—for it was only honeymoon with her still—set her to wondering if it really were possible that that splendid fellow were her own, her very own; and time and again Mrs. Grace would find herself stopping short in her avocation and going to the front windows and gazing with all her lovely brown eyes over to the whirling dust-cloud on the eastern plain and revelling in the power and ring of Jack's commanding voice, and going off into day-dreams. Was it possible that there ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... three hundred pounds - sighing like an exhaust-pipe at every step. For fifteen unhappy minutes the skeleton-key is wriggled and twisted about again in the key- hole, and the fat proprietaire rubs his bald head impatiently, but all to no purpose. Each returns to his respective avocation. Impatient to get at my writing materials, I look up at the iron bars across the fifth- story windows above, and motion that if they will procure a rope I will descend from thence and enter the window. They one and all point out ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... demand of the many the Arab had too few dances with the Spanish girl. There were Comanches, Samurai, policemen, Zulus and courtiers, who, seeing her dance, discovered that their immediate avocation ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... quite understand," he said, "is the exact meaning of that word 'abduction.' Why should I be suspected of forcibly removing a harmless and worthy young man from his regular avocation, and, as you term it, abducting him, which I presume means keeping him bound and gagged and imprisoned? I do not eat young men. I do not even care for the society of young men. I am not naturally a gregarious person, but I think ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... now begun by first throwing a mob into a panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury. Here the effect of civilization has been to reduce the noblest of the arts, once the repository of an exalted etiquette and the chosen avocation of the very best men of the race, to the level of a riot of peasants. All the wars of Christendom are now disgusting and degrading; the conduct of them has passed out of the hands of nobles and knights and into the hands of mob-orators, money-lenders, and atrocity-mongers. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... of thirteen, after receiving a moderate education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, Paine left school, to follow his father's trade (stay-making.) Although disliking the business, he pursued this avocation for nearly five years. When about twenty years of age, however, he felt—as most enterprising young men do feel—a desire to visit London, and enter into the competition and chances of a metropolitan life. His natural dislike to his father's business led him to abandon for a period his original ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... Emma; "our avocation is losing all its charms, and a pleasure now almost settles down to ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... the region had despatched their victims thoroughly, leaving them mutilated and robbed even of their clothing. The charming part of it all was one could never know which of these slinking fellows was a bandit by avocation and saving up his unvented anger for the boss who ordered him ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... To him, cooped up for a year and more in the narrow confines of Simiti, the ready flow of this man's conversation was like a fountain of sparkling water to a thirsty traveler. He urged him to go on, plying him with questions about his strange avocation. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... attain it is the greatest art of life. The prince might gain it if he devoted himself earnestly, not merely in a half-absent dilettante fashion, to some art, science, or useful avocation. Only it required a self-discipline of which, unfortunately, he was incapable. In all pursuits requiring dexterity, all sciences, the first steps are laborious, wearisome, and apparently thankless, and the Canaan which they promise ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... which I admire in him. I hate people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler. While he lives, J.E. will take his swing.—It does me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on some fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that indicates some purchase in his eye—a Claude—or a Hobbima—for much of his enviable leisure is consumed at Christie's, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... children, being careful to keep them, if possible, from any knowledge of their mode of life. Further, they are charitable to the poor, and, in a way, religious; or, perhaps, superstitious would be a better term. Thus, they often go to church on Sundays, and do not follow their avocation on Sunday nights. On New Year's Eve, their practice is to attend the Watch Night services, where, doubtless, poor people, they make those good resolutions that form the proverbial pavement of the road to Hell. Nearly all ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... suddenly weary of his isolation and solitude, or whether need had driven him to this means of earning money, no one knew, and he did not say. But once having entered on the life of a guide, he threw himself into it as heartily as if it had been his life-long avocation, and speedily became one of the best guides in the region. It was observed, however, that whenever he could do so he avoided taking parties in which there were ladies. Sometimes for a whole season it would happen that he had not once been seen ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... as unfruitful in literature as is often supposed. While there have been very few to make literature a vocation, a surprisingly large number have made it an avocation. Law and literature, as we shall have occasion to note, have frequently gone hand in hand. A recent work on Southern literature [*] enumerates more than twelve hundred writers, most of whom have published one or more volumes. There are more than two hundred poets who have been thought worthy ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... satellites, Austin and Langley. At a little distance from the party, sat a tall, sinister-looking personage, with harsh inflexible features, a gaunt