"Whist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nightingale could mother and help cure an army, and why hain't men willin' to let wimmen help cure a sick legislation, kinder mother it, and encourage it to do better? She might much better be doin' that, than playin' bridge-whist, or rastlin' with hobble skirts, and it wouldn't ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... shot at seals, and almost hit them in the most admirable manner; we have hunted for an indubitable polar bear,—and found a dog and a midnight mystification; we have played at chess, euchre, backgammon, whist, debating-club, story-telling, nightmare,—one of our number developing an incomparable genius for the last; we have played at getting tolerable cooking out of two slovens, one of whom knows nothing, and the other everything but his business,—and have lost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... town a month before he was obliged to repair to his man of business for ten thousand francs; he had only been playing whist with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Chaulieu, and de Lenoncourt, and now and again at his club. He had begun by winning some thousands of francs but pretty soon lost five or six thousand, which brought home ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... 'comfortable establishment!' the most conventional match-making in existence could not have done it better; and as for what has been said, there has nothing been said but what is said about everybody—what, probably, would be said of you yourself, John, for you play whist sometimes, I hear, and ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... who was on his way home from his game of whist in the garden of the inn. "Yes," he said to the advance guard,—"yes, ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... rolled round the room till he caught sight of Alister, then suddenly producing three letters, fanwise, as if he were holding a hand at whist, he jerked up the centre one, like a "forced" card in a trick, and said softly, "For you"—and still looking round with the others in his hand, he added, "For two; allee same as you," and as Alister distributed them to Dennis and me, his wooden face took a few wrinkles of contempt, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and deer close to the house, but no one can hunt in this gale, and the drift is blinding. We have been slightly overcrowded in our one room. Chess, music, and whist have been resorted to. One hunter, for very ennui, has devoted himself to keeping my ink from freezing. We all sat in great cloaks and coats, and kept up an enormous fire, with the pitch running out of the logs. The ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... religious differences for the time being, and cultivate the art of being agreeable as only French people can. Excursions, picnics, and pleasure parties are arranged; in the evening the young folks dance whilst their elders play a rubber of whist, chat, look on, or make marriages. Many a wedding is arranged during the Saison des Bains, nor can such unions be called mariages de convenance, as in holiday-time intercourse is comparatively unrestricted. Grown-up or growing-up sons and daughters then meet ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... taste, some point of history, criticism, and even philosophy; which, though probably not quite so solid as Mr. Locke's, is, however, better and more becoming rational beings than our frivolous dissertations upon the weather or upon whist." ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... the playing of whist, domino, or poker are often given by bachelors at their apartments or residences. In apartments this class of entertainment is only for men. Women should not go to bachelors' apartments except for luncheon, dinner, or supper. In a bachelor's house, however, any entertainment ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... he's a very good quiet young man, and constantly reminds me of my poor dear aunt Martha, who is a peaceful saint in Brixton churchyard, after this vale of tears, where we must all go, only she hadn't two thousand pounds a year, though she was so lucky at short whist, always turning up honours when ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... out laughing at this little outbreak, but Father John exclaimed, "Whist! whist! Cullen, none of that here: if you can take any steps towards sending Captain Ussher to heaven, well and good; but don't be sending him the other way while the poor ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... miss an opportunity of securing Ivan. For cautious steps are always necessary in proceeding against such places. It is so easy to transform a game of baccarat, faro, or fantan into an innocent game of bridge or whist with a few innocent spectators, and to hide all gambling instruments between the time the police knock and the time they effect an entry. Then, however positive the officers may be, they have no legal proof, unless one of their number has been previously introduced as a "punter," and ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... "The winds are whist and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... late. The men drink port wine, and the women sit round the fire in the drawing-room after dinner and wait—and wait—and wait. Oh, that awful waiting. I know it so well. And it isn't much better when the men do come. They play whist instead of bridge, and a woman in the billiard-room is a lost soul. Our hostess always hides my cue directly I arrive, and pretends that it has been lost. By the bye, what a dear little room this is, Arranmore. We haven't dined ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a whist-player, fast asleep after his fifth game, like one of the latest-patented cabs? Because he can be briefly alluded to as "Rubber Tires." (Riddle adaptable also to exhausted manipulator in Turkish Bath after a hard ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... less busy with my regular work, not, however, working as many hours or as hard as I have in the past. At seventy five I expect to wear loud waistcoats with fancy buttons; also gaiter tops; at eighty I expect to learn how to play bridge whist and talk foolishly to the ladies. At eighty-five I expect to wear a full-dress suit every evening at dinner, and at ninety—well, I never plan more than thirty ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Then—whist—up the chimney he went after the fairies, and before he had time to let out his breath he was standing in the middle of Spain, and ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kiss'd, Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... arm, and they looked for Beulah from room to room; finally, Dr. Hartwell informed Cornelia that she had gone home, and, tired and out of humor, the latter excused herself and prepared to follow her friend's example. Her father was deep in a game of whist, her mother unwilling to return home so soon, and Eugene and Antoinette—where were they? Dr. Hartwell saw ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... my father sent me from Paris a sum which was engaged to maintain a bed or two in the Albany hospital for our soldiers. I make no merit of it, for others gave more. So, it is plain to see I had no money for those fashionable vices in the midst of which I lived, and if I lost five shillings at whist I felt that I had robbed some wretched creature on the Jersey, or dashed the cup from some poor devil's lips who lay ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... black, lean as a consumptive, but nevertheless vigorously framed—visited the family of his former master and the house of his cashier less from affection than from self-interest. Here they played whist at two sous a point; a dress-coat was not required; he accepted no refreshment except "eau sucree," and consequently had no civilities to return. This apparent devotion to the Mignon family allowed it to be supposed that Gobenheim had a heart; it also released him from the necessity ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... weather permitting on Monday evenings, and some favored youths of Mr. Sanborn's school would go there to play whist, make poker-sketches, and talk with the ladies; while Mrs. Alcott, who had played with the famous automaton in her younger days, would have a quiet game of chess with some older person in a corner. Louisa usually sat by the fire-place, ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... stage of shipwrecked penury. I am reminded of Thackeray's "Jack Spiggot." "And what are your pursuits, Jack? says I. 