"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of that time. The liberal education which she had received made the young girl feel perfectly at her ease in such society. In addition to other accomplishments, she was mistress of several ancient and modern languages, and a musical amateur of great promise. ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... first scene of The Caprice. Renee was very lively as Mme. de Lery; Henri, in the role of husband, proved himself a talented amateur actor, as so many young men of a cold temperament, and grave society men, often do. Noemi, well sustained by Henri, admirably prompted by Denoisel, and slightly carried away by seeing the large audience, played her touching part as the neglected wife very passably. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... all my acquaintances think me madder than usual by the pertinacity with which I attended debating societies and haunted all sorts of hole-and-corner debates and public meetings and made speeches at them. I was President of the Local Government Board at an amateur Parliament where a Fabian ministry had to put its proposals into black and white in the shape of Parliamentary Bills. Every Sunday I lectured on some subject which I wanted to teach to myself; and it was not until I had come to the point of being able ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... painting, and in a remarkable degree the power of imitating it. Connoisseurs approved of his sketches, both in pencil and oils, but not without the sort of criticisms made on these occasions—that they were admirable for an amateur; but it could not be expected that he should submit to the technical drudgery absolutely necessary for a profession, and all that species of criticism which gives way before natural ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the cricket bat bag, which should always be comprised in the outfit of the amateur cricketer, as well as of the professional. In making this we follow the instructions given for the carpet bag. It may be made either of carpet, tan-canvas, or leather, the latter, of course, being the strongest and most expensive. Carpet will not require to be described, but a brief description ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... of whom proclaim its marked superiority to all parts of the Swiss Alps except the amazing neighborhood of Mont Blanc. With the multiplication of trails and the building of shelters for the comfort of the inexperienced, the veriest amateur of city business life will find in these mountains of perpetual sunshine a satisfaction which is only for ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... assets now he discovered that he had probably as excellent a conception of gridiron strategy and tactics as any man in America; that as a boxer he occupied a position in the forefront of amateur ranks; and he was quite positive that out-side of the major leagues there was not a better ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... war cannot possibly be well managed by anyone who is not a master of the art. Now and then there has been success by an amateur—a person who, without being a soldier by profession, has made himself one; such a person, for example, as Cromwell. Apart from rare instances of that sort, the only plan for a Government which does not include among its members a soldier, professional or amateur, ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... palmist and soothsayer had returned to Bond Street full of hate and respect for Midland justice, which fears not and has a fist like a navvy's. The attention of the Five Towns had thus been naturally drawn to fortune-telling in general. And it was deemed that in securing a local celebrity (quite an amateur, and therefore, it was uncertainly hoped, on the windy side of the law) for the diversion of his Christmas party Stephen Cheswardine had done a stylish ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... a voice, and music was the one talent she had cared to cultivate; she had had good lessons during her second winter abroad, and was an acquisition to the amateur company. Besides, what she cared for more, it was a real pleasure and rest to the curate to come in and listen to her or sing with her. She had learnt what kind of things offended good taste, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... First-class chess remained in the hands of the veterans Burn, Blackburne, Mason and Bird. The old amateurs passed away, their place being taken by a new generation of powerful amateurs, so well equipped that Great Britain could hold its own in an amateur contest against the combined forces of Germany, Austria, Holland and Russia. The terms master and amateur are not used in any invidious sense, but simply as designating, in the former case, first-class players, and in the latter, those just ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... 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 ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... up twice in Mr. Green's balloon as a simple amateur. He took it into his head to go up a third time. He wished to attempt a descent in a parachute of his own construction, which he believed was vastly superior to the ordinary one. He altered the ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... dress, except at the rarest intervals; and then there is only one, not two; and he shows up but once on the voyage—the night before the ship makes port—the night when they have the "concert" and do the amateur wailings and recitations. He is the tenor, as a rule . . . . There has been a deal of cricket-playing on board; it seems a queer game for a ship, but they enclose the promenade deck with nettings and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... barked tree which the Dunbar Expedition had called the lance tree because of its slender, straightly outthrust limbs. Its wood was as hard as hickory and as springy as cedar. Prentiss found two amateur archers who were sure they could make efficient bows and arrows out of the lance tree limbs. He gave them the ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... consider the question of grouping the battery cells from the same point of view. How does the need for rapid working, and the question of time constant, affect the best mode of grouping the battery cells? The amateur's rule, which tells you to so arrange your battery that its internal resistance should be equal to the external resistance, gives you a result wholly wrong for rapid working. The supposed best arrangement will not give ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... out from lips, at no time too retentive, I was told, that at the end of one week more I should be suffered to take my way; that week being devoted to a round of especial entertainments in honour of my brother's election; the whole to be wound up by that most preposterous of all delights, an amateur play. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... verily, that is what he was. He was welcomed at every mess, and he had the entree of every house in Quebec. He could drink harder than any man in the regiment, and dance down a whole regiment of drawing-room knights. He could sing better than any amateur I ever heard; and was the best judge of a meerschaum-pipe I ever saw. Lucky? Yes, he was—and especially so, and more than all else—on account of the joyousness of his soul. There was a contagious and a godlike hilarity in his broad, open brow, his ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... minister of state who was his guide should answer—"O great Caesar, I really do not know. I believe there are some somewhere at the back of that ugly building which we call the National Gallery; and I think there have been some meetings lately in the East End, and an amateur concert at the Albert Hall, for restoring, by private subscriptions, some baths and wash-houses in Bethnal Green, which had fallen to decay. And there may be two or three more about the metropolis; for parish vestries have powers by Act of Parliament ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the technical merit of his productions, yet there were points in regard to which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined judgment of the amateur. He watched the effect that each picture produced on such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their remarks, while they would as soon have thought of instructing Nature herself, as him who seemed to rival ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stir about invasion and amateur rifle-clubs, other matters do get talked about—as, for instance, the astronomer-royal's communication to the Society of Antiquaries on the place of Caesar's landing at his invasion of Britain. The learned functionary settles it to his own satisfaction by tide-calculations: he has also been ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... time of the Tralee election, when I stood as a Conservative, a small clique of mob orators and amateur politicians tried to make political capital out of the history of the Harenc estate, and a priest, Father M. O'Connor, rode the jaded topic to death. The unkindest cut of all to him was the direct contradiction by the tenants themselves of every assertion ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... to the understanding that it shall be made clear in all advertising matter that the audience will witness an amateur performance; and that the names of the authors of plays shall be included in all announcements ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... 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 ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... children. When he took up his residence as laird, most of his friends, naturally, were Spanish visitors whom he amused by building a bull-fighting ring not far from the house, importing bulls from Spain and holding amateur bull-fights on Sunday afternoons. This was a sad blow indeed to the sedate Presbyterians in the neighbourhood. His life, however, was short, and, as he left no children, the properties passed to my father, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... one mighty stubborn boy! And I don't think my darling Aunt Betty would hesitate to pay one extra day's help. I've heard her say that she disliked amateur labor. She likes professional skill," returned ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... at such times awaiting their turn at the bar of justice affords ample opportunity for study to the professional or the amateur criminalist. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... at once. He had been looking a little glum since his last speech. "Yes," he answered, "I can. Well, I'm not a professional, you understand, but for an amateur I am supposed to have as much technique and a good deal ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... have been appointed to control the food supplies in Petrograd. English Government officials regard this arrangement as the work of an amateur. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... silent auditors another drawer which contained a sheet of card-board on which was a fairly good pastel of an Arab in a burnouse. It had the weak and false drawing which would result in the attempt of an amateur to copy an engraving in color. "This came in broad daylight while I held the clean card-board ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... 'My better angel!' he said, 'I will be content to toil as the knights of old, hopelessly, save that if you hear of me no longer as the idle amateur, but as exerting myself for something serviceable, you will know it is ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cavalry, Father," I said, and we edged our way up the line of horses two abreast and found the Deputy Commissioner, his helmet smashed on his head, surrounded by a knot of men who had come down from the Club as amateur constables and ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... distinguished-looking, with an iron-grey mustache, and the manners of a diplomat. He was not only a banker, he was also a man of culture; he had run away to sea in his youth, and he had travelled in every country of the world. He was also a bit of an author, in an amateur way, and if there was any book which he had not dipped into, it was not a book of which one would be apt to hear in Society. He could talk upon any subject, and a hostess who could secure Stanley Ryder for one of her dinner-parties ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... "No, I'm a lily-pure amateur," Rand told him. "Or was until I took this job. I have a collection of my own, and I'm supposed to be something of an authority. My business is operating a private ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... twisted kind of smile, 'boys, I'm lookin' for a job. I'm not much of a talker, an' I'm only a amateur at music, and my game of billiards is ragged. But there's one thing I can do, fellows, from abc up to xyz, and that's write. I can write, boys, in a way to make your pet little political scribe sound like a high school paper. I don't promise to stick. As soon ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... an amateur radar operator out of me, because it was easy to do, and gave Sid more time for actual rocket valving. My belt cut me hard as ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... was formed in the '70s by a number of newspaper writers and men working in the arts or interested in them. It had grown to a membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers, musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group of men, and hospitality was their avocation. Yet the thing which set this club off from all others in the world ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... examined herself full face, in profile, in three-quarters view, and behind, attentively and conscientiously, like an amateur judging a work of art, who cries at length, "Yes, it is all good, it is all perfect, there is nothing amiss." One could have believed that she saw herself again for the first time after ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... here to-night to arrange the scene. Don't tell us you didn't know it. Bob Yardsley's coming, and Barlow. Yardsley's a great man for amateur dramatics; he bosses things so pleasantly that you don't know you're being ordered about like a slave. I believe he could persuade a man to hammer nails into his piano-case if he wanted it done, he's so insinuatingly lovely ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... was the reply. 'His mother was resolved he should be an amateur, and I give his master ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... less lamentable now, being one that takes care to redress itself, and perhaps any amateur purchaser of fish may find rogues enough now for his interest. But the rector's daughter pined for neither society nor scandal: she had plenty of interest in her life, and in pleasing other people, whenever she could do it ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... set to work. But beyond the fact that the whole contrivance was the work of an amateur hand, he found nothing strange about it, except the fact ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... know as much about Anarchism in ten minutes as they do here in ten years. Tell them that I have spent my life in the study of explosives. I will have to make-up a little, but you know that I am a very good amateur actor, and I don't think there will be any trouble about that. At the last you must tell them that you have an appointment and will leave me to amuse them for ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... is unfair, for it was only the repetition under new governmental conditions of the old traditional colonial method of carrying on war as a local matter. The French and Indian War, the Revolution, and the War of 1812, repeated in different generations the same tale of amateur warfare, of the occasional success and usual worthlessness of the militia, the same administrative inefficiency, and the same financial breakdown. Without authority and obedience, there can be carried on no real war; and authority ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... to his decision about the money for the funeral director quickly. He told her he was going to look for work and went to George Blake at his Spring street gymnasium. Blake, an instructor in boxing, had seen him spar in amateur bouts and had taken him in tow. He boxed because he liked it; never with a thought of ever fighting for money. Only a month before he had refused an offer of a bout at Jack ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... command the needful guinea) that they can recapture this pleasure through a volume of twenty-four representative drawings collected under the apt title of Personalities (SECKER). Not for me to attempt detailed consideration, even if it were not the duty of every amateur to fall a victim at first hand to Mr. KAPP'S amazing art. But one can hardly pass without tribute such things as the head of the Japanese poet on page 1 ("Seer of Visions"), a really wonderful example of much meaning in few lines, or the WYNDHAM ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... flower—herald of death. The fatal climax could be 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 ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... 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
... rapidly cut away the shirt, exposing the warrior's chest and back. As he drew back the blood-soaked cloth, he gave a sigh of relief. The bullet had passed clear through the body close to the lungs,—a serious wound, but one which perhaps with proper care need not prove fatal. The amateur surgeon had no antiseptic except common salt, but with that and water he quickly cleansed and sterilized the wounds and tearing up one of his own clean shirts, he first scraped a strip with an old case knife ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... 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
... Cholera Morbus, can be warranted utterly to deny the existence of contagion, but he may at the least be permitted to say, that if contagion do exist at all, it must be the weakest in its powers of diffusion, and the safest to approach of any that has ever yet been known amongst diseases. Amateur physicians from the Continent, and from every part of the United Kingdoms, eager and keen for Cholera, and more numerous than the patients themselves, beset and surrounded the sick in Sunderland with all the fearless ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... his rank like a prince, and gathered involuntarily round him as showy a circle as ever figured in St James's, or even in the glittering saloons of the Tuileries. Hunting parties, balls, suppers, and amateur theatrical performances, not merely varied the time, but made it fly. Hope had its share too, as well as possession. Paris was before us; and on the road to the capital lay but the one fortress which was about to be destroyed with our fire, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... reputation for honesty and caution in advancing opinions. By all the lessons that history teaches, Peary's word should have had precedence over Cook's, for Peary was a specialist, while Cook was only an amateur. And yet the general public discounted entirely those lessons, and trusted rather the novice, with what results it is now unnecessary to review,—and in nine cases out of ten, the ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... here, Florence, said the amateur, rings and a sunrise, not out of the clouds either. Look, too, at the oval forms like eggs. At home we can't get such cups. Here we are in the higher waves. We are determined to read something to inspire others, as you read to us, ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... adolescence. He was tired of worshipping or tyrannizing over the bistred or umbered beauties of mingled blood among whom he had been living. Even that piquant exhibition which the Rio de Mendoza presents to the amateur of breathing sculpture failed to interest him. He was thinking of a far-off village on the other side of the equator, and of the wild girl with whom he used to play and quarrel, a creature of a different race from these ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... necessary. She could pick a lock too, when needed, with great neatness and dispatch. I rather think she could repair one also. I have still in my possession a small box of her making, which, for execution and durability, I will match against the performance of any rival amateur of the opposite sex. In spite, however, of such freaks, and as if to make amends for them, Miss Jess possessed one of the softest and most impressionable hearts which ever fell to the lot of a mature maiden of forty-five. She had suffered from no less than six different attachments ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... exit for the water, and some hardwood pegs drove into holes in the wall, and that was all. To go out of that furnished apartment into a Harlem hall bedroom would make you feel like getting back home from an amateur violoncello solo at an East Side ...
— Options • O. Henry
... himself as he went down the road, and then dismissed the matter from his mind, for the consideration of the Upham baby and the probable nature of its ailment, upon which, however, he did not allow himself to dwell too long. Early in his amateur practice Jake Noyes had inculcated one precept in his mind, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the colored graduate of West Point, was entertained in style at Tully's, King Street, Tuesday night. The hosts were a colored organization called tile Amateur Literary and Fraternal Association, which determined that the lieutenant who will leave this city to-day to join his regiment, the Tenth Cavalry, now in Texas, should not do so without some evidence of their appreciation of him personally, and of the fact that he had reflected ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... passed, and whose food is consumed, in the clubs of the adjacent thoroughfare of cooperative palaces, Pall Mall. The furniture was battered and dingy; the sofa on which Logan sprawled had a certain historic interest: it was covered with cloth of horsehair, now seldom found by the amateur. A bookcase with glass doors held a crowd of books to which the amateur would at once have flown. They were in 'boards' of faded blue, and the paper labels bore alluring names: they were all First Editions of the most desirable kind. The bottles in the liqueur case were antique; a coat of arms, not ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... answer to this inquiry, accompanied with such woodcut illustrations as would be necessary to render the description complete, and such as an artificer could work by, would confer a boon on many amateur photographers, as well as your ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... carefully placed aside after its cleansing, and the pair of amateur opticians locked up the place ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... proceeds the author of "The Amateur Detective," —"to tell you the whole truth, I have been playing the detective with you by order of Mr. DIBBLE, and hope you will excuse my practice ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... Lang had celebrated the day by giving a little afternoon tea on the broad piazza, overlooking the grounds. It had been a pretty sight, with the dainty gowns of the girls, and the active figures of the few boys who had been favored with invitations to share in the games on the lawn. The ever-present amateur photographer had thought so too, apparently, and from his position in the street, he had already aimed his detective camera at them, when Alan discovered him and gave the alarm, only just in time to prevent his ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... fishermen, and wild-fowl shooters of Barnegat and Little Egg Harbor bays, until the New Jersey Southern Railroad and its connecting branches penetrated to the eastern shores of New Jersey, when educated amateur sportsmen from the cities quickly recognized in the little gunning-punt all they had long desired to combine in ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... of the Young Amateur Entertainer that—whether he possesses or not the smallest acquaintance with any language beyond his own—he is always prepared to impersonate a foreigner of any given nationality at a moment's notice; and Mr. Punch is confident that the most backward of his Pupils will be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... clear cold night when Geoffrey Thurston met Captain Franklin, who held certain sporting rights in the vicinity, at the place agreed upon. The captain had brought with him several amateur assistants and stablehands besides two stalwart keepers. Greeting ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... was