"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a fashionable musician, whose pavanes and sonatas were composed with that lack of matter and excess of erudition which delight the amateur and irritate the artist, and he walked down the rooms looking for seats where they could talk undisturbed for a few minutes. He was nervous lest Georgina should find him sitting with this girl in an intimate corner, but he did not expect her for another half-hour, and could not resist the temptation. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... repining or repenting. Here was I, Hugo Gottfried, the son of the Red Axe, at the inner port of a treasonable society. It was certainly a curious position; but even thus early I had begun to consider myself a sort of amateur of strange situations, and I admit that I found a certain stimulus in the thought that in an hour I might have ceased to be heir to the office of Hereditary Justicer of the ducal province ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... time of war, but none the less revolting. There is nothing of glamour in the Secret Service, nothing of romance, little even of excitement. It is a cold-blooded exercise of wits against wits, of spies against spies. The amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives him a fair run for his life, but the professional fisherman—to whom a salmon is a people's food—nets him coldly and expeditiously as he comes in from ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... blabbing. He was in or near Paris, for he corresponded constantly with Mademoiselle Luci. The young lady assures him that some new philosophical books which he had ordered are worthless trash. 'L'Histoire des Passions' and 'Le Spectacle de l'Homme' are amateur rubbish; ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... liberally to the Red Cross. You will volunteer to nurse in the hospitals. With your sad story of ill treatment by us, with your high birth, and your knowledge of nursing, which you acquired, of course, only as an amateur, you should not find it difficult to join the Ladies of France, or the American Ambulance. What you learn from the wounded English and French officers and the French doctors you will send ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... I am concerned, there is not, just now, any other thing of consequence on earth." Then he struck the table with his fist. "And it's all the fault of that cur—Allan Morris! Every bit of it! There is not a space writer or amateur detective on a single paper in the city that hasn't his nose to the ground at this minute, hunting the trail. They are all at it. I stopped at the Vale's on my way here, but they told me she was not at home. From the top step to the curb, ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... apparently nothing inside, for instance, or one of those carefully closed yellow flimsy envelopes, or a soiled volume in paper covers with a promising title. Now and then it happened that one of the faded, yellow dancing girls would get sold to an amateur, as though she had been alive ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... is. The men of whom this class is composed—the men whose temperamental deficiency now finds its fullest expression in socialism, as it did formerly in theories of ultra-democratic individualism, are like amateur architects, and amateur sanitary engineers, who, thinking in pictures, and having no knowledge of structure, condemn existing houses and existing systems of drainage, and would replace them with palaces which no builder could build, with arches which would collapse from the weight of their own materials, ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... the profession of letters in France. It has emphasized that tendency to take the art of writing seriously—to regard it as a fit object for the most conscientious craftsmanship and deliberate care—which is so characteristic of French writers. The amateur is very rare in French literature—as rare as he is common in our own. How many of the greatest English writers have denied that they were men of letters!—Scott, Byron, Gray, Sir Thomas Browne, perhaps even Shakespeare himself. ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... that he was himself not entirely dissatisfied with his work, and whenever his friend ventured on the diffident criticism of an amateur, Simon demonstrated at great length that each fault, as he pointed it out, was in truth a singular merit and ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... to edit a weekly paper; but his power lay in other directions, and with the exception of Household Words, his journalistic ventures were not a marked success. Again the actor came to the surface, and after managing a company of amateur actors successfully, Dickens began to give dramatic readings from his own works. As he was already the most popular writer in the English language, these readings were very successful. Crowds thronged to hear him, and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... he looked upon this wreck of a man with grief and dismay, mingled with a certain inquisitiveness as to what dreary chain of circumstances had dragged him down to such a doleful pass. Villiers felt together with compassion all the relish of the amateur in mysteries, and congratulated himself on his leisurely ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... comely house in Navy Gardens, no fewer than two of his cousins were tramping the fens, kit under arm, to make music to the country girls. But he himself, though he could play so many instruments and pass judgment in so many fields of art, remained an amateur. It is not given to any one so keenly to enjoy, without some greater power to understand. That he did not like Shakespeare as an artist for the stage may be a fault, but it is not without either parallel or excuse. He certainly ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... meets, anyway, and we've got to let the professional pursuit die out. This letter of Northwick's will set a lot of detectives after him, and if they can't find him, or can't work him after they've found him, they'll get tired, and give him up for a bad job. Then will be the time for the gifted amateur to step in and show what a free and untrammelled press can do to punish vice and ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... has published is open to doubt.] the pearl of Gaelic literature, the completest expression of the Cymric genius. This magnificent work, executed in twelve years with the luxury that the wealthy English amateur knows how to use in his publications, will one day attest how full of life the consciousness of the Celtic races remained in the present century. Only indeed the sincerest patriotism could inspire a woman to undertake and achieve so vast a literary monument. ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... finished, Mr. Jefferson was looking forward with keen delight to all that the observant, cultured young nobleman might have to tell him of the progress in the Parisian world of sciences, art, and music (for Mr. Jefferson was an amateur of music), and of those adventures which had attended his triumphal return to America. 'Twas at General Washington's invitation that Monsieur de Lafayette was re-visiting, after only three years' absence, the greatful states where he had ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... game," replied Sarah Judd, with a shrug. "You don't know me, Nan, but I know you; and I know your record, too. You're as slick as they make 'em, and the one who calls herself Agatha Lord is just an infantile amateur beside you. But go ahead, Nan; don't let me ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... 