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist.'" Mrs. Gaskell's picture of "Cranford" is said to have been drawn from a village in Cheshire, but Bath must have a great deal in common with its "elegant economies." Do not make the mistake, however, of supposing that this splendid watering-place, sometimes spoken of as "the handsomest city ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... been called away. Iris was the only lady left in the saloon. She watched a set of whist players for a time and then essayed the perilous passage to her stateroom. She found her maid and a stewardess ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... tabagie and made eloquent, though slightly inarticulate, by pipe-stems; while a tall, fair man, with the limbs of a Hercules, the chest of a prize-fighter, and the face of a Raphael Angel, known in the Household as Seraph, was in the full blood of a story of whist played under difficulties in the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... was over, she said; there had been tableaux and charades, and broom-drills, and readings and charity concerts. Now the season was on the sentimental wane; every night the rooms were full of whist-players, and the days were occupied in quiet strolling over the hills, and excursions to Cooperstown and Cherry Valley and "points of view," and visits to the fields to see the hop-pickers at work. If there were a little larking about the piazzas in the evening, and a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and Principles of Whist stated and explained, and its Practice illustrated on an Original System, by Means of Hands played completely through. By Cavendish. New York. D. Appleton & Co. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... obedient to her request, appeared for the first time in the faded great drawing-room, where the whist-tables were set out, she welcomed him graciously, and brought him forward, like a queen who means to be obeyed. She addressed the controller of excise as "M. Chatelet," and left that gentleman thunderstruck by the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... puss, then, was it ill? Puss, puss. Henry, the horrid beast is going to fly at me! Whist, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... these yellow sands, and then take hands: Curtsied when you haue, and kist the wilde waues whist: Foote it featly heere, and there, and sweete ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... but he protested that he was 'the most unfortunate man in the world.' Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments. He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Melmottes' to-day?' It was now five o'clock on a winter afternoon, the hour at which ladies are drinking tea, and idle men playing whist at the clubs,—at which young idle men are sometimes allowed to flirt, and at which, as Lady Carbury thought, her son might have been paying his court to Marie Melmotte ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... and a promenade on deck, where is no motion to discompose our steps, we think of a game of whist. We ask the brisk and capable stewardess from Ireland if there are any cards in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... life in our office must have been before Miss Larrabee came to us to edit a society page for the paper! To be sure we had known in a vague way that there were lines of social cleavage in the town; that there were whist clubs, and dancing clubs and women's clubs, and in a general way that the women who composed these clubs made up our best society, and that those benighted souls beyond the pale of these clubs were out of the caste. We knew that certain persons whose names were always handed in on the lists of guests ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... not much to be pitied. He had still an estate which, with due care, could pay off its incumbrances; and he had gathered some valuable knowledge. He knew women better than most men, and he knew whist profoundly. Above all, he had acquired what Voltaire justly calls "le grand art de plaire;" he had studied this art, as many women study it, and few men. Why, he even watched the countenance, and smoothed the rising bristles of those he ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... its pride and its severity of manners. I am seldom alone, I never go out unless accompanied by my mother-in-law or my husband. We receive the heavy people of the city in the evening. They play whist at two sous a point, and I listen to conversations of ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... his having played for less than a guinea was at Hughenden when on a visit to the Earl of Beaconsfield. Bernal Osborne, father of the Duchess of St. Albans, was one of the party when the prince proposed a game of whist at five-guinea points. Lord Beaconsfield was a poor man, obliged to count every penny, and Bernal Osborne caught sight of the manner in which his face fell when the proposal was made. Grasping the situation, and remembering that Lord Beaconsfield had but a few weeks previously added the imperial ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... them villains give a jump when that fallin' branch struck 'em, and out I wint, bein' tuk unknownst, just thinkin' of me poor cousin Mike. May his bed above be aisy the day! Whist now, miss dear! I'll fetch 'em back in a jiffy. Stop still till I come, and kape them ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and hold your whist—all of you—don't you know your poor sister is dead for sleep. Hasn't she been up hill and down dale this last six weeks. I never saw the like of it, and it's a God's mercy she ever lived through it—and then last night when she drove over from her school nothing would do your pa but she ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... that Hubert Tracy bethought himself of an engagement he had made to join a number of acquaintances at a whist party. He straightened himself up and cast a glance in the mirror opposite to see if he would "pass muster" in a crowd. "Guess I'm all right," he exclaimed, stroking his fingers through the masses of chestnut curls that clung so prettily around his ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... on the door with his fist. A murmur of voices stopped suddenly, and, in response to a gruff command from within, he opened the door and stood staring at all three of his victims, who were seated at the table playing whist with ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... inspected her chickens—at one time she had two hundred of them—and her