but muscular frame, and large bony hands. He was sipping a glass of cold gin and water, and smoking a short black pipe. His name was Marvel, and his avocation, which was as repulsive as his looks, was that of public executioner. By his side sat a remarkably stout dame, to whom he paid as much attention as it was in his iron nature to pay. She had a nut-brown skin, a swarthy upper lip, a merry black eye, a prominent ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... an object of aversion and terror to the peaceful inhabitants of the land, his avocation being to challenge quiet country farmers to single combat. As the law of the land stood in Norway, a man who declined to accept a challenge, forfeited all his possessions, even to the wife of his bosom, as ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... keyed up to a high pitch. These centres become fatigued easily and ought to be rested occasionally. Therefore, the student should relax at intervals, and engage in something remote from study. To forget books for an entire week-end is often wisdom; to have a hobby or an avocation is also wise. A student must not forget that he is something more than an intellectual being. He is a physical organism and a social being, and the well-rounded life demands that all phases receive expression. We grant that it is wrong to exalt the physical and stunt the mental, ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... found his mother engaged in knitting, as usual. This was the only avocation that her almost complete blindness allowed her to pursue; and she followed it constantly. "Ah! here you are, Toto," she exclaimed, joyously. "I didn't expect you so soon. Don't you scent a savory ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... a permanent business or profession, however, the most interesting men I know are those who have an avocation as well as a vocation. I mean a taste or work quite apart from the business of life. This revives, inspires, and cultivates them perpetually. It matters little what it is, if only it is real and personal, is large enough to last, and possesses the power of ...
— Why go to College? an Address • Alice Freeman Palmer
... workman, concealed from observation by the depth to which he had laboured. After a moment's pause, the cavalier cautiously approached the brink, and beheld a strange-looking being, with sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, busily engaged in this interesting and useful avocation. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... FOR THE YOUNG of both Sexes; Relating to the Formation of Character, Choice of Avocation; Health, Amusement, Music, Conversation, Cultivation of Intellect, Moral Sentiments, Social Affection, Courtship and Marriage. By Rev. G. S. Weaver. Price, in paper, 62 cents; muslin, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... bobbins to make lace, the profits of which helped to maintain their children. While they are communing on the things of God, a traveling tinker draws near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation. Their words distil into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan; they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of being born again, acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and how freely and undeservedly God had visited their hearts with pardoning mercy, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... through their business training, or apprenticeship, instead of pursuing their avocation and rising in their business, will often lie about doing nothing. They say; "I have learned my business, but I am not going to be a hireling; what is the object of learning my trade or profession, unless I ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum
... rolling the virtues and graces of two or three men into one! I'd almost like to be a man in this decade, a young, strong man, for there are such splendid giants to slay! To be sure, a woman can always buckle on the sword, and that is rather a delightful avocation, after all; but somehow there are comparatively few men nowadays who care greatly to wear swords or have them buckled on. There is no inspiration in trying to buckle on the sword of a man who never saw one, and who uses it wrong end foremost, and falls down on it, and entangles his ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... departure would be less shocking than to stay and take a formal leave of my lover, whose heart was of such a delicate frame, that, after I told him I should one day withdraw myself in his absence, he never came home from the chase, or any other avocation, without trembling with apprehension that I ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... he obtained letters of introduction to influential men in the respective towns he meant to visit, and, like a shrewd calculator, determined to add the parson's avocation to that of the political pamphleteer. The beginning of Jan. 1796, Mr. Coleridge, laden with recommendatory epistles, and rich in hope, set out on his eventful journey, and visited in succession, Worcester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Lichfield, Derby, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, &c. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... me. She came down looking as fresh as a wild rose, in a soft, white dress with some kind of light greenery about it, and a pale green sash around her waist, and her pretty, sunset hair uncovered. If there is any pleasanter avocation for an old fellow than driving in an open buggy with a girl like that, I don't know it. She talked charmingly: about my travels; about her college friends; about Eastridge; and at last about her disappointment in not going to Europe. By this time we were ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... a window when passing and strange objects appear, foretells that you will fail in your chosen avocation and lose the respect for which ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... boat left the side of the mistico, she had, in every respect, the appearance of one belonging to a harmless fisherman just returned from his day's avocation. Although Zappa had with justice full confidence in his own masquerading talents, he wisely did not wish to run any unnecessary risk, and he, therefore, ordered the mistico to get under weigh, and to sweep close in shore after him, that he ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... associated