20,000; and remember that their mobility made one man of them equal to at least two of our reduced 11,000—could, if not have taken Ladysmith, at least have put us to great loss and discomfort. But the Boers have the great defect of all amateur soldiers: they love their ease, and do not mean to be killed. Now, without toil and hazard they could ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... of manure to the acre and don't go near the patch till picking time next year. He gets a nice early crop, and if berries are a little small it pays better than any other way. Try it! I have known some fields carried to fourth crop, and amateur beds kept up for ten years. It takes lots of work to keep an old bed in good condition. J.M. Smith, of Green Bay, Wis., almost always took one crop and plowed under. If the first crop was injured ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... these early flowers secure the perpetuation of their species is an interesting study for amateur botanists. In the case of the trillium the fruit is a three-lobed reddish berry, but one has to search for it as diligently as Diogenes did for an honest man before he finds it. The plant seldom sets seed in this vicinity, but seems to depend rather ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... opinion, that the timing of mid, or half stroke, is the most elegant, most difficult, and to conceal, yet fully make use of this "break," constitutes the criterion as to whether the swimmer, be he amateur or professional, is ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... and his Council, to perspire In our fire!" And for answer to the argument, in vain We explain That an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot fry: "All must fry!" That the Merchant risks the perils of the Plain ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... amateur red-shirting," Corey interrupted in deprecation. "But even if you choose to dispute my claim, what has become of all the heroism? Tom, how many club men do you know who would think it sweet and fitting to die for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... curiously, some of them resentfully, at the newcomers. They had all the professional's antipathy and jealousy of amateur performers. As the Arrangement Committee bustled off after telling our friends to make themselves perfectly at home, Pepita Le Roy came up to them. She was a handsome woman, in a foreign way, with large, dark eyes and an abundance of raven black hair. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... not however insensible to the charms of our music. Warrup, a native youth who lived with me for several months as a servant, once accompanied me to an amateur theatre at Perth, and when the actors came forward and sang God save the Queen he burst into tears. He certainly could not have comprehended the words of the song, and therefore must have been ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... adjectives at her feet, and a number of distinguished foreigners, who were spending the winter in San Francisco. She could not drive, nor yacht, nor run to fires on account of the weather, but she unloosed her energies upon indoor society, and started a cotillion club, and an amateur opera company. She gave a fancy dress ball, to which all her guests were obliged to come in the costumes of Old California, and laughed for a week at the ridiculous figure which most of them cut. She also ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... allowance. At this time there was an outbreak of small riots in Philadelphia, caused by roughs attacking the Quakers. The "shadbellies," as they were derisively called, did not fight back, which made the sport all the more alluring to the cowardly rioters. Young Van de Grift, who was an excellent amateur boxer, joined in these frays with enthusiasm in defense of the Quakers. It was not only his fine American spirit of fair play that urged him into these fights, but he felt a deep gratitude to the Quakers all his life on account of his sister Matilda. Strangely enough, Grandfather ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... occupation of Amateur Adviser. He has much well-intentioned advice to offer to all and sundry: "To the War Office. It is hoped that something is being done regarding," etc. Or: "Japan, our Ally, could easily lend us ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... penitent amateur. "Look what I've done, Yed. I'll have to rub in some of that stuff of yours and sew on a bandage. The files will kill the poor thing if we leave the cut ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... they knew that they were being observed. The gilt case containing the icon glittered, illuminated on all sides by tall candles ornamented with golden spirals. The candelabra was filled with tapers, and from the choir sounded most merry tunes sung by amateur choristers, with bellowing bass and shrill boys' voices ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... description of my wife's person, as would inevitably summon to the next exhibition of her misery, as by special invitation and advertisement, the whole world of this vast metropolis—the idle, the curious, the brutal, the hardened amateur in spectacles of wo, and the benign philanthropist who frequents such scenes with the purpose of carrying alleviation to their afflictions. All alike, whatever might be their motives or the spirit of their actions, would rush (as to some grand festival of curiosity and sentimental luxury) to this ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Mr. Critz's generosity. The seal of secrecy had been put on Pie-Wagon Pete's lips before Mr. Gubb offered him the opportunity to accept or decline; and when Mr. Gubb stopped for his evening meal, Pie-Wagon Pete—now off duty—was waiting for him. The story of Mr. Critz and his amateur con' business had amused Pie-Wagon Pete. He could hardly believe such utter innocence existed. Perhaps he did not believe it existed, for he had come from the city, and he had had shady companions before he landed in Riverbank. He was a sharp-eyed, red-headed fellow, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... and strategy we were Bismarcks and Rodneys, wielding nations and navies; and, indeed, I have no doubt that our fancy took extravagant flights sometimes. In plain fact we were merely two young gentlemen in a seven-ton pleasure boat, with a taste for amateur hydrography and police duty combined. Not that Davies ever doubted. Once set on the road he gripped his purpose with child-like faith and tenacity. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... work, shall I say, tends to bring them to quietness of soul? I hesitate to say it, because, though work upon the ground with spade or hoe has such a soothing influence upon the amateur, there is a difference between doing it for pleasure during a spare hour and doing it as a duty after a twelve hours' day, and without any prospect of holiday as long as one lives. Nevertheless it is plain to be seen that, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... to cut an ace out of a deck with nothin' left higher than a six spot. I ain't what you would call inventionative; but I could 'a' done a blame sight better'n that if I'd taken the time to think, instead o' simply blurtin' out the truth like some fool amateur. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... She belonged to the aristocracy, and she was one of those amateur painters that wander about the Continent by ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... plunged all commercial England into woe. The war had hardly proceeded two years when it was formally declared in the House of Commons that the losses to American privateers amounted to seven hundred and thirty-three ships, of a value of over $11,000,000. Mr. Maclay estimates from this that "our amateur man-of-war's men averaged more than four prizes each," while some took twenty and one ship twenty-eight in a single cruise. Nearly eleven hundred prisoners were taken with the captured ships. While there are no complete figures ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... lot) over $400 income for the newspaper. Proof money had been coming in for several weeks. Every mail brought long heavy envelopes from the Land Office, containing proof applications made there. From among the homesteaders we hired amateur typesetters to help out, and anybody who happened to be handy turned the press; on occasion we resorted to old Indian warriors, and once to a ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... six feet high, gallantly formed to keep the rounds at Smithfield, or maintain the ring at a wrestling match; and although he might have been overmatched, perhaps, among the regular professors of the Fancy, yet, as a yokel or rustic, or a chance customer, he was able to give a bellyful to any amateur of the pugilistic art. Doncaster races saw him in his glory, betting his guinea, and generally successfully; nor was there a main fought in Yorkshire, the feeders being persons of celebrity, at which he was not to be seen if business permitted. But though a SPRACK lad, and fond ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... of reasons. I'm not bidden. Mrs. Stanley and I were on a committee together, once upon a time. We squabbled over some amateur theatricals, and she has cut my acquaintance ever since. I always did say that there is nothing like amateur theatricals for bringing out all the worst vices of humanity. If a Shakespearian revival ever reaches the heavenly ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... no less an air of holiday-taking and meant no less hard labour. For most men work is bounded by the four walls of the office or the factory, or the shop, or the school, and rigidly regulated by hours, and they consequently suspect the amateur or the dawdler in the artist or writer who works where and when and as he pleases. Journalism has led me into pleasant places but never by the path of idleness. Rare has been the month of May that has not found me in Paris, not for the sunshine and gaiety that draw the tourist ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... remarkable genius for dramatic impersonation: first of all, as Aaron Gurnock in Wilkie Collins's "Lighthouse," and afterwards as Richard War dour in the same author's "Frozen Deep." Already he had achieved success, some years earlier, as an amateur performer in characters not essentially his own, as, for example, in the representation of the senile blandness of Justice Shallow, or of the gasconading humours of Captain Bobadil. Just, as afterwards, in furtherance of the interests of the Guild of Literature and Art, he impersonated ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... meant to commence his day's sport, Julian let his little steed graze, which, accustomed to the situation, followed him like a dog; and now and then, when tired of picking herbage in the valley through which the stream winded, came near her master's side, and, as if she had been a curious amateur of the sport, gazed on the trouts as Julian brought them struggling to the shore. But Fairy's master showed, on that day, little of the patience of a real angler, and took no heed to old Isaac Walton's recommendation, to fish the streams inch by inch. He chose, indeed, with an angler's ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... not proper fields for the cultivation and display of Miss Gordon's amateur kid glove charity. I hope, at least, it was a species of exaggerated high-flown sentimentality, rather than mere feminine curiosity that tempted you to precincts revolting to the delicacy and refinement with which my ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... exhibited in New York to a society of amateur photographers a new method of taking instantaneous photographs by means of a brilliant light made by sprinkling ten or fifteen grains of magnesium powder on about six grains of gun-cotton. When this is flashed in a dark apartment it gives light enough to take a good photograph. It will do the same ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... pictorial art. This is believed to be the first attempt in America to give a comprehensive presentation of the status of pictorial photography as illustrated by the product of many of its best workers. As such it is commended to the consideration of photographers both professional and amateur, of artists and art lovers, and ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1920 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... tone of various ships, but, as a rule, "aft" seldom condescends to mix much with "forrard." Yet there are generally many interchanges of courtesy, as between upper, middle, and lower classes; and different messes will sometimes banquet one another. The "cuddy" will, perhaps, get up amateur theatricals or charades, to which spectacle the whole vessel will be invited; while the "steerage" will return the compliment with a concert, more or less ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... out as a prima donna in his theatre. For the fame and success of this theatre Zustiniani cared more than for anything else in the world—not that he was eager for money, but because he was an enthusiast for music—a man of taste, an amateur, whose great business in life was to gratify his taste. He liked to be talked about and to have his theatre and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... through the mad-house of bibliography. The tract was knocked down for $400 to a bookseller from Hartford, Connecticut, presumably for some local collection. The incident would have passed from memory had it not been for one of those accidents to which even the amateur bibliographer ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... snatching the spear from Carey, evidently considering that the position required skilled instead of amateur manipulation; and, as his fellows turned their paddles into choppers and struck heavily at the shark's back, Jackum drove his spear ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... that we owe a large proportion of our knowledge of planetary detail to the work of enthusiastic amateur observers. In this Society, indeed, nearly all the best observational work was done by the non-professional class; and when, as the result of their systematic and painstaking work, they noted on their planetary drawings some lines or markings which had not previously been recorded, ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... there are also many demands for information on grape-growing by those who grow fruits for pleasure, especially by those who are escaping from cities to suburban homes, for the grape is a favorite fruit of the amateur. And so, though Pleasure and Profit are a hard team to drive together, this manual is written for ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... room," the woman directed from the foot of a stairway; "where no amateur John Condons will tell us how to play our cards. I got some good ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... amateur players have struggled through the music of the "Kreuzer Sonata," trying vainly to see in it what Tolstoi declared it means. Of course the significance attached to it by Tolstoi existed only in his vivid imagination, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... ago I was conversing with my friend B., who is an enthusiastic believer in mesmerism, and has repute as an amateur practitioner. My contention was that his favorite science (?) had contributed absolutely nothing to the world's good to cause its recognition by either scientists or philosophers. 'Can you give me,' said I, 'one ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... the even life of the young adventurers left behind. This was the tenor of the message, but there was something about it that worried Frank. Lathrop, he knew, was an expert wireless operator, but the sending that he performed that morning was so jerky and irregular that the rankest amateur ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... events, such as reading aloud in the parlors after dinner, going down to Cuyler's for an ice, or canoeing in Paradise at sunset took on a new interest. Seniors who had felt themselves superior to the material joys of fudge-parties and scorned the crudities of amateur plays and "girl-dances," eagerly accepted invitations to either ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... cabman has already been spoken to, and a shilling fare has been sketched out for the eventful morning, which is so arranged as to terminate at the toll-house, from which Mr. Smith can only be absent for about an hour, during which time the toll will be taken by an amateur of celebrity. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... offered; and he began to be weary of a society which offered little stimulus to his mind. His was the temperament of the artist, and America at that time had little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feeling. There were few pictures and no galleries; there was no music, except the amateur torture of strings which led the country dance, or the martial inflammation of fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling here and there over the ancient harpsichord, with the songs of love, and the broad or pathetic staves and ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... delayed if gardeners, in transplanting, would at least take the trouble to set them in their old accustomed exposure so far as the cardinal points are concerned. But your professional gardener knows everything; it is useless for an amateur to offer him advice; worse than useless, of course, to ask him for it. Indeed, the flowers, even the wild ones, might almost reconcile one to a life on the Riviera. Almost.... I recall a comely plant, for instance, seven feet high at the end of June, though now slumbering underground, in the Chemin ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... The amateur bandsman came to a stop, and another took his place; but the spell fortunately was broken, and she could pull herself together and return to ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... examining and preparing insects, who believed himself to have given a new tabanus to the catalogue of native diptera, the idea that he was playing with science, and might be trusted anywhere as a harmless amateur, from whom no expert could possibly fear any anticipation of his unpublished discoveries, went beyond anything set down in that book of his which contained so much of the ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... The amateur of truth, being now fully apprised of the 'hazards' which add variety to the links of history, turns to the Spanish Calendar for the reports of the ambassadors. He reaches April 18, 1559, when de Feria says: 'Lord Robert has come so ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... temper (Mrs. Stammer was the jade's name) and my wife's moody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant: hence I was driven a good deal abroad, where, as play was the fashion at every club, tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged to resume my old habit, and to commence as an amateur those games at which I was once unrivalled in Europe. But whether a man's temper changes with prosperity, or his skill leaves him when, deprived of a confederate, and pursuing the game no longer professionally, he joins in it, like the rest of the world, for pastime, I know not; but certain ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mecca for pilgrims from America and from all parts of the world. Yet he all the time occupied a position in a Government office—the Home Office, I think it was—and often walked from Whitehall to Lavender Sweep when his day's work was done. He was an enthusiastic amateur actor, his favorite part being Adam in "As You Like It," perhaps because tradition says this was a part that Shakespeare played; at any rate, he was very good in it. Gilbert and Sullivan, in very far-off ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... tests complete and convincing. After trying sittings here and there, we finally settled upon a series of afternoon sessions in Fowler's own house. This was the twenty-sixth sitting of the series, and Cameron's Amateur Psychical Society was practically a memory. I was now going ahead pretty much on my own lines, but with an eye to catching Miller and the Camerons at a successful seance before ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... discovered that it was getting well on towards eleven o'clock, and I sought out Hawley for the purpose of thanking him for a delightful evening and of taking my leave. I met him in the hall talking to Euripides on the subject of the amateur stage in the United States. What they said I did not stop to hear, but offering my hand to Hawley informed him ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... can instruct an unskilled amateur, can take his ill-guarded wicket, and make him "give chances" all over the field, without bursting into yells of unseemly laughter. But the little caddie cannot restrain his joy when the tyro at golf, after missing ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... other. They were all fond of Phil, and accordingly fraternized at once with his new friend, adopting him into their circle with the ease of manner and freedom of sentiment which seemed the characteristic of their class; and they took to him all the more kindly because, amateur though he was, he shared ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unimportant work. Fassola says that some of the frescoes, as well as of the statues, which, he says, are of wood, were by Gaudenzio. The other statues are given both by Fassola and Torrotti to D'Enrico, and the paintings to Gianoli, a wealthy Valsesian amateur who lived at Campertogno. Bordiga gives the statues to Ferro, already mentioned as a pupil of D'Enrico, but whoever did them, they are about as bad as they can be—too bad, I should say, for Giacomo Ferro, and I am not sure that they are not of wood even now. No traces of ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... But I knew that he was making a mighty effort to restrain comment on the bungling amateur detective work of the son of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... provided by thoughtful parents for a child's evening party. In some parts of the essay De Quincey sinks far lower. I do not believe that in any English author of reputation there is a more feeble piece of forced fun, than in the description of the fight of the amateur in murder with the baker at Munich. One knows by a process of reasoning that the man is joking; but one feels inclined to blush, through sympathy with a very clear man so exposing himself. A blemish of the same kind makes itself ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... to France and England was getting ready to depart, an amateur diplomatist appeared in Brussels, and made a feeble effort to effect a reconciliation between the republic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Prevalence of Venereal Diseases in New Zealand: Infected Individuals, neglect to undergo or continue Treatment; Chiropractors; Herbalists: Overseas Introduction; Promiscuous Sexual Intercourse; Professional Prostitution; Police Evidence; "Amateur" Prostitution; Social Distribution; Extra-marital Sexual Intercourse, Result of; Parental Control; Sex Education; Housing and Living Conditions; Hostels, Advantages of; Moral Imbeciles, Danger from; Delayed Marriages; ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health
... following her one day," he explained, "so I told her I was smitten by her beauty. I got away with it, too. Rather clever, for an amateur, eh?" ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... written in books and magazines now before the public, that what I am about to offer, though pretending nothing new, yet I hope may be looked upon as containing something useful as well as instructive, both to the practical and the amateur mechanic. I shall therefore, in as small a compass as possible, trace the steam-engine from its first and early stages up to its present perfect state as our grand motive power. The first mention made of the vapour of water, as formed by ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... of envy! Have an orchestra polished to the last touch of execution, discoursing the divinest work of some highest priest of music. Sentinel the scene with marbles that would have doubled the fame of a Praxiteles. Now, with your stage set, invite to its sumptuous midst some amateur of all the arts whose senses were born for the beautiful. Do what you will to endow your artist with contentment in perfection. Fill his pockets with gold, give him wine of his fancy, have the woman he loves by ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the ideal; and these two men made a compact between them, that once every month Thyrsis would write and tell of his success or failure. And this amateur confessional was a mighty motive to the lad—he knew that he could never tell a lie, and the thought of telling the truth was like a sword hanging over him. There were hours of trial, when he stood so close to the edge of the precipice that this ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... bill of exchange, thanks to a certain great lady, they say. Yes, general; but no matter, I knew the rest. He had once been concealed there; he might well enough be concealed there a second time. That is what I said to my friend in the police. He proposed for me to lend a hand, as an amateur, and conduct him to the farm. I had nothing to do—it was a nice party ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... I found that my amateur lashing together with the strong current that was running made the whole plan quite impossible, so, after being nearly thrown into the river several times, and one of the floats coming adrift and washing ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... George S. Hillard—a brilliant amateur sort of writer, orator and editor—came to visit Hawthorne one of the last Sundays while he remained in the Old Manse, and the two went together to spend the forenoon in Walden woods, calling on Emerson by the way to inquire what the best road might be. Emerson ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... frigid half-smile came and went on Bruce Carmyle's dark face. "My cousin has many excellent qualities, no doubt—he used to play football well, and I understand that he is a capable amateur pugilist—but I should not have supposed him entertaining. We find ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... possible of a race fast dying out, and the origin of which is so obscure. I cannot affect to think that these little legends will do much to remove that obscurity, but undoubtedly a scientific and patient study of the folk-lore throughout Australia would greatly assist thereto. I, alas! am but an amateur, moved to my work by interest in the subject, and in the blacks, of whom I have had ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... out herbs!" sang the gaoler in amateur recitative. "Mistress Maude hath no shepherd's pouch! Mistress Maude is loth to ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... voice, as has been said, was a very beautiful one, a clear, fine soprano, with a timbre rare in quality, and naturally thrilling. She had not been taught well enough to be a public success perhaps, but was much more accomplished than the average amateur. ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... amateur, I never had a lesson in my life. Mr. Escott would think nothing of it, I am sure. But I wish he'd come in ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... Eugene L. Brown. He was possessed of very promising histrionic ability, had frequently taken a leading part in amateur theatricals at Dover and elsewhere in New Hampshire, and was the author of a drama which was highly spoken of by the press of Dover. ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the Committee to encounter the responsibility they have incurred, the public have at least to thank them for ascertaining and establishing one point, which might otherwise have admitted of controversy. When it is considered that many amateur writers have been discouraged from becoming competitors, and that few, if any, of the professional authors can afford to write for nothing, and, of course, have not been candidates for the honorary prize at Drury Lane, we may confidently pronounce that, as far as regards NUMBER, the ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... him in all his whims. He was patiently waiting for his school-days to end, to live independently in the Latin Quarter, to study law, without being hurried, since his mother wished him to do so, and he did not wish to displease her. But he wished also to amuse himself with painting, at least as an amateur; for he was passionately fond of it. All this was said by the handsome, aristocratic young man with a happy smile, which expanded his sensual lips and nostrils; and Amedee admired him without one envious thought; feeling, with the generous warmth of youth, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... those four "old masters," and the bronzes and the teakwood carvings—you can see for yourself. Lucy wasn't quite satisfied with the room at first. She missed the fish-net draperies and cozy corners and the usual clap-trap of amateur studios. But she's educated up to it now, and it's a daily joy to me. On the other hand my broiled steaks and feather-weight waffles and first-class coffee are a joy to poor Henry, who can't even boil an egg properly, and who hasn't ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... swarm with trout, and the woods abound in game. This attracts sportsmen from other places; and the Julia Burton, the little steamer that plies up and down the river, frequently brings large parties of amateur hunters and fishermen, who sometimes spend months enjoying ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... house of Yates, the actor, and finding that he was a friend of Lord Clare, soon became sociable with him. Mutual tastes quickened the intimacy, especially as they found means of serving each other. Goldsmith wrote an epilogue for the tragedy of Zobeide; and Cradock, who was an amateur musician, arranged the music for the Threnodia Augustalis, a lament on the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales, the political mistress and patron of Lord Clare, which Goldsmith had thrown off hastily ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... work. There are thrilling moments, doubtless, for the spectator, the amateur, and the aesthete; but there is one thrill that is known only to the soldier who fights for his own flag, to the ascetic who starves himself for his own illumination, to the lover who makes finally his own choice. And it is this transfiguring self-discipline that makes ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... I met him coming down the steps of the Arts Club. He looked weary. He was just off to a private view at the New Gallery. In the afternoon he had to attend an amateur performance of "The Cenci," given by the Shelley Society. Then followed three literary and artistic At Homes, a dinner with an Indian nabob who couldn't speak a word of English, "Tristam and Isolde" at Covent Garden Theatre, and a ball at Lord Salisbury's to wind ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the Empire, as absolutely, as he had moulded the fate of Ireland. To Castlereagh and the Wellesley family, the Union was in truth, an era of honour and advancement. The sons of the spendthrift amateur, Lord Mornington, were reserved to rule India, and lead the armies of Europe; while the son of Flood's colleague in the Reform convention of 1783, was destined to give law to Christendom, at the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... form. "Don't forget us, my dear fellow; now's your time." Or perhaps, brusquely, with a friendly scolding, "Well, so you don't mean to be one of us." When it's a man in society who is to be caught a translator of Ariosto or a writer of amateur plays, there is a gentler and more insinuating way of playing off the trick. And if our fashionable writer protests that he is not a gun of sufficient calibre, the Recruiting-Academidan brings out the regular phrase, that "the Academie is a club." Lord bless us, how useful that phrase has been! ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... easy identification of the tree. No detail that will help the student has been omitted and the small size of the volume, about the length and width of the hand, makes it convenient to carry. An ideal volume for expert naturalist or amateur for field work or even ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... considerable skill (for an amateur) as a painter in water colors. But I can only produce a work of art, when irresistible impulse urges me to express my thoughts in form and color. The same obstacle to regular exertion stands in my way, if I am using my pen. I can only write when the fit takes me—sometimes at night ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... may have his plot of ground, in the cultivation and adornment of which he may realize the pleasure which accompanies the calling of amateur farmer, horticulturist, or florist, in which he is in constant communication with nature and her beauty. 'In it there is no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 1972, while Mahon-modified machines were still strictly classified, and the world had heard only rumors about them. The first broadcast was picked up by a television ham in Osceola, Florida, who fumingly reported artificial interference on the amateur TV bands. He heard and taped it for ten minutes—so he said—before it blew out his receiver. When he replaced the broken element, the broadcast ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "Despujol is no amateur," the Chief of Police agreed. "We've wanted him for the last five years for the assassination of the banker, Monteros, in the train between Cordova and Malaga, and yet he always evades us, even though he is one of the most audacious thieves ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... red face, all the redder for his huge white moustache and well-filled white uniform. He began by fuming and blustering as if about to order me to summary execution. He spoke so fast, it was not easy to follow him. Probably my amateur German was as puzzling to him. The PASSIERSCHEIN, which I produced, was not in my favour; unfortunately I had forgotten my Foreign Office passport. What further added to his suspicion was his inability to comprehend why I had ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... of the traps ordinarily sold are defective. They should be selected with care, and the springs always tested [Page 138] before purchase. Besides the temper of the spring, there are also other necessary qualities in a steel trap, which we subjoin in order that the amateur may know how to judge and select his ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... her more at that time, and for many years after, than a youth with whom she had been acquainted in Cambridge before he left the University, and the unfolding of whose powers she had watched with the warmest sympathy. He was an amateur, and, but for the exactions not to be resisted of an American, that is to say, of a commercial, career,—his acceptance of which she never ceased to regard as an apostasy,—himself a high artist. He was her companion, and, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... skiff which I had taught myself to sail. I sat at his feet as at the feet of a god, while he discoursed of strange lands and peoples, deeds of violence, and hair-raising gales at sea. Then, one day, I took him for a sail. With all the trepidation of the veriest little amateur, I hoisted sail and got under way. Here was a man, looking on critically, I was sure, who knew more in one second about boats and the water than I could ever know. After an interval, in which I exceeded myself, he took the tiller ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... at a blow. The old man smiled, "It has no sheath, 'Twas a little careless to have it beneath My cloak, for a jostle to my arm Would have resulted in serious harm. But it was so fine, I could not wait, So I brought it with me despite its state." "An amateur of arms," I thought, "Bringing home a prize which he has bought." "You care for this sort of thing, Dear Sir?" "Not in the way which you infer. I need them in business, that is all." And he pointed ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... though the sun should scorch the spectators, are drawn in, when Hermogenes appears."-Martial, xii. 29, 15. M. Tigellius Hermogenes, whom Horace and others have satirised. One editor calls him "a noted thief," another: "He was a literary amateur of no ability, who expressed his critical opinions with too great a freedom to please the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... sixteenth and seventeenth centuries amateur dramatic productions called masques were presented. Sometimes even nobles and members of the royal family took part. These plays were accompanied by music, dancing, and spectacular effects. The literary character of the masque developed into the compositions of Ben Jonson, and culminated in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... cross of Savoy. As I have previously assured you, no woman is Republican. The demonstration was a mistake. Public characters should not let their personal preferences betrumpeted: a diplomatic truism:—but I must add, least of all a cantatrice for a king. The famous Greek amateur—the prop of failing finances—is after her to arrest her for breach of engagement. You wished to discover an independent mind in a woman, my Carlo; did you not? One would suppose her your wife—or widow. She looked a superb thing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... detain the stranger in town. He accordingly posted it at a rapid rate to Ballytrain, accompanied by Dandy and his dulcimer, who, except during the evenings among the servants in the hotel, had very little opportunity of creating a sensation, as he thought he would have done as an amateur musician ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... frugality and self-denial by the Continental Congress put an end temporarily to plays in the colonies outside the British lines and put Washington into a greater play, "not, as he once wished, as a performer, but as a character." There were amateur performances at Valley Forge, but they aroused the hostility of the puritanical, and Congress forbade them. Washington seems, however, to have disregarded ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... vous ne le voyiez pat, dit Smiley, possible que vous vous entendiez en grenouilles, possible que vous ne vous y entendez point, possible qua vous avez de l'experience, et possible que vous ne soyez qu'un amateur. De toute maniere, je parie quarante dollars qu'elle battra en sautant n'importe quelle ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... does, Monsieur Keroulan. We have so many Europeans over there now that our standard has fallen off from the days of Emerson and Whitman. And didn't America give Europe Poe?" She knew that this boast had the ring of the amateur, but it pleased her to see how ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... letters or any art. His uncle Adolph, of whom some Bayreuth gentlemen make much, would not be remembered had he not been Wagner's uncle. Only by patient research has it been discovered that one or more of his forebears could so much as play the organ. His father was an amateur theatrical enthusiast, and he too would have been utterly forgotten had he not been Wagner's father. His stepfather—though this seems hardly to the point—was an actor and portrait-painter; and his one claim to remembrance is ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... and the grounds—of which there were about seventy acres—were at first very much overgrown, especially with laurels, which, when neglected, grow in that country in almost disgusting luxuriance. My father therefore occupied himself a good deal with amateur forestry, and became, considering that he first turned his attention to the subject at the age of forty-six, a rather expert woodsman. A good deal of tree-felling was necessary, both in the interest of the trees and for the improvement of the views from the house and its immediate ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... money picturesquely was provided by the late Marquis of Anglesey, a young lord generally regarded as crazy by an ungrateful England. Perhaps it was a little crazy in him to spend so much money in the comparatively commonplace adventure of taking an amateur dramatic company through the English provinces, he himself, I believe, playing but minor roles; but lovers of Gautier's Le Capitaine Fracasse will see in that but a charmingly boyish desire to translate a beloved dream into a reality—though ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... deal of money; but they have usually to work pretty hard for it. Of course, the most successful men are working miners, men who understand the business; for gold-mining is a business, like any other. The amateur men, who come in search of lucky finds and sudden fortunes, rarely do any good. Nearly all the young fellows, sons of gentlemen, who could do no good at home and came out here during the "rushes," are still in no better position than they were at starting. A few of ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... mismanagement and extravagance, and partly from misfortunes altogether unavoidable (though he chose to attribute his reverses wholly to the latter cause), he found himself suddenly plunged from competence into utter destitution. He had hitherto practised painting as an amateur, but now he was forced to embrace it as the only means afforded him of supporting his family, which at that time consisted of a wife and two children. He was not without some share of talent; but unhappily for those who depended ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... this precaution, I myself flew the biplane over to Westchester on the morrow, and explained the controls to Monsieur Power in an extended passenger flight. He was, it appeared, an amateur of the balloon, and accustomed to great heights. When I handed the machine over to him, with the engine throttled down so that he might try rolling practice on the ground, he waited until he was out of our reach, whipped the motor ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... he said enigmatically. "It will show the stuff that's in you, besides, and it will be a better claim upon the Intelligencer people than all the lines from all the senators and magnates in the world. The thing for you is to do Amateur Night at ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... residence at the capital. Thereafter she had taken Kent up on his own account, and by now he was deep in her debt. For one thing, she had set the fashion in the matter of legislative receptions—her detractors, knowing nothing whatever about it, hinted that she had been an amateur social lobbyist in Washington, playing the game for the pure zest of it—and at these functions Kent had learned many things pertinent to his purpose as watch-dog for the railroad company and legal adviser to his chief—things not named openly on the floor of the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... fishing—boats, although we could scarcely see them, but being unwilling to lose ground by lying to, we fired a gun every half hour, to give the small craft notice of our vicinity, that they might keep their bells agoing. Every three or four minutes, the marine drum—boy, or some amateur performer,—for most sailors would give a glass of grog any day to be allowed to beat a drum for five minutes on endi—beat a short roll, and often as we drove along, under a reefed foresail, and close reefed topsails, we could hear the answering tinkle before we saw ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... unjaded strength. It happens, too, though in a deeper and more subtle way, to the man who marries for love, if the love be true and fit for foul weather. Mr. Bagehot used to say that a bachelor was "an amateur in life," and wit and wisdom are married in the jest. A man who lives only for himself has not begun to live—has yet to learn his use, and his real pleasure too, in the world. It is not necessary he should marry to find himself out, but it is necessary he should love. ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... commerce to make any video installations worthwhile," he explained, "and the only information transmission is by amateur radio operators. But nobody seems to miss it. It's got enough vacation facilities ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... walls and a pale green carpet, and very little in it except, let in as a panel, a delicate low-toned portrait of the mistress of the house, vaguely appearing through vaporous curtains, holding pale flowers, and painted with a rather mysterious effect by that talented young amateur, her cousin, Harry de Freyne. It had been his sole success in art, and had been exhibited at the Grafton Galleries under the name of The Gilded Lily. No one had ever known or was ever likely to know whether the title referred to the decorative, if botanically ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... are more than mere laymen in philosophy. We are worthy of the name of amateur athletes, and are vexed by too much inconsistency and vacillation in our creed. We cannot preserve a good intellectual conscience so long as we keep mixing incompatibles from opposite sides of ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... bearing, and winning in deportment. He came as an adventurer to the court of George the Second, for he possessed nothing but an earldom, a handsome person, and great assurance; he lived in affluence in the royal household of Frederick, because he played Lothario well not only in the amateur theatre, but in the drawing-room of the princess, and soon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... feminine element. The principal roles were all represented; and if occasionally a re-enforcement was required, they could almost always pick up some provincial actress, or even an amateur, at a pinch. The actors were five in number: The pedant, already described, who rejoiced in the name of Blazitis; Leander; Herode, the tragic tyrant; Matamore, the bully; and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... was close at hand, his father engaged for him a private tutor at home. The household of the Spread Eagle not only enjoyed civic prosperity, but some share of that liberal cultivation, which, if not imbibed in the home, neither school nor college ever confers. The scrivener was not only an amateur in music, but a composer, whose tunes, songs, and airs found their way into the best collections of music. Both schoolmaster and tutor were men of mark. The high master of St. Paul's at that time was Alexander Gill, an M.A. of Corpus Christi College, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the yard, following Mr. Keeler's suggestions, obeying his grandfather's orders, tormenting Issy, doing his daily stint because he had to, not because he liked it. For amusement he read a good deal, went to the usual number of sociables and entertainments, and once took part in amateur theatricals, a play given by the church society in the town hall. There was where he shone. As the dashing young hero he was resplendent. Gertie Kendrick gazed upon him from the third settee center with shining ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... from the capital, was one of the most dashing and brilliant figures in the ultra-aristocratic society of Berlin. No entertainment was regarded as complete without her presence, and in every social enterprise, no matter whether it was a flower corso, a charity fair, a hunt, a picnic, or amateur theatricals, she was always to the fore, besides being the leader in every new fashion, and in every new extravagance. Although eccentric—she was the first member of her sex to show herself astride on horseback in the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... suffered in the fact that for the first sixty years of his life the writer had cultivated the art but casually and sporadically. He retained, in spite of all the labour which he expended, a certain stiffness, an air of the amateur, of which he himself ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the leap from the stairs and grabbed on to the chair that hung from the ceiling nearby. When you only weigh fifteen pounds, you can make Tarzan look like an amateur. ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... score of amateur dragsmen were out; some throwing their drags from the bridge; some circulating in boats, and even in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... first ever presented in a theatre in Ireland—was also given during the third season. It was The Twisting of the Rope, by Dr. Douglas Hyde, and was played at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, on October 21, 1901, by a Gaelic Amateur Dramatic Society coached by W.G. Fay. The author filled the principal ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... old Arab that the effort thus made by the amateur saltimbanque had shaken the dirk from his grasp,—else, in another instant, the camel would ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... cried Mabel. 'Tommy, you horrid boy, you're hurting Mr. Ashburn.' And the hearth-brush was certainly coming down with considerable vigour on the small of the amateur elephant's back. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... cutting the timber for the new house, which was to stand in the shade of a row of cottonwood trees overlooking the broad, shallow bed of the Little Missouri. They were both mighty men with the axe. Roosevelt worked with them for a few days. He himself was no amateur, but he could not compete with ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... had gone about the wrecking of the lab had gone about it in a workmanlike way. Whoever had done the job was no amateur. The vandal had known his way about in a laboratory, that was obvious. Leads had been cut carefully; equipment had been shoved aside without care as to what happened to it, but with great care that the shover should not be damaged by the shoving; the invader ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in Egypt. It was there that a system was evolved, backed up by the ruler, of religious fraud so colossal that modern deception looks like the bungling efforts of an amateur. The government, the army, the taxing power of the State, were sworn to protect gigantic safes in which was hoarded—nothing. That is to say, nothing but the pretense upon which cupidity and self-hypnotized credulity ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... will do," cried John, casting his eye back, and perceiving they had lost sight of the gig, and nearly so of Colonel Egerton and Jane, "why you carry it off like a jockey, captain; better than any amateur I have ever seen, unless indeed it ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the happy position now of making a speech for the man who is going to be elected. (Laughter and applause.) It is a great thing for an amateur, when his first nomination has failed, to come in and second the man who has succeeded. New York is here with no bitter feeling and with no disappointment. We recognize that the waves have submerged us, but we have bobbed up serenely. (Loud laughter.) It was a cannon from New York ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... many years great favourites with gardeners, both amateur and professional. About two hundred years ago the mania for these plants amounted almost to a national calamity in Holland, and scores of acres are now entirely devoted to their culture. For our own part, we scarcely consider the ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... voice: those of a clarionet, the notes of a goose: and, all the world knows that a well-played violin (especially in the practice of gliding) yields sounds so inseparable from the strains of a cat, as not to be distinguished by the mere amateur of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... moment at the play by the amateur and the woman. It is not a satisfactory play as a whole, it is not very interesting in all its developments, some of the best opportunities are shirked, some of the characters (all the characters who are men) are poor. But, in the first place, it is well written. Those people ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... her chums had made themselves. There were capital pictures of the school, the cricket eleven, the hockey team, the quadrangle in the snow, the gardening assistants, and the tennis champions. They were received with much applause, Miss Norton in particular congratulating the amateur photographers ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil |
