1 The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContext Highlight In CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales. 2 The majority of the searchers had given up the quest and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain the children could never be found.
3 As they listened and looked--out into the garden--the trees tossing and the birds swirling seemed called out of their private lives, out of their separate avocations, and made to take part.