the Maighdean-mhara. He would let no one else on the island touch Sheila's boat. Duncan, it is true, was permitted to keep her masts and sails and seats sound and white, but as for the decorative painting of the small craft—including a little bit of amateur gilding—that was the exclusive right of Mr. Mackenzie himself. For of course, the old man said; to himself, Sheila was coming back to Borva one these days, and she would be proud to find her own boat bright and sound. If she and her husband ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... down beside Bickley, and in clearing away the deep dust from what seemed to be the bottom of the step, which was perhaps four feet in height, by accident thrust my amateur spade somewhat strongly against its base where it rested upon ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... of the work may be, I feel certain that the numerous and excellent illustrations which the Publisher has obtained for this book cannot fail to render it attractive, and, let us also hope, contribute something towards bringing Cactuses into favour with horticulturists, professional as well as amateur. ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... seemingly we are trying to discredit astronomers because astronomers oppose us—that's not my impression. We shall be in the Brahmin caste of the hell of the Baptists. Almost all our data, in some regiments of this procession, are observations by astronomers, few of them mere amateur astronomers. It is the System that opposes us. It is the System that is suppressing astronomers. I think we pity them in their captivity. Ours is not malice—in a positive sense. It's chivalry—somewhat. Unhappy astronomers looking out from high towers in which ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... that Edwin Abbey did not get along very well at school —instead of getting his lessons he drew pictures, and thirty years ago such conduct was proof of total depravity. Like the amateur blacksmith who started to make a horseshoe and finally contented himself with a fizzle, the Abbeys gave up theology and law, and decided that if Edwin became a good printer it would be enough. And then, how often printers became writers—then editors ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... unattractive, aigri, and, en somme, rather absurd. Marya Dmitrievna made her appearance escorted by Gedeonovsky, then Marfa Timofyevna and Lisa came in; and after them the other members of the household; and then the musical amateur, Madame Byelenitsin, arrived, a little thinnish lady, with a languid, pretty, almost childish little face, wearing a rusting dress, a striped fan, and heavy gold bracelets. Her husband was with her, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... the North has its place in our subsequent story. The system that preceded it need not be dwelt upon here, because, full of instruction as a technical study of it (such as has been made by Colonel Henderson) must be, no brief survey by an amateur could be useful. It is necessary, however, to understand the position in which Lincoln's Administration was placed, without much experience In America, or perhaps elsewhere in the world, to guide it. It must not be contended, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... exquisite profile, hollow cheeks and haggard but lovely brown eyes. She was talking to several people who were gathered about her, and never smiled. It was impossible to imagine that she could ever smile. Her name was Lady Mildred Burnington, and she was an admirable amateur violinist, married to Admiral Sir Hilary Burnington, one of the Sea Lords. Max Elliot was in the distance, talking eagerly in the midst of a group of musicians. A tall singer, a woman from the Paris Opera Comique, stood by him with her right hand on his arm, as if she ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... did not, however, appear to be without hope. Certainly, had he chosen to risk an assault with some trifling loss, the place might have been in his possession; but boats were not at hand in sufficient numbers, and besides, such a proceeding might not have been popular with amateur soldiers. He asked me if I had brought any letters to him; I frankly owned I had not. "Ah!" he said, "you came from curiosity, that you might talk in the gay circles of London, of having seen the Vladika of Montenegro." I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... a great amateur of knighthoods. On days of great festivities his face is, as it were, illuminated with the lustre of his stars; and the crosses on his coat conceal almost its original colour. Every petty Prince of Germany has dubbed him a chevalier; but Emperors and Kings have ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a little musical party in New York, where several accomplished amateur singers were present, and with them the eminent professional, Miss Adelaide Phillipps. The amateurs were first called on. Each chose some difficult operatic passage, and sang her best. When it came to the great opera-singer's ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... her lips, and smiled ironically; she had Katharine at her mercy; she could, if she liked, discharge upon her head wagon-loads of revolting proof of the state of things ignored by the casual, the amateur, the looker-on, the cynical observer of life at a distance. And yet she hesitated. As usual, when she found herself in talk with Katharine, she began to feel rapid alternations of opinion about her, arrows of sensation striking strangely through the envelope ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... no amateur; but I tell you once more, that there is too much blue. And now do as you like; and if you do not think you have enough, you ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... and Japanese painters, and perhaps Leonardo, had known how to get that startling little ego into each painted flower, and bird, and beast—the ego, yet the sense of species, the universality of life as well. They were the fellows! 'I've made nothing that will live!' thought Jolyon; 'I've been an amateur—a mere lover, not a creator. Still, I shall leave Jon behind me when I go.' What luck that the boy had not been caught by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been killed, like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... along for the next ten minutes or so, before the first difficulty that presented itself to the amateur mahout appeared in front; for after they had pursued the regular elephant-path beyond the clearing for some little time, there in front was a dividing of the road, and upon reaching this the elephant stopped as if in doubt, and began slowly swinging his head, ending ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... a Shooting Star at Oxford,' Berkeley answered simply, 'so that I know something—like a despised amateur—about stage necessities; and I've written one or two little pieces before for private acting. Besides, Watkiss has helped me with all the technical arrangements of ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the intention of the publishers to make this series of little volumes, of which Making a Rock Garden is one, a complete library of authoritative and well illustrated handbooks dealing with the activities of the home-maker and amateur gardener. Text, pictures and diagrams will, in each respective book, aim to make perfectly clear the possibility of having, and the means of having, some of the more important features of a modern country or suburban home. Among the titles already issued or planned for early publication are the following: ...
— Making A Rock Garden • Henry Sherman Adams
... great changes, ominous of still further transitions, in the theatrical and literary world. Liston, the famous comedian who had delighted a former generation, was dead, and amateur actors, led by authors in the persons of Charles Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, &c. &c., had come to the front, and were winning much applause, as well as solid benefits for individuals and institutions connected with literature requiring ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... its usual midnight throng; there was the hubbub of loud voices and the ebb and flow of laughter. From midway of the gambling-hall rose the noisy exhortations of some amateur gamester who was breathing upon his dice and pleading earnestly, feelingly, with "Little Joe"; from the theater issued the strains of a sentimental ballad. As Rouletta and her companion edged their way toward the lunch-counter in the next room they were intercepted by the Snowbird, whose nightly ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... but disappointing writers. It soon became evident enough that the devil was not to be raised by their prescriptions, that the philosopher's stone was beyond the reach of the amateur. Iamblichus is particularly obscure and tedious. To any young beginner I would recommend Petrus de Abano, as the most adequate and gruesome of the school, for "real deevilry and pleesure," while in the wilderness of Plotinus there are many beautiful ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... admitted to the bar in 1837. At that date there was no lawyer nearer to New Salem than those in Springfield, which was twenty miles off. Consequently he had a little amateur practise from his neighbors. He was sometimes appealed to for the purpose of drawing up agreements and other papers. He had no office, and if he chanced to be out of doors would call for writing-materials, ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... the amateur stage as well as on the professional, and ladies of social position, accustomed to see their beauty lauded in the newspapers, saw no reason why Mrs. Stewart should be thrust to the front of half of the pictures. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... and pictures, and was early taught to draw. When, after some study of law, he visited Paris, his father advised him to take up the study of art as an accomplishment, and he entered one of the studios, merely as an amateur, at the same time gaining admittance, through his family connections, to the inner artistic circles of the capital. For some years he studied art, not to become a painter, but because he wished to understand ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... opinion would ever induce the Catholic hierarchy to undertake to turn out students who would make a respectable figure among the scientific graduates of other universities, or even hold their own among the common run of amateur readers of Huxley and Darwin and Tyndall. There is no excuse for any misunderstanding as regards the policy of the church on this point. She has never given the slightest encouragement or sanction to the idea which so many Protestant divines have of late years embraced, that theology ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... would take, though I thank you for the offer," he said. "I do not doubt that golf is an honourable profession—in fact I know it is—but for reasons which will not interest you I prefer to maintain my amateur standing. It will be a pleasure to play with you, sir, and to help your game if I can, but I ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... tender. We were inclined to think rather highly of our own courage in defying her; and sometimes our vanity was increased by our moniteurs. After an exciting misadventure they often gave expression to their relief at finding an amateur pilot still whole, by praising his "presence of mind" in ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... The mount satisfied him, and when, as they approached nearer, discrepancies in shape between the island and the map were pointed out to him he easily explained them by speaking of the difficulties of cartography to an amateur. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... of plain-clothes work is to learn to know a man by his face rather than by his clothing—and at the outset one will be astonished to find how much he has hitherto been depending on the latter. It must be the same with criminals, too, unless your criminal is an amateur or a fool, in which event you will "land" him without the trouble of disguising. A detective furthermore should not be a handsome man or a man of striking appearance in any way; the ideal plain-clothes man is the little insignificant ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... hours of recreation; and that the government of the Tsar left him to support himself by instructing in chemistry in the College of Medicine and Surgery in Moscow, and kept him always something of an amateur. Borodin the composer is after all only the composer ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... and nieces—that's the very point! I am helping to bring them up," said Morris Townsend. "I am a kind of amateur tutor; I give ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... a terra incognita to naturalists, geologists, and every branch of ists and ologists. The material is as superabundant as native labourers and operatives are deficient. All these interesting branches of inquiry, healthful and agreeable, as being out-of-door pursuits, and bringing the amateur in close contact with nature, offer to embryo authors, who are ambitious to book something new, a more worthy subject than the decies repetita descriptions of bull-fights and the natural history of ollas and ventas. ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... | |yards to spare. Pennsylvania, the third team | |entered, finished in that position. | | | |Yale sent an army of star timber-toppers down for | |the fifty-yard high hurdle event. John V. Farwell, | |captain of the Eli's track team, equaled the | |American amateur indoor record by covering the | |distance in seven seconds. | | | |Richards, of Cornell, won individual honors in the | |sixteen-pound shot-put with a throw of 42 feet, | |8-3/10 inches, while Cornell's team average was 40 | |feet, 2-3/10 inches. | ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... a schoolmate and friend, Willie T., between whom and myself there sprung up a mutual feeling of high regard. We were chums in the sense that we were almost constantly together, both at school and at home, and among the partnerships we formed was one of having amateur shadowgraph and panoramic shows in the basement of Willie's home. This much to show the mental and social relationship that existed between us. Some time during this association (I cannot recall the exact night now) I had a strange dream, in which my ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... several skilled amateur jugglers among the merry company, who would give performances a la Bosko and Philadelphia; and others would delight the audience with the wonderful scenes of a ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... begged to have my sister's piano forte brought up into his bed room; and when he grew fatigued with giving me his kind admonitions, he was much pleased and refreshed by my sister's playing and singing. He was always passionately fond of music, and was a tolerable amateur himself, and it appeared to give him as much pleasure as ever to hear her play and sing "Angels ever bright and fair," &c. &c. Sacred music was mostly his choice upon this occasion, yet he would sometimes request a lively and cheerful ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... specializing in flamboyant cravats. He would have been Bean's model if Bean had been less a coward. Bulger was nearly all that Bean wished to be. He condescended to his tasks with an air of elegant and detached leisure that raised them to the dignity of sports. He had quite the air of a wealthy amateur with a passion ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... was settled that it could be no other than Jimmy Barrows. Jimmy was a great friend of their cousin Tom; but while Tom was only an amateur artist, Jimmy was studying to ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... creaks and one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was magnificent and wound and twisted about the mountain side like a whip lash. Driving down these curves was no amateur's game, and we saw immediately that our chauffeur knew his job. We came over a ridge, and in the far distance, gleaming like the sun itself, a corner of the Lake of Scutari showed between ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... there be any mistake about it," he concluded. "I'm not going to have any amateur life-savers burning holes in my body in the hope of being recommended by the Coroner's Jury. If I've got to die, I'll just go mad in the ordinary way, thank you. I wonder who I shall bite ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... opera were among the topics on which they conversed. I was found to be an amateur; and Lady Bray was one of the dilettanti, had concerts at her own house, and a box at the opera: to both of which she said I should at all times ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... friend in Madame Helbig, the wife of Herr Helbig, the German archaeologist in Rome. She is born a Russian princess, and is certainly one of the best amateur musicians, if not the best, I have ever met. She is of immense proportions, being very tall and very stout. One might easily mistake her for a priest, as she is always dressed in a long black garment which is ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... doubtless, dear L., convict me, by my own sentiments, of being an "amateur barbarian." You must, however, remember that I visited Africa fresh from Aden, with its dull routine of meaningless parades and tiresome courts martial, where society is broken by ridiculous distinctions of staff-men and regimental-men, Madras-men and Bombay-men, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... anxiously watching this amateur gymnast, approached him with lively interest, and learned that he had taken flight after an ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... article in dispute, and seeing that Irene was recovering under the heroic treatment of her amateur nurses, he seated himself in tantalizing silence upon the saw-horse, as if to enjoy the scene he had created. But his enjoyment was short lived. Tabitha, now thoroughly aroused, and forgetful of her dignity, swooped down ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... for possession of the bell; but superior might conquered, and Budge marched up and down the hall, ringing with the enthusiasm and duration peculiar to the amateur. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... architecture, ceremony, began to make their appeal felt; and he then first recognised the beauty of literary style. But even so, he did not fling himself creatively into any of these things at first, even as an amateur; it was still the perception of effects that ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... heard all that," Knight hastened to explain. "I've been too busy till lately to know at first hand what goes on in the 'smart' or the artistic set. My world doesn't take much interest in crystal-gazers and palmists, amateur or professional, even when they happen to be handsome women, like the Countess. But I ran against her again on board the Monarchic about a month ago, crossing to this side, and we picked up threads of old acquaintance. She was staying at the Savoy ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... What if the dust did swirl up in blinding sheets from the south? Before them lay the Roman battle, horse and foot—such an army as the city had never sent forth. What if its masses were somewhat cramped? its front narrow? its general an amateur? They were to fight at last, and how should a mongrel horde of barbarians, but half their number, stand firm against the impetus of such a shock. A moment's hush; then measured voices rose in calm cadence—the voices of the tribunes ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... particular was the photograph. If it were at all a likeness, the woman who gazed frankly out upon the onlooker from the card-mount must have been a striking creature indeed. It was an amateur production, for the detectives were baffled in that no professional photographer's signature or studio was appended. Across a corner of the mount, in delicate feminine tracery, was written: "Semper idem; semper fidelis." And she looked ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... are prepared and cooked like other green vegetables. Dry beans may be either boiled, stewed, or baked, but whatever the method employed, it must be very slow and prolonged. Beans to be baked should first be parboiled until tender. We mention this as a precautionary measure lest some amateur cook, misled by the term "bake," should repeat the experiment of the little English maid whom we employed as cook while living in London, a few years ago. In ordering our dinner, we had quite overlooked the fact that baked beans are almost wholly an American ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... "The best time to get them is late at night, when the broadcasting and amateur stations are not sending. I've often sat and listened with Brandon Harvey to the big station at Nauen, Germany, or to the ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... of the preceding. She was on intimate terms with Madame Deberle, and took part in the amateur theatricals arranged by that lady. Une ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... As an encouragement to amateur observers who may be disposed to find out for themselves whether or not changes now take place in the moon, the following sentence from the introduction to Professor Pickering's chapter on Plato in the Harvard Observatory Annals, volume xxxii, ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... 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 of ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1920 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... spot from which they came,—cautiously, however, for the downs, as had been repeatedly hinted to me, had no good name; and the attraction of the music, without rivalling that of the sirens in melody, might have been followed by similarly inconvenient consequences to an incautious amateur. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... use 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 of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... coffin-case, which I expected momentarily to upset as I stood within, and be smothered in a cloud of ill-smelling chemicals. However, with care I finally emerged without accident, and sufficiently compensated the artist, who seemed not over-favorable to amateur competition, although he chatted freely enough about his business. It generally took him ten days, he said, to "finish" a town of five or six hundred inhabitants, like Derby. He traveled on steamers with his tenting outfit, but next season ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... not know where David was but she felt reasonably sure she could find out his address in the morning. There was a small boy living next door who was capable of ferreting out almost anything for money. Kate had employed him more than once as an amateur detective in cases of minor importance. So, with a bit of silver and her letter she made her way to his familiar haunts and explained most carefully that the letter was to be delivered to no one but the man to whom it was addressed, naming several stopping places where he might be likely to ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the discreditable habit of emptying all the dregs of the Sergeants' beer mugs into his own inside. However, he was granted military obsequies, which were so successfully performed that an account of them found its way into one of the daily papers. This so delighted the amateur undertakers that Daisy's brother was at once exhumed and re-buried with further pomp and circumstance. Daisy meanwhile, feeling himself of less consequence than the departed hero, began to mope; so to save life and reason ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... the invention which was decisive was the film which Eastman in Rochester produced. With it came the great mechanical improvement, the use of the two rollers. One roller holds the long strip of film which is slowly wound over the second, the device familiar to every amateur photographer today. With film photography was gained the possibility not only of securing a much larger number of pictures than Marey or Anschuetz made with their circular arrangements, but of having these pictures pass before the eye illumined by quickly succeeding flashlights for any length ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... free to tell you that a young journalist possessing (characteristically) "fantastic humour and exuberant gaiety," a famous amateur detective to boot, outwits all the official police, robs the law of its prey and finds a long-lost mother ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various |