turkeys, geese, ducks, and peacocks, her bees and her silkworms. At eleven she read for an hour, and after an early dinner would take a siesta. Then she played picquet or whist with some friendly priests. In the evening she walked in the woods, or rode, or went on the lake. "I enjoy every amusement that solitude can afford," she said. "I confess I sometimes wish for a little conversation, ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... to Oatlands[7] on Saturday. There was a very large party— Mr. and Mrs. Burrell, Lord Alvanley, Berkeley Craven, Cooke, Arthur Upton, Armstrong, Foley, Lord Lauderdale, Lake, Page, Lord Yarmouth. We played at whist till four in the morning. On Sunday we amused ourselves with eating fruit in the garden, and shooting at a mark with pistols, and playing with the monkeys. I bathed in the cold bath in the grotto, which is as clear as crystal and as cold as ice. Oatlands is the worst managed establishment ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... request; and then, finding himself at leisure, he placed himself opposite and began to write a letter of his own. This trifling incident reminded me afresh that France is a democratic country. I think I re- ceived an admonition to the same effect from the free, familiar way in which the game of whist was going on just behind me. It was attended with a great deal of noisy pleasantry, flavored every now and then with a dash of irritation. There was a young man of whom I made a note; he was such a beautiful specimen of his class. Sometimes he was very facetious, chatter- ing, joking, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... I doubt, he'll give ye all ye deserve. Come by. There's kindlin' to split an' praties to peel, an'—Whist! ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Joseph, he directed him to address them as follows: "M. le Vicomte de Saint Remy. Lucenay cannot do without him," said D'Harville to himself. "M. de Monville—one of his traveling companions. Lord Douglas—his faithful partner at whist. Baron de Sezannes—the friend of ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... settlements were all right. Lady Augustus managed all that. Morton had then said that under those circumstances he feared he must regard the honour which he had hoped to enjoy as being beyond his reach. Lord Augustus had shrugged his shoulders and had gone back to his whist, this interview having taken place in the strangers' room of his club. That Lord Rufford was also going to Mistletoe he heard from young Glossop at the Foreign Office. It was quite possible that Glossop had been instructed to make this known to Morton ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... field to field and farm to farm, and becoming year by year more capable and prosperous. Given time— of which there is no scant in the matter of organic development—and cunning will do more with ill luck than folly with good. People do not hold six trumps every hand for a dozen games of whist running, if they do not keep a card or two up their sleeves. Cunning, if it can keep its head above water at all, will beat mere luck unaided by cunning, no matter what start luck may have had, if the race be a fairly long one. Growth ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... day, after dinner, over the red cloth of the tables, beneath the swinging lamps and the racks of tumblers, decanters and wine-glasses, we sat down to whist, Mrs. Peck, to oblige, taking a hand in the game. She played very badly and talked too much, and when the rubber was over assuaged her discomfiture (though not mine—we had been partners) with a Welsh rabbit and a tumbler of something hot. We had done with the cards, ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... my recollection. The captain of the Roslin Castle, Travers by name, had commanded the Scot, which brought his party home from Mashonaland, and he had very agreeable recollections of many an interesting conversation and of quiet rubbers of whist. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... by his father's sallies. It was his boast that "Abby" never yet had ventured to address him thus. And so this precious pair separated; the father going home to his grandchildren, and the son to the club for his afternoon rubber of whist. They still took ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... saloon the next day, after dinner, over the red cloth of the tables, beneath the swinging lamps and the racks of tumblers, decanters and wine-glasses, we sat down to whist, Mrs. Peck, among others, taking a hand in the game. She played very badly and talked too much, and when the rubber was over assuaged her discomfiture (though not mine—we had been partners) with a Welsh rabbit and a tumbler of something hot. We had done with the cards, but while she waited for this ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... goin' to have pop-corn to-night all so fast!" he says, doggedly, in the midst of a momentary lull that has fallen on a game of whist. And then the oldest Mills girl, who thinks cards stupid anyhow, says: "That's so, Billy; and we're going to have it, too; and right away, for this game's just ending, and I shan't submit to being bored with another. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... folks taking up our residence at Baroona had agreed to make common house of it. We were very dull at first, but I remember many pleasant evenings, when we played whist; and Mary Hawker, in her widow's weeds, sat sewing by the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... have more cards from which to draw, and the first who discards is even free to change all his nine cards; but he usually limits his discard to six or seven, and avoids encroachment on the share of the next player. The two who play against the Ombre are only half in the position of partners at whist, because one of them, when his hand is strong enough, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... come back from India. I was in Southampton. Only a few months before I had been teaching whist to the natives on the banks of the Ganges, and I had made my fortune out of the Indian rubber. I wonder if they remember the great Sahib who always had seven trumps and only one other suit. Tailoring is in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... repeated Titus. "Whist! not so loud, lest any one should overhear us. Poor Sir Piers, he's dead now. I'm sure you both loved him as I did, and pity and pardon him if he was guilty; for certain am I that no soul ever took its flight more heavily laden than did that ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the name of Flarity. I think I was looking that way at the moment. Flarity felt the sweep of the wind as the shot went over him; he raised up sufficiently to see where it had gone into the ground, and said, "Whist, ye divil! was yee's intinded for me?" Those who saw the effect of the shot and heard ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... white ribbons, and jogs jovially to church arm in arm with the pretty cause of all this beneficent disturbance. And the spectacle is mighty taking and commendable; but you'll excuse me for holding that it is not Love. It bears about the same relation to Love that Bumble-puppy bears to good whist. Among the eccentricities that make up the Average Man I find none more diverting than his complacent belief that he is, or has been, or will certainly some day be, in love. As a matter of fact, the capacity to love belongs to one man or woman ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... To fields the morning, and to feasts the night; None better skilled the noisy pack to guide, To urge their chase, to cheer them or to chide; A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day, And, skilled at whist, devotes the night to play: Then, while such honours bloom around his head, Shall he sit sadly by the sick man's bed, To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal To combat fears that e'en ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... The two sisters were very fond of one another, I believe. Perhaps Sir John is going to take the other one under his wing. Who's for a rubber of whist?" ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the hall waiting for an answer; or when he went to play his rubber at the Travelers', to be obliged to shoot out of his brougham and run up the steps rapidly, lest his father-in-law should seize upon him; and to think that while he read his paper or played his whist, the captain was walking on the opposite side of Pall Mall, with that dreadful cocked hat, and the eye beneath it fixed steadily upon the windows of the club. Sir Charles was a weak man; he was old, and had many infirmities: he ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he presides over the weekly balls at the casino where the English 'do congregate' (all except Robert and me), and is said to be the light of the flambeaux and the spring of the dancers. There is a general desolation when he will retire to play whist. In addition to which he really seems to be loving and loveable in his family. You always see him with his children and his wife; he drives her and her baby up and down along the only carriageable road of Lucca: so set down that piece of domestic life on the bright side ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Cricket. Veterinary. Farm. Pastimes. Bee-keeping. Acclimatisation. Fishing. Racing. Wild Sports. Garden. Whist. Poultry. Pisciculture. Hunting. Yachting. Stables. Country House. Chess. Pigeons. Travel. Coursing. Rowing. Kennel. Athletic Sports. Driving. Natural History. Lawn Tennis. Cycling and Motoring. &c., ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... gay belles of fashion may boast of excelling In waltz or cotillon, at whist or quadrille; And seek admiration by vauntingly telling Of drawing and painting, and musical skill; But give me the fair one, in country or city, Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart, Who cheerfully warbles some rustical ditty, While plying the needle with exquisite art: ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Petition to the Councilmen? That's what I was! For Six Years I have been a Member of the League of American Wheelmen and now I am a Candidate for Director of our new four-hole Golf Club. Also I play Whist on the Train with a Man who once lived in the same ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... waters, after having experienced their inefficacy. The diversions of the place they are not in a condition to enjoy. How then do they make shift to pass their time? In the forenoon they crawl out to the Rooms or the coffeehouse, where they take a hand at whist, or descant upon the General Advertiser; and their evenings they murder in private parties, among peevish invalids, and insipid old women — This is the case with a good number of individuals, whom nature seems to ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... born in the workhouse, and I mind when the Master came in to it. Whist now, here he is, and ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... enjoyed infinitely at first the gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival to me to dine there—which I did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to play a rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I am speaking now of the old club in King Street. This playing of whist before dinner has since that become a habit with me, so that unless there be something else special to do—unless there be hunting, or I am wanted to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my household—it ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... said that married men of forty are usually ready and generous enough to fling passing glances at any specimen of moderate beauty they may discern by the way. Probably, as with persons playing whist for love, the consciousness of a certain immunity under any circumstances from that worst possible ultimate, the having to pay, makes them unduly speculative. Bathsheba was convinced that this unmoved person was not ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... of his stick and made a brief convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an old whist-player's chuckle over a bad hand. Still looking ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the adjoining state-room had a treasure of gold-dust hidden similarly in a clothes-bag, and the pair of them ultimately arranged to stand watch and watch. While one went down to eat, the other kept an eye on the two state-room doors. When Churchill wanted to take a hand at whist, the other man mounted guard, and when the other man wanted to relax his soul, Churchill read four-months' old newspapers on a camp ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... misunderstood and underestimated. Later after he went into business for himself, the young men of Frankfort had never urged him to take part in their pleasures. He had not been asked to join the tennis club or the whist club. He envied Claude his fine physique and his unreckoning, impulsive vitality, as if they had been given to his brother by unfair means and should ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... it with remnants of opera tunes, to be hummed during a pause in conversation, which is generally supplied with a circulation of a pinch of snuff. By means of this cultivation she became a wonderful proficient in the polite graces of the age; she, with great facility, comprehended the scheme of whist, though cribbage was her favourite game, with which she had amused herself in her vacant hours, from her first entrance into the profession of hopping; and brag soon grew familiar to her practice ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... devil in the heart of her fiance, who challenged the private secretary to a mortal duel. It was to be a fight to the death, so he stated in the challenge, which arrived at our hotel at about 10 P.M. on a Tuesday evening, just as we were sitting down to a game of whist. The private secretary solemnly handed the written challenge to his chief. The Commissioner read it, then said: "Write a note in answer stating that our under-secretary will represent you, and meet at once a representative of your opponent here at the hotel, with the view of arranging a ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... surroundings Jester, who for forty years had been making the world laugh Last and best of life for which the first was made Learned the meaning of grief Letter on inadvertant theft on a visit to friends Life is a game of whist. Looks like a good deal of trouble for such a small result Loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship Machine that is as unreliable as he is would have no market Man the irresponsible Machine Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired Massacre of ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... his manner modified it into a request. After dinner he and his officers joined the ladies and gentlemen in the ladies' saloon, and shared in the singing and piano playing, and helped turn the music. He had a sweet and sympathetic tenor voice, and used it with taste and effect the music he played whist there, always with the same partner and opponents, until the ladies' bedtime. The electric lights burned there as late as the ladies and their friends might desire; but they were not allowed to burn ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... then dear Mama went, and I stepped into her place with P'pa. He wasn't exactly an invalid, but he did like to be fussed over, to have his meals cooked by my own hands, even if we were in a hotel. And whist—dear me, how I used to dread those three rubbers every evening! I was only a young woman then, and I suppose I was attractive to other men, but I never forgot Mr. Totter. And Cousin George," she turned to him submissively, "when you were talking ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... Mum budget. 