with the Executive, they might be induced to embark too far in the political views of that magistrate, and thus a dangerous combination might by degrees be cemented between the executive and judiciary departments. It is impossible to keep the judges too distinct from every other avocation than that of expounding the laws. It is peculiarly dangerous to place them in a situation to be either corrupted ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... speed could be introduced in the management he saw that it might appear in the departure of the guests. Emil, therefore, had come home to fall heir in due time to the business, and prior to the ceremonies attending that event, he was to be his father's lieutenant, practicing his avocation as an ornithologist, whose specialty was rare birds, at leisure moments. Emil enjoyed also the work of the taxidermist, and loved dearly to cut and stuff. Jerry, the wonderful cat of the glass case in the office, gave only a hint ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... passing rapidly during which Douglas should have laid broad and deep the foundations of his professional career, if indeed law was to be more than a convenient avocation. These were formative years in the young man's life; but as yet he had developed neither the inclination nor the capacity to apply himself to the study of the more intricate and abstruse phases of jurisprudence. To be sure, he had picked up much practical information in ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... came in sight of a great town. When I arrived there, I was much surprised to see vast numbers of people in different postures, but all immovable. The merchants were in their shops, the soldiery on guard; every one seemed engaged in his proper avocation, yet all were become as stone.... I heard the voice of a man reading Al Koran.... Being curious to know why he was the only living creature in the town,... he proceeded to tell me that the city was the metropolis of a kingdom now governed by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... occasion. But why on earth, when the day is over, cannot the unhappy couple be left alone to eat a Darby-and-Joan dinner together in the house in which they propose to live, and return peacefully on the morrow to the avocation of their daily lives? Why must they be sent off amid a shower of rice and shabby satin shoes into an enforced banishment from the society of their fellow-creatures, and so thrown upon each other that, in nine cases out of ten, for want of something better to do, they have learnt ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... recovered from the bewilderment occasioned by the shock, they started off in a body and made their way to the town. It was a matter of extreme surprise to find no symptom of the least excitement anywhere as they went along. The population was perfectly calm; every one was pursuing his ordinary avocation; the cattle were browsing quietly upon the pastures that were moist with the dew of an ordinary January morning. It was about eight o'clock; the sun was rising in the east; nothing could be noticed to indicate that any abnormal incident had either transpired or been ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... colored of the North suffer while the slave is cared for and comfortable," why belie ourselves? Malcome's influence is, and always has been, with the whites, and manifestly good in the preservation of order and obedience on the part of the slaves. He pursues his avocation with spirit and enterprise, while he is subjected to menial and oppressive laws. His father visited New York, and was forbidden to return. He appealed again and again, set forth his claims and his integrity to the State and her laws, but all was of no avail. ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... to Scutari, whence they had come, in the hope of finding a Roman Catholic sisterhood. The proposal evoked but lukewarm enthusiasm. Liosha being convinced that they would turn her into a nun—the last avocation in the world she desired to adopt. Her simple idea was to go out to America, like her father, return with many bags of gold and devote her life to the linked sweetness of a gradual extermination of her enemies. When asked how she would ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Public Safety, appointed at the meeting of citizens held at the Chamber of Commerce July 23d, deeming that the allaying of excitement is the first step toward restoring order, would urge upon all citizens disposed to aid therein the necessity of pursuing their usual avocation, and keeping all their employees at work, and would, therefore, request that full compliance be accorded to this demand of the committee. The committee are impressed with the belief that the police force now being organized will be able ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... more brilliant by one of those great blue papers in which oranges are now artfully wrapped, leant over the railing and listened; and opposite the nympham discentem there was a capering and acute-eared young satirist of a crossing-sweeper, who had left his neighboring professional avocation and chance of profit, in order to listen to the tale of the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... summit of laudable ambitions into the sultry plains of domestic drudgery and menial toil, nearly every ray of hope had perished upon the strained vision of the Negro. The only thing young Colored men could aspire to was the position of a waiter, the avocation of a barber, the place of a house-servant or groom, and teach or preach to their own people with little or no qualifications. Denied the opportunities and facilities of securing an education, they were upbraided by the press and pulpit, in private gatherings and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... divine worship, a herald should go before, and proclaim with a loud voice, Hoc age, Do this you are about, and so warn them to mind whatever sacred action they were engaged in, and not suffer any business or worldly avocation to disturb and interrupt it; most of the things which men do of this kind, being in a manner forced from them, and effected by constraint. It is usual with the Romans to recommence their sacrifices and processions and spectacles, not only upon such a cause as this, but for any slighter reason. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... paid her debts; mind and body were set at rest, and, one or two Christian ladies being made acquainted with the case, attended to the comforts which hastened her recovery; and, when once more pursuing her avocation, her "mither's God" seemed very near, not ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... sleep. One evening it was proposed by one of the boys that each should tell his own story; for though they met together daily they knew little of each other beyond this, that they were all engaged in some street avocation. Some of the stories ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... that he would probably use his influence as a statesman to involve his country in war again. To some it may possibly seem strange that Gordon, who had distinguished himself as a soldier, and had saved an empire, should again take up the humble avocation of an engineer officer, but so he did. He was in reality only a captain of engineers, though a brevet lieutenant-colonel in the army, when in February 1865 he returned home. He took a few months' leave, which he spent quietly ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... the legitimate business we wish to see something of the engrossing avocation of most of the people of the city, of any business or no business, and we pass on to Montgomery, crossing over to the center of the stock exchange activities. Groups of men and women are watching the tapes in the brokers' offices, messengers ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... adapted to the city man. The ordinary farmer would neglect them, and I should hate to see a farmer get them, but I would like to do anything for the man living in the city with only a small plat of land—my vocation being in the city, my avocation being ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... surprised, the grocer ceased his avocation and hastened to obey the summons. "How the deuce does the man know me?" muttered he, forgetting that his name was over the door in gilt letters fully six ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... system of National Service, the ultimate aim of which was to ensure that every youth should, by the time that he had reached the age of manhood, twenty-five years, have undergone a course of training, which, without interfering with his civil avocation, would render him a desirable asset as a soldier. With this object in view I submitted ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... propensities of our nature? It is true, these propensities may by an undue cultivation be so much increased, as to be productive of the most extensive mischief. The man who, for the sake of indulging his corporeal appetites, neglects every valuable pursuit, and every important avocation, cannot be too warmly censured. But it is no less true, that the passion of the sexes for each other, exists in the most innocent and uncorrupted heart. Can it then be reasonable to condemn such a moderate indulgence of this passion, as interrupts no employment, and impedes no pursuit? This ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... in rivers and in stews or ponds. The angler sometimes stood or squatted upon the bank; at other times, not content with commanding the mere edge of the water, he plunged in, and is seen mid-stream, astride upon an inflated skin, quietly pursuing his avocation. [PLATE CXXVI., Fig. 1.] Occasionally he improved his position by amounting upon a raft, and, seated at the stern, with his back to the rower, threw out his line and drew the fish from the water. Now and then the fisherman was provided with a plaited ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... different man his circumstances would assuredly have been other. His wife, for instance, would in all human probability have been alive. His avocation might have been more suited to his capabilities. He was not intended for a country parish, and that practical, human comprehension of the ultimate value of little daily details, without which a pastor never yet understood his flock, was ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Literary women, whose avocation is selected simply because they fancy, it easier to write than to sew for bread, or because they covet the applause and adulation heaped upon successful genius, or desire mere notoriety, generally barter ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Adams was her name. Vocation, school-teacher. Present avocation, getting lost in the snow. Age, yum-yum (the Persian for twenty). Take to the woods if you would describe Miss Adams. A willow for grace; a hickory for fibre; a birch for the clear whiteness of her skin; for eyes, the blue sky seen through treetops; the silk in cocoons for her hair; her voice, ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... of presenting abstract truth in a form plain, attractive and intelligible to the common understanding, it is to be hoped that Mr. Hoyt will continue to contribute to the higher departments of our periodical literature, and thus by his studies and his pen add to his present usefulness in his daily avocation, for we seldom find one blessed with such a versatility of talent. He is methodical in everything, and thorough in everything. In short, he is a good lawyer, a good preacher, a good citizen, a good business man, a good father, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... objection to men of other vocations adopting farming as an avocation if they can afford it. It is a rational form of pleasure for wealthy people, and one in which they can often be of great service. This cannot be said of all forms of relaxation. Wealthy men have been of special service to the cause of agriculture by promoting ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... son not to allow his upper man to doff his livery, though this valet was to attend his person, when the toilet was a serious avocation requiring a more delicate hand and a nicer person than he who was to walk before his chair, or climb behind his coach. This searching genius of philosophy and les petites moeurs solemnly warned that if ever this ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... weakened.[1181] What, O Jajali, will be the end of him who doth not recite the Vedas, unto others, who doth not perform Sacrifices (properly), who doth not make gifts unto (deserving) Brahmanas, and who followeth an avocation in which every kind of desire is indulged? By properly reverencing, however, the duties that appertain to Renunciation, one is sure ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... her husband, had chosen for himself a gentler avocation than his wife's, and one which brought him greater peace of mind—proprietor of the big red stable which spread itself over half a block, he had unconsciously defined himself, as well as his place of business, by having printed in huge white letters ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... my old avocation, I took his place, and thereby began a close friendship with the Schollick Brothers, who were completely out ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... on the merits and fondness of Pekuah, and, for some weeks, retired constantly, at the time fixed, and returned with her eyes swollen, and her countenance clouded. By degrees, she grew less scrupulous, and suffered any important and pressing avocation to delay the tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to less occasions; sometimes forgot what she was, indeed, afraid to remember, and, at last, wholly released herself from ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... is something you do for a living, an avocation something you do for a while, a vacation something you couldn't stick at very long without being dead ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... Martin. "You need not worry about your Little Billy. Neither the police nor the Japs have captured him. He is improving his chance to pursue the avocation of book salesman." ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, and they accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the days of the greatest corruption. They had around them a regular court of parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as their chamberlains and stewards. Carving ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... in such a state of nerves—if I may use the expression, in such a state of funk—that every passer-by, however innocent, is looked at with suspicion by his neighbour if his avocation happens to take him abroad between the hours of one and three in ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... if at usurpation We needs must strike a blow, Our hardy avocation Shall fit us for the foe; Then let the despot's strength compete Upon the open sea, And on the proudest of his fleet Our ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... any one familiar with the displays of previous years in this department, that the breeding of fine cattle in this country is, at the present time, attracting the attention and commanding the best and most intelligent care of not alone the farmers who have been bred to their avocation, but of capitalists, who comprehend the great money values involved, and who either of themselves or through their sons have set out to identify themselves with this great interest. As the result of the fact the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Maid"—indicating the approach of Joe—for it was his cart:—the dying cadence now gave way to the gee-up! uttered in deep bass, accompanied with a smart smack of the whip, to urge the horse up the ascent. Joe was a decent sort of boy enough for his avocation, not to be ranked among those who "troop under the sooty flag of Acheron;" but a clean, square-built fellow, with a broadish face and forehead, blue eyes, nose rather short, expanded, and inclined upwards, and tinted with that imperial hue that indicated his knowledge was not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... was a cheer that made the ocean shiver, and fluttered the flags over the tents, and made even the trick-o'-the-loop men pause in their honest avocation, and the orange-sellers hold their wares suspended ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... lucrative than his legitimatized and avowed calling. Mr. Rosen was by way of being—by a roundabout way of being—what technically is known as a bootlegger. He bootlegged upon a larger scale than do most of those pursuing this precarious avocation. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... inquire into their particular grounds. In one department of industry or another, they had been nearly incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... his energies between his calling of surgeon, at which he prospered amazingly, and his avocation ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... my profession doesn't take a solemn oath to wait until the remains are resting in pieces: it might not be a difficult task to take up an avocation as well as a vocation. I wonder if I couldn't be a pretty good Ghost ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... diverse; he wrote light verse, character sketches, and essays, including two controversial pieces in support of the French Revolution.[1] It is apparent, however, that for him writing was hardly more than an avocation. ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... feet of the river's bank. A few leaky boats drawn up on the mud, and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it: and here and there an oar or coil of rope: appeared, at first, to indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued some avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and useless condition of the articles thus displayed, would have led a passer-by, without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they were disposed there, rather for the preservation ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... saturnine avocation, I generally had an open book on the counter beside me; not a marble-covered dirty volume, from the Minerva press, or a half-bound, half-guinea's worth of fashionable trash, but a good, honest, heavy-looking, wisdom-implying book, horribly stuffed with epithet of drug; a book in which Latin words ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... the chicken-yard, and the haystacks to indicate that Captain Jabe was anything more than a thrifty small-farmer. But, farmer and sailor as he was, Captain Jabe was none the less a grocer, and I think to this avocation he ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... this disconsolate father, that no pleasure, no avocation should ever so entirely engross his mind, but that he should still find an hour for sympathy and friendship. He communicated the invitation of Madam Clement, and insisted upon his compliance, that he might have an opportunity of seeing and approving the object ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... up the Straits for shelter. It was a big improvement, for she certainly had begun to make dirty weather of it, and no wonder. Now, however, running almost dead before the gale, getting into smoother water at every fathom, she was steady as a rock, allowing us to pursue our greasy avocation in comparative comfort. The gale was still increasing, although now blowing with great fury; but, to our satisfaction, it was dry and not too cold. Running before it, too, lessened our appreciation of its force; besides which, we were exceedingly busy clearing away the enormous mass ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... traders are buying great tracts. Temporary officials have eager eyes fixed on the Mexican grants. At all the landings and along the new roads, once trails, little settlements are springing up, for your unlucky argonaut turns to the nearest avocation; inns, stables, lodging-houses and trading-tents are waited on by men of every calling and profession. Each wanderer turns to the easiest way of amassing wealth. The settlers must devise all their ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... each other—that of the latest date being the twenty-fourth of May. I have had on hand for some time a long letter to you, explaining my view of the course and tendency of our politics, and my intentions as to my own future conduct. But my plan embraced so large a range, that, owing to much avocation, some indifferent health, and a growing distaste for politics, the letter is still considerably short of being finished. I write this now to satisfy you that want of regard for you has not been ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Ireland, an honest, industrious man, had brought out upwards of one hundred pounds to this country. With more wisdom than is generally exercised by Irish emigrants, instead of sinking all his means in buying a bush farm, he hired a very good farm in Cavan, with cattle, and returned to his old avocation. The services of his daughter, who was an excellent dairymaid, were required to take the management of the cows; and her brother brought a wagon and horses all the way from the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... And Tom, the waiter, his napkin twisted in his hand and his face turned with a sudden dark abstraction towards the window, appeared to be really "lying low," and waiting for something outside his avocation. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I did not think my former calling of the stage a very dignified one; I assure you it appears to me magnificent compared with my present avocation of living by the unpaid labor of others, and those others half of them women like myself. There is nothing in the details of the existence of the slaves which mitigates in my opinion the sin of slavery; and this is forced upon me every hour of the day—so painfully to my conscience, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... discontinuous, being an interesting avocation rather than a career. Of it little has been permanent. His General Staff soon lapsed into incompetence; if it had not, it might have been the danger to American national life that the German General Staff was to German national life. Recently it was merged with the high command. As Secretary ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... nephews overflowed freely in the form of gifts of what did not belong to him, bestowed the living on a cousin, who commuted it for an annual revenue of six hundred and forty gold crowns—a splendid revenue for those days—and poor Bonivard, whose sole avocation was that of gentleman, found it difficult to carry on that line of business with neither capital nor income. He came back, some five years later, into possession of the priory. They were five years of exciting changes, of fierce terrorism and oppression ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... pretended to be given of the Debates and Proceedings of this House" ("Journals of House of Lords," xix). The third number of "The Political State," Boyer issued on March 17th, giving his reason for the delay in its appearance: "An unavoidable and unvoluntary avocation, of which I may give you an account hereafter, has obliged me to write to you a fortnight later than ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... January there fell into my hands a copy of a circular to Members of Parliament by Henry Varley, the Notting Hill revivalist. This person was a notorious trader in scandal, and he still pursues that avocation. Many of his discourses are "delivered to men only," an advertisement which is sure to attract a large audience; and one of them, which he has published, is just on a level with the quack publications that are thrust into ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... successes in purely mental vocations, as the result of the development of their intellects, and may keep themselves in a fair degree of health and strength by games, exercise, mountain climbing, farming, or some such avocation, they are, nevertheless, never quite so well satisfied as when they have something to do which not only gives them opportunity for the use of their intellects, but also involves a certain degree of physical activity as a ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... has been indicated that he was quick-witted, because he had to be, in the very nature of his avocation. Just now his brain was working rather more rapidly than usual, even: which was one reason why the light had leaped ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... page it is recorded: "April the 28th day, Old John Seagle departed this world, 1780." On page 11 this entry appears: "May the 3rd day I sowed flax seed in the year 1779," and other entries relating to the same agricultural avocation are interspersed through the little book. The culture of flax was then an indispensible employment. Our soldiers then wore hunting shirts, made of flax, to the battle fields. Cotton was not generally ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... every man needed "both a vocation and an avocation"—something by which he earned his living and something by which he maintained his interest in activity. It is the avocation that must be planned for. The vocation is often thrust upon one by necessity or chance association. If every aged person had something to do that made each ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... of fugitives of all ranks and stations,—soldiers, farmers, and artisans; nobles and vassals; bishops and monks; men, women, and children,—brought together by a terror that banished all distinctions of rank and avocation. For a number of years this small band of fugitive Christians, gathered between the mountains and the sea in northwestern Spain, remained quiet, desiring only to be overlooked or disregarded by the conquerors. But in the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... all events, many of these ladies,and worthy ones too, are placed, par force of poverty, in this avocation, unsuited to their abilities, their hearts, their habits, or their former expectations. The government of their young flock is odious to them, and although they may go through the duties of their situation with apparent patience, it is in fact a drudgery almost ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... my orders by doing any thing of the kind," she said quietly, yet resolutely, as she pursued her avocation, that of dusting with a bunch of colored plumes the delicate ornaments of the etagere carefully one ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... brothers “of the cloth” with piscatorial proclivities, who visit Woodhall, the writer would point to this means of healthful relaxation, which he can recommend from experience. Any qualms of the clerical conscience as to the legitimacy of such an avocation—a wholesome calling away from graver duties—may be set at rest on episcopal, and even archi-episcopal, authority. The late Archbishop Magee was an ardent fisherman, and would go on flogging on Irish lough or river, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... been startled by the discovery of the notorious gang of bush-rangers, Starlight and the Marstons, domiciled in the very heart of the diggings, attired as ordinary miners, and—for their own purposes possibly—leading the laborious lives proper to the avocation. They have been fairly successful, and as miners, it is said, have shown themselves to be manly and fair-dealing men. We are not among those who care to judge their fellow-men harshly. It may be that they had resolved to forsake the criminal practices ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Treasury Department was given to Thomas Ewing, of Ohio (familiarly known from his early avocation as "the Salt Boiler of the Kanawha") who was physically and intellectually a great man. He was of medium height, very portly, his ruddy complexion setting off his bright, laughing eyes to the best ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... and in general even a more profitable employment than that other of writing for a bookseller, to which the art of printing has given occasion." We see the political economist, alike insensible to the dignity of the literary character, incapable of taking a just view of its glorious avocation. To obviate the personal wants attached to the occupations of an author, he would, more effectually than skilfully, get rid of authorship itself. This is not to restore the limb, but to amputate it. It is not the preservation of existence, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... beautiful flowers, covered as it were by a glass shade, but which turns out to be only water. There a miniature palace is in course of erection, with crowds of workmen in its different storeys, each man at his avocation with hammer and chisel, pulley and wheel, and the grave architect himself directing their labour. All this is set in motion by water, and is not a mere doll's house, but a symmetrical model. Then we enter a subterranean grotto, with a roof of pendant stalactites, where the pleasant sound of ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the wrath and indignation were great; there were threats of setting fire to the houses of MM. de Brienne and de Lamoignon; the quarters of the commandant of the watch were surrounded. The number of folks of no avocation, of mendicants and of vagabonds, was increasing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... little text-book the author has tried to combine the trade information which he has gained in his avocation, the study of precious stones, with the scientific knowledge bearing thereon, which his vocation, the teaching of chemistry, has ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... live in a perpetual avocation of thought. To perceive God in His works a man must, at least, consider them with attention. But passions cast such a mist before the eyes, not only of wild savages, but even of nations that seem to be most civilised ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... something to do in order to occupy his proper position as bread-winner of the family, the widow's means being limited and it being as much as she could do to support herself and Lorischen out of her savings, without having to take again to teaching—which avocation, indeed, her health of late years had rendered her unable to continue, had she been desirous of ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fidelity with which I clung to my avocation as an educator also influenced my action in this matter. Even if I could not say truly that I had a Fatherland, I must yet acknowledge that every boy, that every child, who might perhaps later on come to be educated by me would have ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... which he occupied, which was many stories high, and contained a great number of rooms. He housed in it a large family, several apprentices, two shopmen, and his wife's sister, Dinah Morse, at such times as the latter was not out nursing the sick, which was her avocation in life. ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... certain school of design. There were some really beautiful lanterns and wall brackets and reading lamps shown, designed and executed by young women who are self supporting by day and can give only a few evening hours, or an occasional day, to the pursuit of their avocation. One hanging lantern of terra cotta was very fine indeed, and there were many notable fixtures. There must be easily tens of thousands of young people who are students in the various schools of design, manual training high ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... try'd, continue four or five Days successively; during which time, the Old-Bailey-Yard is crouded with an idle disorderly Crew of Persons of both Sexes, who have no other Business but to obstruct those who have any unwish'd for Avocation to the Place——In one Corner stands a Circle, compos'd of, perhaps, a Baker's-Boy, a Journeyman-Shoemaker, a Butcher's-'Prentice, and a Bailiff's-Follower, telling how it was; By what means such a Robber was taken; Who his Relations are; One boasting ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... hamlet was a woman who practised the avocation of midwife, and was known as such in the neighbourhood, but who had, it was said, mysterious and infamous secrets for those who paid her well. Further, she drew a good income from the influence which her art gave her over credulous people. It was all in her line to cure ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... support of its charge of the exercise of Court influence at the Windsor Election. As usual, however, ... its toadies are active and noisy.... To-day we, of course, find Punch the most abject, probably, of all the "Times" toadies, discharging the duties of its mean avocation in an article libelling the successful candidate, libelling the military, libelling the young gentlemen of Eton, and ascribing Colonel Reid's return to "kitchen-stairs influence" emanating from the Castle..... ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... solemn avocation with him. Silently he nodded like the still statue in the opera of Don Juan. Indeed he never spoke, unless to give pithy utterance to the wisdom of keeping one's wardrobe in repair. But herein my Viking at times waxed oracular. And many's ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... wrote an account of the step he had taken, with his motives for it, was far from being offended at it; tho' he told him it added to his trouble, to think his eldest son should be compelled, by his having entered into a second marriage, to have recourse to any avocation whatever for bread; but concluded with telling him, that in the severe necessity of their present circumstances, he could not have pitched on any thing more agreeable to his inclinations, or more honourable ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... in the earth of the flower bed by the path—"of course," he said, "speaking as one who has had some sad experience with illness and that sort of thing, it has always seemed to me that one should not take chances with one's health. If the cares of a particular avocation—situation—position—whatever it may be—if the cares and—ah—disappointments incidental to it are affecting one's physical condition it has always seemed to me wiser to sacrifice the first for the second. And make the sacrifice in time. You ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Henley had prevailed upon them to accept. He sank into his accustomed place at home and at the store as naturally as if he had been away only for a day. The news of his return drew around him many of the motley ilk who made trading and swapping both a business and an avocation. They seldom dealt with him, to be sure, but it was a liberal education to hear his experiences, and even better to see him actually make a deal. On his first day at home he had bought a lame horse for ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Ireland. But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth included "Harry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... in the green meadows, to run with the hounds, it waddled about the kitchen floor looking out for the bones and scraps of fat cast to it, as payment for its toil. And that is what we are becoming through unremitting neglect of our spiritual avocation. ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... he answered. "At any rate, my question had nothing to do with your other very interesting avocation. What I wanted to ask you was whether you could tell me anything about a compatriot of ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was an old Yale man and that his avocation in life seemed to be tennis. The engineers had a good court in the woods and after Tuck found that Jim liked the game, he took the boy over to the court every afternoon before supper and beat him with monotonous regularity. And Jim was a ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... utterly perish. Its impression is so indelible, that the greatest difficulty is experienced when attempting to eradicate it. The salutary influence which good example propagates, we find stamped on every avocation in life. In some people a heinous negligence, and in others a culpable apathy is evinced with respect to the principles their conduct is implanting. Profuse illustrations abound in every profession, calling, and trade, of the effect of evil example, and ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... eye mark Your straight air and radiant inclusive smile? Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adorning. The bull-necked man knows you—this first time His itching flesh sees form divine and vibrant health And thinks not of his avocation. I came incuriously— Set on no diversion save that my mind Might safely nurse its brood of misdeeds In the presence of a blind crowd. The color of life was gray. Everywhere the setting seemed right For my mood. Here the sausage and garlic booth Sent unholy incense ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... told," said Lanyere. "You are aware, Sir Francis, that in the pursuit of my avocation I am often led into the most dangerous quarters of the metropolis, and at hours when the peril to any honest man is doubled. Adventures have not unfrequently occurred to me when so circumstanced, and I have been indebted to my right hand and my good sword for ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Lussigny. Hence the depth of thought in which Aristide discovered him. Now, the fact that North is North and South is South and that never these twain shall meet is a proposition all too little considered. One of these days when I can retire from the dull but exacting avocation of tea-broking in the City, I think I shall write a newspaper article on the subject. Anyhow, I hold the theory that the Northerners of all nations have a common characteristic and the Southerners of ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke |
