"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... master any one of these implements at first, and it is only by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either. Now Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur, had grown to be a consummate master of billiards. Like a great General, his genius used to rise with the danger, and when the luck had been unfavourable to him for a whole game, and the bets were consequently against him, he would, with consummate ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... much to found it, remained unconverted. In this, as in all his life-work, he showed himself to be a most remarkable man. Davy said of him, a generation later, that no other person ever discovered so many new and curious substances as he; yet to the last he was only an amateur in science, his profession, as we know, being the ministry. There is hardly another case in history of a man not a specialist in science accomplishing so much in original research as did this chemist, physiologist, electrician; the mathematician, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... interest, while I was aching to tooth every detail of the great fight. And when they talked on military affairs, as Letchford and others did sometimes, it was difficult to keep from sending them all to the devil, for their amateur cocksureness would have riled Job. One had got to batten down the recollection of our fellows out there who were sweating blood to keep these fools snug. Yet I found it impossible to be angry with them for long, they were so babyishly innocent. Indeed, I ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... morning to the office of Charlton Moore and let me examine that note which Mr. Lawton presumably gave two years ago. Afterward, I have four little amateur detectives of mine to interview—then I think we'll be able to proceed straight to ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... imprisonment have decreased in recent years more than twenty-six per cent.; and if there was a corresponding movement on the part of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, the average decrease in the length of sentences would amount to fifty per cent. But it is a notorious fact that amateur judges are, with few exceptions, more inclined to pronounce heavy ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... did Luciana hear that the Count was an amateur of music, than at once she must get up something of a concert. She herself would sing and accompany herself on the guitar. It was done. The instrument she did not play without skill; her voice was agreeable: as for the words one understood ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... by two; there is often then a failure of wind, and they have to get out to sea by heavy rowing or by the drift of the tide. Then there is silence for some hours, and when the world awakes the cove is nearly deserted. At seven o'clock begins the life of the shop. Amateur fishermen appear,—boarders from New York or visiting sons from Brockton. Later still, little parties come down,—a knot of young fellows and laughing girls with bright-colored wraps, bound on a sailing-party to Katameset, with a matron, and with some well-salted man ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... Joe," who lived at Bass Cove, where he shot wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy than to the amateur sportsman. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... Manual, adapted to the Professional Man and the Amateur; being a Dictionary of Painters ... together with an alphabetical arrangement of the Scholars, Imitators, and Copyists of the various masters, and a Classification of Subjects. By James R. Hobbes. ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... sharp bow, and gliding in wavelets along the smooth sides only a few inches from my ear, and sounding with articulate distinctness through the tight mahogany skin; and then there was the muttering chatter of the amateur fisherman, who was sure to be at his ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... "An amateur's opinion, of course, Cal," he laughed, "which is strictly entre nous. But, win or lose, this man O'Mara will be a valuable man to have around after ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... acquaintances, his real friends were not many. We find for instance few traces of intimate friendship with other painters, excepting his pupils, although his fellow-artists were very numerous. The landscape-painter Roghman and the rich marine painter-amateur Van de Cappelle, perhaps also Asselyn, are about the only ones who seem to have been in close relation with the master. Of his pupils the most promising ones, Bol and Flinck, rapidly estranged from their master both socially and artistically,—others like Maes, ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt
... at that time, and for many years after, than a youth with whom she had been acquainted in Cambridge before he left the University, and the unfolding of whose powers she had watched with the warmest sympathy. He was an amateur, and, but for the exactions not to be resisted of an American, that is to say, of a commercial, career,—his acceptance of which she never ceased to regard as an apostasy,—himself a high artist. He was her companion, and, though much younger, her guide in ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the correct answers had been greater than they actually were according to my exact records. For all these reasons I had the very best right to disregard the reports of all those who relied on their amateur art of experimenting and ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... reflected as giving a softness and harmony not genuine; but as it was the practice of Giorgione and Correggio, "in order to learn the effect of the colours, of the masses, and of the work as a whole," he recommends it to the painter. He expects, however, from the amateur an impartiality almost impossible to attain, when it is expected to reach such a point that "all schools, all masters, all manners, and all classes of pictures will be a matter of indifference to him." We fear that an amateur ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Polybius was not followed, except perhaps by Caelius Antipater in the Gracchan age.[166] History was affected for the worse by the rhetorical art, as indeed poetry was destined also to be; Sallust, though we owe much to him, was in fact an amateur, who thought more of style and expression than of truth and fact. Caesar, who did not profess to be a historian, but only to provide the materials for history,[167] stands alone in making facts more important than words, and rarely troubles his reader with speeches or other rhetorical ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... of private theatres are dirty boys, low copying-clerks, in attorneys' offices, capacious-headed youths from city counting-houses, Jews whose business, as lenders of fancy dresses, is a sure passport to the amateur stage, shop-boys who now and then mistake their masters' money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds. The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-scene-painter, a low coffee-house-keeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated bankrupt. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... of Dee. But the worst was he did not stop at clothes; he loathed ill-blacked shoes. Woe to all foot-leather that did not shine; his own skin furnished a perilous standard of comparison. He was eternally blacking boots en amateur. Fullalove got in a rage at this, and insisted on his letting his fellow-creatures' leather alone. Vespasian pleaded hard, especially for leave to black Colonel Kenealy. "The cunnell," said he pathetically, "is such a tarnation fine gentleman spoilt for want of a lilly bit of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Historical Mysteries. The Strenuous Life. Memories Grave and Gay. Life of Danton. A Pocketful of Sixpences. The Romance of a Proconsul (Sir George Grey). A Book about Roses. Random Reminiscences. The London Police Courts. The Amateur Poacher. The Bancrofts. At the Works. Mexico as I Saw It. Eighteenth Century Vignettes. The Great Andes of the Equator. The Early History of C. J. Fox. Through the Heart of Patagonia. Browning as a Religious Teacher. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... sporting with a man of genius, who had thought both too much of her and too little; too much for pomp's sake, and too little in prudence. Among his new acquaintances were the young Marino, afterwards the corrupter of Italian poetry, and the Prince of Venosa, an amateur composer of music. The dying poet wrote madrigals for him so much to his satisfaction, that, being about to marry into the house of Este, he wished to reconcile him with the Duke of Ferrara; and Tasso, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... on the doorstep licking his paw and howling. He was instantly surrounded by four amateur doctors all anxious to relieve his pain. Jock ran for water to wash his leg, the flesh of which had been cruelly torn open by the bullet. Jean ransacked the kist for bandages, and Alan held up the injured paw and tried ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... have no knowledge or experience of the ways and methods of bad men. There seemed to be no side of his character sufficiently in sympathy with wickedness to enable him to understand and portray it. His amateur attempts at scoundrelism quite irritated me. It sounds conceited to say so, but I am convinced I could have given a much more truthful picture of the ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... was full of mild amateur strategists, headed by the Dean himself. Great as had been, and was still, his admiration for Germany, Dr. Haworth was of course an Englishman first; and every day, when opening his morning paper, he expected to learn that there had been another Trafalgar. He felt certain that the ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... fences, and mending them if 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 ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the late Marquis of Anglesey, a young lord generally regarded as crazy by an ungrateful England. Perhaps it was a little crazy in him to spend so much money in the comparatively commonplace adventure of taking an amateur dramatic company through the English provinces, he himself, I believe, playing but minor roles; but lovers of Gautier's Le Capitaine Fracasse will see in that but a charmingly boyish desire to translate a beloved dream into a reality—though his creditors probably did not take that view. ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... Grand Military Meeting at Sandown Park, two young millionaires figured as amateur jockeys. We understand now the meaning of the expression "putting money on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... 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 of ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... had never seen him so interested in an amateur. Usually his manner was remarkable for its detachment and severe assurance; but it seemed that this case excited even him. Lady Laura was filled ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... the caretaker in the window across the park," continued Rodney, "and I realized how interested you were, it occurred to me that we'd engage that studio and put Miss Mayo into it. Miss Mayo lives in Richmond, Virginia, and she had been making a big hit in amateur theatricals. She wanted to get on the legitimate stage, as Shaw told you; so Mrs. Ordway suggested that Epstein and ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... the backwood settlements, where clearings are apart from each other, the black bear is still occasionally met with; and the chase of this animal is one of the most favourite pastimes of the backwoods' hunter, whether amateur or professional. Generally there is little peril in the pursuit—unless when the bear is wounded and enraged, and the hunter chooses to ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... over it, and Leopold caught Miss Mowbray napping. That brings us to the moment of my coming to you. For the afternoon, I fancy the Baroness was getting up a riding party; and this evening unless they're too tired, she'll perhaps get up an amateur concert at which Miss Mowbray will sing. The girl ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... only 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 ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... importance and dignity, forming an inner aristocratic circle who conversed of London and the Court, and whose august society it was the dear ambition of the lesser lights to ape, if they could not join it. Democratic manners were at a discount in these little hotbeds of amateur cockneyism; the gloomy severities of the old-fashioned religion were put aside; there was an increasing gap between the higher and the lower orders of the population. This appearance was no doubt superficial; and the beau-monde is never so numerous as its conspicuousness ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... had studied the case, formed her own theories, thought about it all often and often, had even written one or two letters to the Press on the subject—suggesting, arguing, hinting at possibilities and probabilities, adducing proofs which other amateur detectives were equally ready to refute. The attitude of that timid man in the corner, therefore, was peculiarly exasperating, and she retorted with sarcasm destined to completely annihilate her ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... relations of the Actors. A few professional Critics are to be seen. They are addressed with much politeness by the Amateurs in front of the House, and "played to" with feverish anxiety by the Amateurs on the Stage. The Orchestra is composed of excellent Amateur Musicians. The Curtain has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... Mordacks with an admirably high opinion of himself, enlivened by a sprightly good-will toward the world, whenever it wagged well with him. He had plenty of business of his own, and yet could take an amateur delight in the concerns of everybody; he was always at liberty to give good advice, and never under duty to take it; he had vigor of mind, of memory, of character, and of digestion; and whenever he stole a holiday from self-denial, and launched out after some favorite thing, there was the cash ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... ashore to demand, on the strength of former services to the late King Ptolemaeus Auletes, a safe asylum, and assistance to make fresh head against the Caesarians. There was a hurried convening of the council of Pothinus—a select company of eunuchs, amateur generals, intriguing rhetoricians. The conference was long; access to its debates closely guarded. The issue could not be evaded; on the decision depended the reestablishment of the Pompeians in a new and firm stronghold, or their abandonment to further wanderings ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... introduce himself as an ardent amateur statesman, a student of good government from New Hampshire to New Zealand and from Plato to Lincoln Steffens, who had—er—come to Hunston hoping to see something of the fight for reform. The candidate, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... little; the majority of the whites are merchants with some four mails in the month, shopkeepers with some ten or twenty customers a day, and gossip is the common resource of all. The town hums to the day's news, and the bars are crowded with amateur politicians. Some are office-seekers, and earwig king and consul, and compass the fall of officials, with an eye to salary. Some are humorists, delighted with the pleasure of faction for itself. "I never saw so good a place as this Apia," said one of these; "you can be in a new conspiracy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is one time when even the amateur may write a musical comedy—when he has a great idea. But I do not mean the average musical comedy idea—I mean such an idea as that which made "The Naked Truth" so successful. And in the hope that you may possess such an idea, I offer a ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... handwriting was that of her father, and it seemed as though something stayed her. But she broke the string at last and there tumbled into her lap some photographs of herself, taken at different ages, a number of them—in fact, most of them—amateur attempts, some snapped by her mother and some by her father, as Viola knew from seeing them. She recalled some very well—especially one taken on the back of a little Shetland pony. On the reverse of this picture Mr. Carwell had ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... tramp. Had he been a poor man he might have been a more successful artist. But he had a small fortune of his own and, lacking the spur of necessity, or of disquieting ambition, he remained little more than a clever amateur. Once in a while he painted a picture which showed what he could do; but for the rest, he was satisfied to wander over the world, light-hearted and content. We knew that the Story Girl was thought ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for gardeners to invest their labors and achievements with a mystery and secrecy which might well have discouraged any amateur from trespassing upon such difficult ground. "Trade secrets" in either flower or vegetable growing were acquired by the apprentice only through practice and observation, and in turn jealously guarded by him until passed on to some younger brother in the profession. Every ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... to a fashionable musician, whose pavanes and sonatas were composed with that lack of matter and excess of erudition which delight the amateur and irritate the artist, and he walked down the rooms looking for seats where they could talk undisturbed for a few minutes. He was nervous lest Georgina should find him sitting with this girl in an intimate corner, but he did not expect her for another half-hour, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... "By George, it's an amateur!" cried Cribb, in amazement. "But you don't surely ask Tom Spring to train for three weeks to meet ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rather short, isn't it? Imagine it's rather easy for a straight driver. What's your record? Seventy-one amateur? Rather high, isn't it? Do you get many cracks around here? Caddies seem scarce. Did either of you gentlemen ever reflect how surprising it is that better scores aren't made at this game? Now, take seventy-one; that's only one under fours, and I venture to say at least six of your holes are ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... Elephant Power The Oracle The Cast-iron Canvasser The Merino Sheep The Bullock White-when-he's-wanted The Downfall of Mulligan's The Amateur Gardener Thirsty Island Dan Fitzgerald Explains The Cat Sitting in Judgment The Dog The Dog—as a Sportsman Concerning a Steeplechase Rider Victor Second Concerning a Dog-fight ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... painted the face of one of the ancients." He laid before his 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 on ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... this little book, has been to give information and hints which will prove useful to the amateur. Some of the plans and apparatus suggested would not be suitable for fish culture on a large scale, but my object has been to confine myself entirely to operations on a small scale. I have to thank the Editor of Land and Water for permission to publish in book form what first appeared as ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... that says a garden is a standing source of pleasure? Amend this, I say, by asserting that a garden is a standing source of discomfort and vexation ... A hopeless restlessness, according to my observation, takes possession of every amateur gardener. Discontent abides in his soul. There is, indeed, so much to be done, changed, rearranged, watched, nursed, that the amateur gardener is really entitled to praise and generous congratulations when one of his thousand schemes comes to fruition. We ought in pity to rejoice ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... quite impossible that a similar awaking may await the grown man who imagines himself to have mastered something of the real philosophies of life. The cadaverous peeler with the abnormal appetite fades out of recollection, and my next hero is a blacksmith, who, in a countryside once rich in amateur pugilists, had earned a local distinction for himself before he made a settlement for life at the "Farriers' Arms," in Queen Street. His name was Robert Pearce, and he dawns on me as second hero because of a physical strength which ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... home-maker to be governed by the results of my experience or that of others who have worked toward the same end. We may differ in methods, but the outcome is, in most instances, the same. I have written from the standpoint of the amateur, for other amateurs who would make the improvement of the home-grounds a pleasure and a means of relaxation rather than a source of profit in a financial sense, believing that what I have to say will commend itself to the non-professional gardener ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... day the boxing lessons became a regular thing. The claim Lennox had made for himself had scarcely done him justice. He was one of the best amateur boxers in the West. In Yeager he had a pupil quick to learn. The extra was a perfect specimen physically, narrow of flank, broad of shoulder, with the well-packed muscles of one always trained to the minute. Fifteen years in the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... only by the oystermen, 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 ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... that stately presence, he was disquieted by no jealousy of the many conferences enjoyed by Mr Carker, and felt a secret satisfaction in having duties to discharge, which rarely exposed him to be singled out for such distinction. He was a great musical amateur in his way—after business; and had a paternal affection for his violoncello, which was once in every week transported from Islington, his place of abode, to a certain club-room hard by the Bank, where quartettes of the most tormenting and excruciating nature were executed every Wednesday ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... It seems from Boswell's words, as the editor of the Letters of Boswell (p. 91) points out, that in this case he was 'only a friend and amateur, and not a duly appointed advocate.' He certainly was not retained in an earlier stage of the cause, for on July 22, 1767, he wrote:—'Though I am not a counsel in that cause, yet I am much interested in ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... readily imparted his most valuable acquisitions to those who were most likely to increase them, this plant soon became conspicuous in the collections of the principal Nurserymen near town, and in the course of a few years will, no doubt, decorate the window of every amateur. ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... kept on abstract scientific lines. I made 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 History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... 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 ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... has a pair of grey eyes that can't possibly always look sensible. I think they must mellow occasionally into fun and jollity and wholesome nonsense. Well, I'm off to the shore. I want to get that photograph of the Cove this evening, if possible. I've set my heart on taking first prize at the Amateur Photographers' Exhibition this fall, and if I can only get that Cove with all its beautiful lights and shadows, it will be the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... small general store purchased for him by his father. The son has been taught photography by Mr. Jensen, and has an excellent camera obtained from Paris. He is quite an enthusiast. In his shop a crowd is always gathered round the counter looking at the work of this Chinese amateur. There are a variety of stores for sale on the shelves, and I was interested to notice the cheerful promiscuity with which bottles of cyanide of potassium and perchloride of mercury were scattered among bottles of carbonate of soda, of alum, of Moet and ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... unoccupied, and the grounds—of which there were about seventy acres—were at first very much overgrown, especially with laurels, which, when neglected, grow in that country in almost disgusting luxuriance. My father therefore occupied himself a good deal with amateur forestry, and became, considering that he first turned his attention to the subject at the age of forty-six, a rather expert woodsman. A good deal of tree-felling was necessary, both in the interest of the trees and for ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... dull society sinners, Who chatter and bleat and bore, Are sent to hear sermons From mystical Germans Who preach from ten to four: The amateur tenor, whose vocal villainies All desire to shirk, Shall, during off-hours, Exhibit his powers To Madame Tussaud's waxwork: The lady who dyes a chemical yellow, Or stains her grey hair puce, Or pinches her figger, Is blacked like a nigger With permanent walnut juice: The idiot who, in railway ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... not avoid the remembrance of what very poor things the amateur rowing clubs on the Thames were in the early days of his noviciate; not to mention the difference in the build of the boats. He could not get on in the beginning without being a pupil under an anomalous creature called a "fireman waterman," ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... I'm a nobody. I'm worse; I'm an amateur! You ought to hear what Duane has to say ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... peculiarities. Phil Briant had many; but his most striking peculiarity, and that which led him frequently into extremely awkward positions, was a firm belief that his special calling—in an amateur point of view—was the redressing of wrongs—not wrongs of a particular class, or wrongs of an excessively glaring and offensive nature, but all wrongs whatsoever. It mattered not to Phil whether the wrong had to be righted by force of argument or force of arms. He considered himself an ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... and from all parts of the world. Yet he all the time occupied a position in a Government office—the Home Office, I think it was—and often walked from Whitehall to Lavender Sweep when his day's work was done. He was an enthusiastic amateur actor, his favorite part being Adam in "As You Like It," perhaps because tradition says this was a part that Shakespeare played; at any rate, he was very good in it. Gilbert and Sullivan, in very far-off days, used to be concerned in these amateur theatricals. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... distinguished foreigners, who were spending the winter in San Francisco. She could not drive, nor yacht, nor run to fires on account of the weather, but she unloosed her energies upon indoor society, and started a cotillion club, and an amateur opera company. She gave a fancy dress ball, to which all her guests were obliged to come in the costumes of Old California, and laughed for a week at the ridiculous figure which most of them cut. She also gave many dinners and breakfasts, kettle-drums and theatre parties, and, altogether, managed ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Brutal and selfish though he might be, his bitterest enemies had never accused him of lack of physical courage. Indeed, he had been—in the rollicking days of old that were gone—celebrated for the display of very opposite qualities. He was an amateur at manly sports. He rejoiced in his muscular strength, and, in many a tavern brawl and midnight riot of his own provoking, had proved the fallacy of the proverb which teaches that a bully is always a coward. He had the tenacity of a bulldog—once ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... unjaded strength. It happens, too, though in a deeper and more subtle way, to the man who marries for love, if the love be true and fit for foul weather. Mr. Bagehot used to say that a bachelor was "an amateur at life," and wit and wisdom are married in the jest. A man who lives only for himself has not begun to live—has yet to learn his use, and his real pleasure, too, in the world. It is not necessary he should marry to find himself ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson
... cases of that sort," Heneage admitted. "That is the advantage of being an amateur, like myself. My discoveries, if I make any, are my own. I am not bound to ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ponies, not even waiting to saddle, and several hours were spent in copying brands. These included characters, figures, and letters, and to read them with skill was largely a matter of practice. Any novice ought to copy brands, but in this instance the amateur's list would be compared with that of an experienced trail foreman, a neutral judge from ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... avowed spiritists, but they both lent their best efforts to make the tests complete and convincing. After trying sittings here and there, we finally settled upon a series of afternoon sessions in Fowler's own house. This was the twenty-sixth sitting of the series, and Cameron's Amateur Psychical Society was practically a memory. I was now going ahead pretty much on my own lines, but with an eye to catching Miller and the Camerons at a successful seance ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... chorus, a recital, an elocutionary reading, a debate on some question, or a scene from a play. Presuming that the house is under the care of an honest, well-meaning person, there could be little fear of impropriety of any kind as resulting from such amusements. The amateur spirit guarantees plenty of such volunteer effort. Let it simply be understood, as in ordinary society, that each should do his best to promote the hilarity of the evening. If a single room succeeded, let two be tried—one for conversation alone, or for such games as cards and draughts (under ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... exhibited in New York to a society of amateur photographers a new method of taking instantaneous photographs by means of a brilliant light made by sprinkling ten or fifteen grains of magnesium powder on about six grains of gun-cotton. When this is flashed in a dark apartment it gives light enough to take a good photograph. It will do the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... Brandon. "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 Eiffel Tower ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... strong, and wind-proof, or nearly so. Some aviators use what is called rubberized silk, others prefer balloon cloth. Ordinary muslin of good quality, treated with a coat of light varnish after it is in place, will answer all the purposes of the amateur. ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... sign death certificates, for which both sorts seem to have about equal occasion. Unqualified practitioners now make large incomes as hygienists, and are resorted to as frequently by cultivated amateur scientists who understand quite well what they are doing as by ignorant people who are simply dupes. Bone-setters make fortunes under the very noses of our greatest surgeons from educated and wealthy patients; and ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... sir, if you understand that, I wish you joy. But I must be excused for holding that my proposition, three times six are eighteen, is more intelligible than yours. A worthy friend of mine, who is a sort of amateur in philosophy, criticism, politics, and a wee bit of many things more, says: "Men never begin to study antiquities till they are ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... of it all, keenly; and he would illustrate the series with Turneresque vignettes, drawn with the finest crowquill pen, to imitate the delicate engravings. By this he learnt more drawing in two or three years than most amateur students do in seven. For the first year he had the "Watchtower of Andernach" and the "Jungfrau from Interlaken" to show, with others of similar style, and thenceforward alternated between Turner and Prout, until he settled into something ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... I thought of the streets by night. In all probability, no one had seen him come up to the chambers; but I was damped directly there; for those who carried the man down would be able to tell whence he came, and hundreds would be glad to play the amateur detective and hunt ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... unpractised apprehension of an older child trudges after the nimbleness of a conjurer. It is the greatest failure to take these little gobe-mouches to a good conjurer. His successes leave them cold, for they had not yet understood what it was the good man meant to surprise them withal. The amateur it is who really astonishes them. They cannot come up even with your amateur beginner, performing at close quarters; whereas the master of his craft on a platform runs quite away at the outset from the lagging senses of his ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... a most satisfactory and workmanlike manner. Their leading citizens, ipso facto their generals (amateur soldiers always cabbage-hoers at heart) afford him a good deal of amusement; as if you should send out the mayor of Jonesville, Arkansaw, against a Foch or a Hindenburg. One of them, a fool of a fellow, blunders into a booby-trap and loses ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... any particular point might, by agreement, be put to the vote and then everything depended upon "our wooden oracle," the first balloting-box ever seen in England. Formal methods of procedure and the intensely practical nature of the subjects discussed, combined to give a real importance to this Amateur Parliament. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... facts throw light on the kind of dice used some 100 and 150 years ago. In an old cribbage card-box, curiously ornamented, supposed to have been made by an amateur in the reign of Queen Anne, and now in my possession, I found a die with one end fashioned to a point, evidently for the purpose of spinning—similar to the modern teetotum. With the same lot at ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the children gave amusing amateur theatricals, gotten up by Lorraine and Ted. The acting was upon Laura Roosevelt's tennis court. All the children were most cunning, especially Quentin as Cupid, in the scantiest of pink muslin tights and bodice. Ted and Lorraine, who were respectively George Washington and Cleopatra, ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... I have been a trifle flowery, but I also have a criticism to make. Why do these skeptical and scientifically disposed critics continue to waste your valuable time picking scientific flaws in various stories? Some of the amateur experts' opinions really serve as a comic sequel after a night of interesting reading. If they would only stop to realize that some of their most indisputable data is merely hypothesis, the ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... age of good ready made clothes and it is also an age of clever amateur dressmaking. With excellent patterns which may be easily handled there is no reason why the woman who can sew should not make her own clothes, and have smart clothes at a reasonable price—that is, provided she has the time to give ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... a long, green curtain along a wire which ran from one side of the room to the other, until the platform was hidden from the room's eager gaze. A scurry of gray calico came from the coat closet which served as the green room for the amateur actors. A boy, muffled mysteriously in a long cloak, followed. Miss Brown gave a last look to see that the stage was properly arranged, and the curtain was pulled ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... present disposition of the Etruscan antiquities in the upper rooms of the casino, where these, the most precious witnesses of that rather inarticulate civilization, must in any arrangement exhaust the most instructed interest. Just when the amateur archaeologist, however, is sinking under his learning, the custodian opens a window and lets him look out on a beautiful hill beyond certain gardens, where a bird is singing angelically. I suppose it is the same bird which sings all ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... above all, acting. Sir Claude was really rather magnificent in other than American eyes. There was something of the Renascence Prince about his omnivorous culture and restless publicity—, he was not only a great amateur, but an ardent one. There was in him none of that antiquarian frivolity that we convey by ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... elsewhere, but TUBBY WADLOW is cooking bacon at the fire. He is simultaneously laying breakfast for one on the table. At both proceedings he is a puzzled and incompetent amateur. Presently the left door opens, ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... usual at the moment because he had not bothered to connect most of his apparatus after returning from the South Pacific. The induction heater that he used for midnight snacks was in a closet. His automatic window opener was not in use, nor was his amateur ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... many 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 seasoned ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... Winterton heard, from Charlie's story, of the blacksmith's trouble, they put their heads together, with the result that Dan Webster's daughter spent a happy time in a seaside home, and came back very grateful, and quite restored to health. The amateur detectives had done ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... joyous yachts arrived, not at the Boodah only, but at others of the twelve which, one by one, were launched and towed to position; and a round of events transacted themselves in the fortresses: Marie Antoinette balls, classic concerts, theatrical functions by troupe or amateur, costume-balls, children's-balls, banquets of the gods, grave receptions. By now there ran right across the Boodah's roof, in the form of a cross, two double colonnades of Doric pillars, at the four ends being Roman arches: and here, some summer afternoon, the passing ship would see ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... Here I feel that I can speak only personally; tell only of my own personal impressions and preferences. Comparing together Boiardo and Ariosto, I am, of course, aware of the infinite advantages of the latter. Ariosto is a man of far more varied genius; he is an artist, while Boiardo is an amateur; he is learned in arranging and ornamenting; he knows how to alternate various styles, how to begin and how to end. Moreover, he is a scholarly person of a more scholarly time: he is familiar with the classics, and, what is more important, he is familiar with the language in which he ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... could not afford to buy them for practice. (2) The ordinary conditions in both the wholesale and the custom trade are thus made a fundamental part of the instruction. Reality of this kind helps the supervisors to judge the product from its trade value (amateur work will thus be rejected), and the teaching from the kind of workers turned out. Through the business relation the students quickly feel the necessity of good finish, rapid work, and responsibility to deliver on time. (3) The orders bring in a money return and thus aid the school ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... I can remember a long time ago. You, gentle Reader, just entering upon the prime of life, that age by thoughtless youth called middle, I cannot, of course, expect to follow me—when there was in great demand a certain periodical ycleped The Amateur. Its aim was noble. It sought to teach the beautiful lesson of independence, to inculcate the fine doctrine of self-help. One chapter explained to a man how he might make flower-pots out of Australian meat cans; another how he ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... about twelve small tables. The ever-refreshing cup of tea and the good old English slab cake were in plenty, and we asked for nothing better.... It was quite exciting to sit and have tea at a table. Afterwards there was a concert. The artists were A.S.C. men, and, although very markedly amateur, we enjoyed the evening, which was decidedly a change from our usual evening of cards. Unfortunately we marched away next day and so were unable to get full advantage from that depot. It was one of the Y.M.'s smaller ventures and lacked many of the usual articles of ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... labor—and to labor the severest and most persistent. To one who comes to it but half-heartedly, illy prepared, shirking its requirements, I can predict certain failure; but to the earnest, serious, conscientious worker, I would say a word of hope. The promotion from the rank of amateur to the dignity of authorship may be long in coming, but it will come at last. Fame, like all else that this world has to give, depends largely upon downright hard work; and he who has the courage to strive in the face of disappointments will achieve ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... desiring to learn the secret. He would not divulge it, and when, after the voyage to the island and the excitement of knocking the wreck to pieces were over—when the secret came out, it was neither pleasant nor probable. That a mild British amateur of water-colour drawing should have taken part in a massacre of men, shot painfully with cheap revolvers, was an example of "the possible improbable," and much more of a tax on belief than the transformation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sleeve, he was an habitue of the Austrian embassy and of the best salons in Paris, and made for himself a conspicuous place in the innermost circle of the court of Compiegne and the Tuileries. He had written a number of light plays for the amateur stage of Parisian society, and his dramatic efforts had been interpreted by players whose high-sounding names might be found on ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... throws into relief command of the body as does skating. Watch a group of competitors for honours at any gathering of amateur women skaters and note how few have command of themselves—know absolutely what they want to do, and then are able to do it. One skater, in the language of the ice, can do the actual work, but has no form. It may be she lacks temperament, has no abandon, no rhythm; is stiff, ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... the journal for our enjoyment in his comely house in Navy Gardens, no fewer than two of his cousins were tramping the fens, kit under arm, to make music to the country girls. But he himself, though he could play so many instruments and pass judgment in so many fields of art, remained an amateur. It is not given to any one so keenly to enjoy, without some greater power to understand. That he did not like Shakespeare as an artist for the stage may be a fault, but it is not without either parallel ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the plainest of plain prose, I am not a theorist on these subjects, nor do I dabble in small fruits as a rich and fanciful amateur, to whom it is a matter of indifference whether his strawberries cost five cents or a dollar a quart. As a farmer, milk must be less expensive than champagne. I could not afford a fruit farm at all if it did not more than pay its ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... never been able to sympathize with the outcry against prize-fighters. The only objection I have to the prize ring is the crookedness that has attended its commercial development. Outside of this I regard boxing, whether professional or amateur, as a first-class sport, and I do not regard it as brutalizing. Of course matches can be conducted under conditions that make them brutalizing. But this is true of football games and of most other rough and vigorous sports. Most certainly ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... rights to peaceful enjoyment. On a par with this is the incivility of a person who undertakes to accompany a soloist with his (or her) own little pipe, to the annoyance of those who prefer to listen to professional rather than amateur efforts. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... young amateur came of age. He was still threatened with consumption, and his family determined to send him abroad. Nobody felt very sanguine about his returning. As he was helped on board, the captain eyed him dubiously and said in an undertone, "There's a chap who will go overboard before we get across." ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... late Henry George, 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 was the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... to him. But he knew it as an amateur, and under an official gaze it grouped itself afresh. The school, a bland Gothic building, now showed as a fortress of learning, whose outworks were the boarding-houses. Those straggling roads were full of the houses of the parents of the day-boys. These shops were in bounds, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... writer[273] remarks that the same amateur, as is well known, seldom long maintains the superiority of his birds; and this, he adds, undoubtedly is due to all his stock "being of the same blood;" hence it is indispensable that he should occasionally procure a bird of another strain. But this is not necessary with those who keep a stock ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... that even at this time his taste for natural history, and especially for collecting shells and minerals, was well developed. In the summer of 1818 he entered Dr. Butler's great school in Shrewsbury, well known to the amateur makers of Latin verse by the volume entitled "Sabrinae Corolla." He expressed the opinion in later life that nothing could have been worse for the development of his mind than this school, as it was strictly classical, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... breadth" was introduced, and they were ordered to learn the violin, Richard rebelled, flew into a towering rage and broke his instrument on his master's head. Edward, however, threw his whole soul into the work and became one of the finest amateur violinists of his day. Edward, indeed, was the Greek of the family, standing for music and song as well as for muscle. He had the finely chiselled profile and the straight nose that characterises the faces on Attic coins. Richard, though without the Roman features, was more of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... of astronomers towards the end of 1758 became intense; and the honour of first catching sight of the traveller fell to an amateur in Saxony, George Palitsch, on Christmas Day, 1758. It reached perihelion ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... to create for yourself a bookish atmosphere. The merely physical side of books is important—more important than it may seem to the inexperienced. Theoretically (save for works of reference), a student has need for but one book at a time. Theoretically, an amateur of literature might develop his taste by expending sixpence a week, or a penny a day, in one sixpenny edition of a classic after another sixpenny edition of a classic, and he might store his library in a hat-box or a biscuit-tin. But in practice he would have ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... of Travel, Exploration, Amateur Photography, Hunting, and Fishing, with special chapters on hunting the Grizzly Bear, the Buffalo, Elk, Antelope, Rocky Mountain Goat and Deer; also on Trouting in the Rocky Mountains; on a Montana Roundup; Life among the Cowboys, etc. 12mo. ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... 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
... nieces—that's the very point! I am helping to bring them up," said Morris Townsend. "I am a kind of amateur tutor; I ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... 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 ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... friendly miller—like the host of the hotel at St. Enimie, a municipal councillor. No better specimen of the French peasant gradually developing into the gentleman could be found. The freedom from coarseness or vulgarity in these amateur punters of the Tarn is indeed quite remarkable. Isolated from great social centres and influences of the outer world as they have hitherto been, there is yet no trace either of subservience, craftiness, ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... and cider by the glassful, and was still said to be of an amorous disposition, in spite of his age. He liked to walk about his fields with his hands behind his back, digging his wooden shoes into the fat soil, looking at the sprouting corn or the flowering colza with the eye of an amateur at his ease, who likes to see it, but does not trouble himself about it too much any longer, and they used to say of him: "There is a Mr. Merry-man, who does not get up in ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... castle: all these elegant Persian rugs, and those four "old masters," and the bronzes and the teakwood carvings—you can see for yourself. Lucy wasn't quite satisfied with the room at first. She missed the fish-net draperies and cozy corners and the usual clap-trap of amateur studios. But she's educated up to it now, and it's a daily joy to me. On the other hand my broiled steaks and feather-weight waffles and first-class coffee are a joy to poor Henry, who can't even boil an egg properly, and who hasn't ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... been made of the fact that even from the lowest Court of Law in Holland the amateur judge is rigidly excluded. No one who has not acquired the diploma of Doctor of Laws from one of the Dutch Universities is allowed to assume any responsible duty associated with the administration of justice. The same severe requirement ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... amateur electronics and radio] A book of small code segments that the reader can use to do various {magic} things in programs. One current example is the "{{PostScript}} Language Tutorial and Cookbook" by Adobe Systems, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... to remain here we had to say good-bye; but for the whole twenty minutes of my stay we walked up and down the platform talking eagerly of the case. I had become much interested, so deeply, indeed, that had I had leisure I certainly should have turned amateur detective ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... he said to me afterwards, ruefully looking at the place where his boot-heel had been. "You've got to take your good where you find it. I don't care whether he's a rich amateur or skin-and-grief in a garret as long as he's got the stuff in him. Nobody else could have fetched me up from the East End this afternoon.... So long; see you in a ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... the earl, slowly, a faint blush stealing into his cheeks, "an 'amateur' is a lover. If that is right, perhaps you had better put me down as ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... the editor. "Surely the young lady does not expect to be paid for anything so very amateur—no, she cannot expect to be paid in money—in another way she is paid, and largely; she obtains a reputation, and what immature talent she has is brought to the fore! I am afraid, Miss Mainwaring, I ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... a bookseller gifted with mature sapience will very rarely, or never, be such an amateur in expensive methods of bamboozling, as to prefer having recourse to the title-page expedient, if he could flatter himself that his purpose would be likely to be effected simply by doctoring the date; and thus a question springs up, akin to the former one, How ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... time and energy during my residence in San Francisco. I have done some things because I was obliged to and many others because I wished to. When one is fitted and trained for some one thing he is apt to devote himself steadily and profitably to it, but when he is an amateur and not a master he is sure to be handicapped. After about a year in the Indian department a change in administration left me without a job. For about a year I was a bookkeeper for a stock-broker. Then for another year I was a money-broker, selling currency, silver, and revenue stamps. When ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... to be a singer doesn't mean to sing after dinner or to go squawking anyhow in a workhouse, but it means to get up on a platform before critical people, and if you don't do your very best be damned by them. If I marry Michael I must go on singing as a professional singer, and not become an amateur—the Viscountess Comber, who sings so charmingly. I refuse to sing charmingly; I will either sing properly or not at all. And I couldn't not sing. I shall have to continue being ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... the flames must come last. And here, just at the moment when the work of devastation was almost accomplished, came the Malsham fire-engine rattling along gaily through the dewy morning, and the Malsham amateur fire-brigade, a very juvenile corps as yet, eager to cover itself with laurels, but more careful in the adjustment of its costume than was quite consistent with the desperate nature of its duty. Here came the brigade, in time to do something at any rate, and the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... you young cut-up," Cappy began as the trio settled in the smoking room and the waiter brought the coffee and cigars, "I see you're getting to be quite an amateur sailor. Your Dad tells me you won your last race with that schooner yacht of yours in rather ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... exhortation from the pulpit on the following Sabbath, in which he carefully distinguished such services by an ordained minister, although held in a barn, from unlicensed Plymouthistic gatherings held in corn rooms—this at Milton's amateur efforts—and advised his people in each district to avail themselves of "my friend Mr. Carmichael's excellent ministrations," which Papal Bull, being distributed to the furthest corner of the parish before nightfall, greatly ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... was attacked by the craze for amateur photography. It became chronic afterwards, and I and my camera have never since been parted. We have had some odd adventures together, and one of the most novel of our experiences was that in which we played the part of chief witness ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... literary stamp and coinage, and consigns the old circulation to its shelves and cabinets as neglected curiosities. Cleveland could not become the fashion with the public as an author, though the coteries cried him up and the reviewers adored him—and the ladies of quality and the amateur dilettanti bought and bound his volumes of careful poetry and cadenced prose. But Cleveland had high birth and a handsome competence—his manners were delightful, his conversation fluent—and his disposition was as amiable as his mind was cultured. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... foppery of high-flown sentiment which, as is not uncommon with Johnson, passes into something which would be cynical if it were not half-humorous. In this case it implies also the contempt of the professional for the amateur. Johnson despised gentlemen who dabbled in his craft, as a man whose life is devoted to music or painting despises the ladies and gentlemen who treat those arts as fashionable accomplishments. An author was, according to him, a man who turned out books as a bricklayer ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... in a low voice; "the portrait must reveal the inmost spirit; mine must show how warmly Philip loves art and his artists. Take the palette, I beg. It is for you, the great Master, not for me, the overworked, bungling amateur, to correct ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that a nurseryman, park superintendent, or amateur gardener has just flowered a batch of seedlings of, say, Helenium, and that he spots one as being of a new type and worthy of propagation. In due course he shows the plant at a fortnightly show, under a number, and an Award of Merit is given to it. He must now find a cultivar-name ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... grandchild, bald under its cap. Each was highly entertained with the other. Grandpapa was sandy with grandboy's gingerbread-crumbs. The intervening ages were well represented by wiry men and shrill women. The house, also, without being tavern or shop, was an amateur bazaar of vivers and goods. Anything one was likely to want could be had there,—even a melodeon and those inevitable Patent-Office Reports. Here we descended, lunched, and providently bought a general assortment, namely, a large plain cake, five pounds of cheese, a ball of twine, and two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various |