'Mum budget', meaning 'hush', was originally the name of a children's game which required silence, cf. Merry Wives of Windsor, V, iv: 'I ... cried mum and she cried budget.' cf. also the term 'Whist'. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... against race-track gambling and add to the profits from faro. We raid the faro joints, and drive gambling into the home, where poker and bridge whist are taught to children who follow their parents' example. We deprive anarchists of free speech by the heavy hand of a police magistrate, and furnish them with a practical instead of a theoretical argument against government. We answer strikes with bayonets, ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... "Whisht! it's not whist!" LOCKWOOD whispered, keeping his eye closely fixed on game. "It's Baccarat. (Ah! CLARKE! I saw you. Come, pay up. You did that very clumsily.) It's the Tranby Court case you know. I'm not in it, but my learned brethren here hold briefs on either ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... are of all sorts, from the conversazioni of the rigid proprietarians, where people sit down to a kind of hopeless whist, at a soldo the point, and say nothing, to the conversazioni of the demi- monde where they say any thing. There are persons in Venice, as well as everywhere else, of new-fashioned modes of thinking, and these strive to give a greater life and ease to their assemblies, by attracting ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... was here quenched, more than a century since. Did she marry the rival, of surer aim and cooler head and heart, or did she haunt this place with regretful tears? Did she become a stout, prosaic woman, and end her days in whist and all the ancient proprieties, or fade into a remorseful wraith that still haunts her unfortunate lover's grave? One shivers, and grows superstitious. The light twinkling from the windows of the cottage ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... "Whist" is a game of cards so-called, because it requires silence and close attention. Therefore in playing this game, you must give your whole attention to the cards, and secure at least comparative silence. ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... anybody; at the club with Wise; worked all morning - a terrible dead pull; a month only produced the imperfect embryos of two chapters; lunched in the boarding-house, played on my pipe; went out and did some of my messages; dined at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts, whist, or Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but it isn't what you call burning the candle at both ends, is it? (It appears to me not one word of this letter will be legible by the time ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that the opposite must be truly delightful and highly consistent, and so under the tuition of Mr. Sprout, he changed and reversed all his habits, good, bad, and indifferent. From staking thousands at a horse-race, he turned up his eyes at the grievous abomination of half-crown whist; and, indeed, had he been disposed to card-playing, he could not have indulged himself at Trimmerstone, for Mr. Sprout had banished almost all card-playing from the place, so that there was not a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... including religion and matrimony. The husband wears a cashmere dressing-gown, and spreads a red handkerchief over his white hair to protect his white head from draughts; reads "A Sentimental Journey;" looks at his wife before expressing an opinion, and makes an excellent fourth at whist (1888). ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... of whist and piquet, such as are only to be found in small country circles where society is scarce and amusements few. They had met as partners or antagonists, and played, laughed, and wrangled over sixpenny stakes and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... assumed general direction, and betrayed an astonishing familiarity with the requirements. Under his direction they grouped themselves about the table as for whist, Viola at the north end, with Clarke directly opposite, and Kate and Mrs. Lambert on either side and quite near him. The two inquisitors then took seats—Morton at the psychic's right, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... who was very popular. These were all part of Vandover's set; they called each other by their first names and went everywhere together. Almost every Saturday evening they got together at Turner's house and played whist, or euchre, or sometimes even poker. "Just for love," ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... to take an airing, and after tea a game of whist affords an evening amusement. The Commodore is simple in his manners and habits. He is a representative of a former age, when men lived less artificially than at the present time, and when there was more happiness and less show. As for business, it is his nature. He can not ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... had a house on that corner. His house was a simple frame one, and back of it he had rabbit warrens and pigeon houses. He used to go often in the evenings the short distance to his uncle Robert's house for a game of whist, of which the old gentleman ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... beetle-browed man, with an ill-made black scratch-wig, that stared out on either side from his lantern jaws. He resided nine months out of the twelve at St. Ronan's, and was supposed to make an indifferent good thing of it,—especially as he played whist to admiration. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... is to appear in the publick Rooms undressed, or enter abruptly into each other's Apartment without intimation. Every one has hitherto been so careful in his Behaviour, that there has but one Offender in ten Days Time been sent into the Infirmary, and that was for throwing away his Cards at Whist. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... she died. A strange legend was at once invented to account for this calamity: it tells how the horseman proved such an agreeable acquisition that he was invited to remain some days, and made himself quite at home, and as they were now four in number whist was proposed in the evenings. The stranger, however, with Anne as his partner, invariably won every point; the old couple never had the smallest success. One night, when poor Anne was in great delight at winning so constantly, she dropped a ring on the floor, and, suddenly diving under the table ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... good-for-nothing circle of friends, and to gather round us a society of sensible people, well-settled in life, who might be of use to us. But no! Monsieur was bored. He was always bored, from morning till night. At our little soirees, where I was careful to arrange a whist table and a tea table, all as it should be, he would appear with such a face! in such a temper! When we were alone, it was just the same. Nevertheless, I was full of little attentions. I used to say to him: "Read me something of what you are doing." He recited to me verses, tirades, of which ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... "you can be a good daughter to her, and that's not far behind. Whist now, till I tell you the story of the Little Cakeen, and you'll see that 'tis a good thing entirely to behave yourselves and grow up fine and respectable, like the lad in the tale. ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... come in, of course." On being asked why he did not at the outset send for the posse comitatus, he replied he did not know where the fellow lived, or else he would. One evening at the Alderman's Club, he was sitting at whist, next Mr. Alderman Pugh, a soap-boiler. "Ring the bell, Soap-suds," said Kennet. "Ring it yourself, Bar," replied Pugh; "you have been twice as much used to it as I have." There is no disgrace in having been a soap-boiler ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of night and the dew have driven the guests to seek shelter within doors, the great parlor affords to the young people ample room for the cotillion or German, while the reception-room, office, and reading-room lure the seniors to whist or magazines. Of a Sunday, the dining-room answers for a chapel; and in years past, the voice of many an eloquent preacher has echoed through the room, and reached, through the open windows, hardy but devout fishermen on ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... and dear old ladies knit in the streets, that is only one of the thousand things we have had to do. It would take years to give you an account of what we have done and why we do it. It is like a game of whist and poker combined and we bluff on two flimsy fours, and crawl the next minute to a man that holds a measly two-spot. There is not a wire we have not pulled, or a leg, either, and we go dashing about all day in a bath-chair, with a driver in a bell ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... any stated luncheon or supper time for doing it. They are very informal. One time is as good as another, and the oftener the merrier. If Katy doesn't keep very quiet and demure, like her leafy background, whist! and Father Robin or Mother Bluebird has a ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... she continued. "Now you," counting on her fingers, "are one, and I am two and Mr. and Mrs. Haines next door, who belong to my whist club, are four; and Ella Haines is five; and I just saw Mr. What's-his-name go in to call on Ella—and he'll be six; and that horrid man on the next block who is in your lodge will have to ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... coursing the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, while its owner seemed entirely unconscious of the aching hearts which had contributed to all her grandeur. Cards were universally played in private homes and whist was the fashionable game, General Scott being one of its chief devotees. I have often thought how much the old General would have enjoyed "bridge," as there was nothing that gave him more pleasure than ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... has her edication been, to mak' her different frae other women? If a woman can nurse her bairns, mak' their claes, and manage her hoose, what mair need she do? If she can playa tune on the spinnet, and dance a reel, and play a rubber at whist—nae doot these are accomplishments, but they're soon learnt. Edication! pooh!—I'll be bound Leddy Jully Anie wull mak' as gude a figure by-and-by as the best edicated woman ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... inheriting, as it were, the broad and generous policy of his father, Christy had no personal prejudices against this enemy of his country, and he felt just as he would if he had been sailing a boat against him, or playing a game of whist with him. He was determined to beat him if he could. But he was not satisfied with locking his papers up; he called Dave, and set him as a watch over them. If the conspirator overhauled his papers, he would have been more concerned about ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... put the kybosh on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow the rocks about to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... answered here. This little book is made up of new and novel suggestions for all kinds of occasions, something to replace the thread-worn ideas of old time social usage. Here are some of the chapter headings: "A Rainbow Bridge," "A German Whist," "Golf Euchre," "Valentine's Day," "St. Patrick's Day," "April Fool's Day," "Easter," "Decoration Day," "Fourth of July," "Hallow-e'en," "Thanksgiving Day," "Christmas," "New Year's," "Birthday," "Colonial Ball," ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... join the juvenile society of young women and girls, misses and young people, in the chamber of Madame Deschars. The serious people, politicians, whist-players, and tea-drinkers, are ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... &c. &c. He was an intimate friend of our worthy tutor's; if the friendship between Oxford dons can be called intimacy. They compared the merits of their respective college cooks three or four times a term, and contended for the superior vintage of the common-room port. They played whist together; walked arm-in-arm round Christchurch meadow; and knew the names of all the old incumbents in each other's college-list, and the value of the respective livings. Mr Plympton and a friend had been making a walking tour of North Wales; that is, they walked about five miles, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... (1814-65)] has just been spending a week here, during which he has played some hundred rubbers of whist at the "Erbprinz." His is a noble, sweet, and delicate nature, and more than once during his stay I have caught myself regretting you for him, and regretting him for you. Last Monday he was good enough to play, in his usual and admirable manner, at the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... finished on the fourth morning after my adventure at Sloane Square, and the pack of cards was duly delivered by Polton when he brought in the breakfast tray. Thorndyke took up the pack somewhat with the air of a whist player, and, as he ran through them, I noticed that the number had increased ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... arriving on the 19th inst. Why delay? Still, arrange it entirely according to your own convenience. Only allow me to make one observation: on Wednesday evening, 23rd July, I am invited by somebody where a refusal would be wrong and stupid. But if you were favorably inclined, our extra three-handed whist might be quite well arranged at ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... BUMBLEPUPPY—Bumblepuppy is persisting to play whist, either in utter ignorance of all its known principles, or in defiance of them, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... "An' ye'll remimber, if anny wan asks ye, that I ixprissed me contrition for arristin' Snooksy. Whist!" he said, putting his hand alongside his mouth and whispering: "Some wan wanted me t' search th' house here t' see did Snooksy have sivin bottles iv beer an' a ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... the tightly closed shutters. In his father's time there were visitors, discussions, playing at whist and loo, and little suppers. She wouldn't care for that, of course. Yet he remembered that she had been interested ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the iron belt. At a pause in the conversation you may hear him rattling the coppers in his pocket moodily, as the spectres in old romances rattle their chains; but his remorse is unavailing. A fair chance once lost, Whist and Erycina never forgive. The beautiful bird that might then have been limed and tamed shook her wings and flew away exultingly: far up in air the unlucky fowler may still sometimes hear her clear mocking carol, but she is too near heaven for his arts to reach, and ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... piles of books, I reached a cell, or adytum, whose sides were so completely cased with the same supellex that the fireplace was literally enchasse dans la muraille. In this cell sat the deity of the place, at the head of a whist party, which was interrupted by my inquiry after Dillenius in sheets. The answer was, he "had none in sheets or blankets." . . . I emerged from this shop, which I consider as a future Herculaneum, where we shall hereafter root out many scarce things now rotting on ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... saying, "May I come in?" It was only Cummings, who said, "Your maid opened the door, and asked me to excuse her showing me in, as she was wringing out some socks." I was delighted to see him, and suggested we should have a game of whist with a dummy, and by way of merriment said: "You can be the dummy." Cummings (I thought rather ill-naturedly) replied: "Funny as usual." He said he couldn't stop, he only called to leave me the Bicycle News, as he had done ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... are dumb, The Futile Mills shall grind their grist Of sand from now till Kingdom Come; The Winds of Bunk are never whist. You scowl and shake an honest fist — You threaten her with Night and Sorrow? Go slay one Pseudo-Scientist, More Little Groups will ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... Nucingen, Peyrade, and Rastignac sat down to a whist-table; Florine, Madame du Val-Noble, Esther, Blondet, and Bixiou sat round the fire chatting. Lucien spent the time in looking through ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... tell people they were going to play billiards. Thousands and thousands of people think they have stayed at the seaside, and have not, just as thousands of people erroneously imagine they have played whist. For the latter have played not whist, but Bumble-puppy, and the former have only frequented a watering-place for a time. Your true staying at the seaside is an art, demanding not only railway fares but special aptitude, and, moreover, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... amiable enough, may on occasion be as trenchant as any French sally. For example, we have the definition of gratitude as given by Sir Robert Walpole—"A lively sense of future favors." The Marquis of Salisbury once scored a clumsy partner at whist by his answer to someone who asked how the game progressed: "I'm doing as well as could be expected, considering that I have three adversaries." So the retort of Lamb, when Coleridge said to him: "Charles, did you ever hear me lecture?". ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... seen. The sailing was diversified by scrambling on shore. The return in the evening was still more beautiful. At dinner the German valet and Macdonald, the Highland forester, helped the footman to wait on the company. Whist, played with a dummy, and a walk round the little garden, "where the silence and solitude, only interrupted by the waving of the fir-trees, were very striking," ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... brink of Montmorency Falls. Gaily he made his promenade along the Beauport Road, or shot over the marshes of La Carnardiere; and at his own or the neighbouring homestead of M. de Salaberry, the genial company whiled away many an evening with whist. Frequent balls and receptions in the old Chateau recalled the days of Frontenac's merry court; or, still further back, that night of Canada's first ball, the 4th of February, 1667, when the courtly ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... this time! Where?—at the card-table, playing very judiciously at whist. With an indolent security, which will be thought incredible by those who have not seen similar instances of folly in great families, she let every thing pass before her eyes without seeing it. Confident ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... announced; she was so comically stiff between her deference to her hosts and her allegiance to her poor dear uncle; but her coldness melted before the charms of old Mr. Fordyce, who was one of the most delightful people in the world. She even was his partner at whist, and won the game, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Square which were devoted to his use, inviting his father and Mr. Binnie now and then, but the good Colonel did not often attend those parties. He saw that his presence rather silenced the young men, and went away to play his rubber of whist at the club. And although time hung a bit heavily on the good Colonel's hands, now that Clive's interests were separate from his own, yet of nights as he heard Clive's companions tramping by his bedchamber door, where he lay wakeful within, he was happy to think his son was happy. As for ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the time when the law-student, destined in the first instance to the career in which his father had left an excellent reputation, had found himself introduced to a few judges' drawing-rooms, ancient, melancholy dwellings with faded pier-glasses, where he used to go to make a fourth at whist with venerable shadows. Jenkins's evening party was therefore a debut for this provincial, of whom his very ignorance and his southern adaptability made immediately ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... with piercing distinctness, have been exchanged, the belated revellers from some club or whist-party or an evening at the theatre in town terminate their sweet sorrow at parting by going their several ways to their different homes, where, no doubt, on retiring to rest they sink at once into blameless slumber, ignorant of the fact that for me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... sister had chosen to marry a certain Mr. Ryfe, of whom nobody knew more than that he could shoot pigeons, had been concerned in one or two doubtful turf transactions, and played a good hand at whist. While he lived, though it was a mystery how he lived, he kept Mrs. Ryfe "very comfortable," to use Bargrave's expression. When he died he left her nothing but the boy Tom, a precocious urchin, inheriting some of his father's sporting propensities, with a certain slang smartness ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Brandeis had the farmer women coming to her for their threshing dishes and kitchenware, and the West End Culture Club for their whist prizes. She seemed to realize that the days of the general store were numbered, and she set about making hers a novelty store. There was something terrible about the earnestness with which she stuck to business. She was not more than thirty-eight at this ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... is not good for you or Ishmael to be out here, you might not heed me. But when I say that uncle has gone with General Tourneysee to a political pow-wow, and mamma and myself are quite alone and would like to amuse ourselves with a game of whist, perhaps you will come in and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... extended. There being no definite boundary, it was inevitable that women should go very far, and when the educated woman does nothing more than to steal a pencil from her husband and to cheat at whist, her sole fortune is that she does not get opportunities or needs for more serious mistakes. The uneducated, poverty-stricken woman has, however, both opportunity and need, and crime becomes very easy to her. Our life ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... time over the glowing coals; then Mary Snow came in and Jessie Craig again, and there was music and a quiet game of whist, after which Bailey escorted Mary away with his ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... himself from London for many years. Those who were honoured by a better acquaintance with him than the rest, declared that nobody could pretend to have ever seen him anywhere else. His sole pastimes were reading the papers and playing whist. He often won at this game, which, as a silent one, harmonised with his nature; but his winnings never went into his purse, being reserved as a fund for his charities. Mr. Fogg played, not to win, but for the sake of playing. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... that social reforms were needed. Here the Opium-Eater came, and his cloudy abstract loves and hates and visions were exploded by the sparks of Elia's wit. Here the philosopher Godwin developed philosophy out of whist. Here the pensive face of the Quaker poet, Bernard Barton, shed a mild light upon the scene; and here the lawyer Thomas Noon Talfourd came to admire the finest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Berg's fastidious ear with its unhackneyed and refined melody. But the marked and marvellous feature in her playing was an airy rolicksomeness that was as irresistible as a panic. Old ladies' heads began to bob over their fancy work most absurdly. Two quartets of elderly gentlemen at whist were evidently beginning to play badly, their feet meantime tapping the floor ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent; yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanor, that your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist-table; refuseth on the score of poverty, and resents being left out. When the company break up, he proferreth to go for a coach, and lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust in some mean and quite unimportant anecdote of the family. He knew it when it was not ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... five o'clock when Daniel left the court-house; and on the little square before it he found the old surgeon, waiting to carry him off to dinner, and a game of whist in the evening. So, when he undressed at night, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... of rooms, filled with attentive domestics. The place was crowded. Generals and Privy Counsellors were playing at whist, young men were lolling carelessly upon the velvet-covered sofas, eating ices and smoking pipes. In the drawing-room, at the head of a long table, around which were assembled about a score of players, sat the ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... godly-minded town. No one would have anything to say to a revolutionary who had taken the oaths. His society, therefore, consisted of a few individuals of what were then called liberal or patriotic, or constitutional opinions, on whom he would call for a rubber of whist ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... sweetness in double rhymes, And a double at Whist and a double Times In profit are certainly double— By doubling, the Hare contrives to escape; And all seamen delight in a doubled Cape, And a double-reef'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... one's pomp at whist, is to score five before the adversaries are up, or win the game: originally derived from pimp, which is Welsh for five; and should be, I have saved ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... The supper took place in Brogten's rooms, and the party then adjourned to Bruce's, where they immediately began a game at whist for half-a-crown points, and then "unlimited loo." Kennedy was induced to play "just to see what it was like." As the game proceeded he became more and more excited; the others were accustomed to the thing, and concealed their eagerness; ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... fitful images, which rose and fell by a logic of their own. It was extraordinary the things she remembered. Now that she was in the secret, now that she knew something that so much concerned her and the eclipse of which had made life resemble an attempt to play whist with an imperfect pack of cards, the truth of things, their mutual relations, their meaning, and for the most part their horror, rose before her with a kind of architectural vastness. She remembered a thousand trifles; they started to life with the spontaneity ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... there about three quarters of an hour we went to the apartment of Madame d'Angouleme, where a great part of the company were assembled, and where we stayed about a quarter of an hour. After this we descended again to the drawing-room, where several card tables were laid out. The King played at whist with the Prince and Princess de Conde and my father. His Majesty settled the points of the game at 'le quart d'un sheling.' The rest of the party played at billiards or ombre. The King was so civil as to invite us to sleep there, instead ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... This was too much to bear, and Holcroft, starting up, called out in no measured tone, "Mr. C——, you are the most eloquent man I ever met with, and the most troublesome with your eloquence!" P—— held the cribbage-peg that was to mark him game, suspended in his hand; and the whist table was silent for a moment. I saw Holcroft down stairs, and, on coming to the landing-place in Mitre-court, he stopped me to observe, that "he thought Mr. C—— a very clever man, with a great command of language, but that he feared he did not always affix very precise ideas to ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... between a Troisville and a monarchical journalist he could safely show himself to be a man of broad intelligence, because his calling was certain to be respected. He usually came to the chateau very evening to make the fourth at a game of whist. The journalist, able to recognize the abbe's real merits, showed him so much deference that the pair grew into sympathy with each other; as usually happens when men of intelligence meet their equals, or, if you prefer it, the ears that are able to hear ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... unto these yellow sands, And then take hands,— Curtsied when you have and kiss'd; (The wild waves whist)— Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Hark, hark! Bough wough, The watch dogs bark, Bough wough, Hark, hark! I hear The strain of ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... o'clock he came home, admired on horseback by the grisettes and the ladies who happened to be at their windows. After an affectation of study or business, which seemed to engage him till four, he dressed to dine out, spent the evening in the drawing-rooms of the aristocracy of Besancon playing whist, and went home to bed at eleven. No life could be more above board, more prudent, or more irreproachable, for he punctually attended the services at church on ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac |
