"Playing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bishop Butler taught us long ago, that if you excite emotions which are intended to lead to action, and the action does not follow, the excitation of the emotion without its appropriate action makes the heart a great deal harder than it was before. That is why it is playing with edged tools to speak so much to our Christian audiences, as we sometimes hear done, about the condition of the heathen as a stimulus to missionary work. If a man does not respond and do something, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... of Salisbury Plain," with other narratives of the excellent Mrs. Hannah More too much neglected in maturer life. With these are admitted also "Viri Romae," Nepos, Florus, Phaedrus, and even the Latin grammar, because they count, playing here upon these mimic boards the silent but awful part of second and third conspirators, a role in after years assumed by statelier and more celebrated volumes—the "books without which no gentleman's library ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... not lodge in my pocket," said Seabrooke; "how can you carry such a sum of money in such an insecure place, Neville? Playing rough-and-tumble games, too, when any minute it is likely to fall out of your pocket. I shall lock it up, I can tell you; and what if you tell me not to return it to you till ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... the Crown-Prince, who was exceedingly attentive to his royal brother, were sitting together, with Prince Dolor playing in a corner of the room, dragging himself about with his arms rather than his legs, and sometimes trying feebly to crawl from one chair to another, it seemed to strike the father that all was ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... that he had never recorded a political vote, and that he was at this present moment, to use his own frank expression, no more connected with human politics than the horses that were drawing him! How he must have marvelled at Fate for playing him such a trick! On the same day, at the urgent request of Sir John Colborne, he removed to Government House. On Monday, the 25th, he was sworn into office as Lieutenant-Governor; and on Tuesday Sir John and his family took their departure for Montreal. The Compact took care ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... liked by him. One day as he was wandering through the forest intent on his business, a great storm arose that shook the trees and seemed about to uproot them. In a moment dense clouds appeared on the sky, with flashes of lightning playing amidst them, presenting the aspect of a sea covered with merchants' boats and vessels. He of a hundred sacrifices having entered the clouds with a large supply of rain, in a moment the earth became flooded with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... for the most part with her, and did not notice how time was passing. The musicians kept playing the same mazurka tunes over and over again in desperate exhaustion—you know what it is towards the end of a ball. Papas and mammas were already getting up from the card-tables in the drawing-room in expectation of supper, the men-servants were running to and fro bringing ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... an invitation to the wedding. I hope you'll accept. You needn't have any compunctions about playing the game. You will not encounter me, as I have my hands full here, and I'm notorious in Vancouver for backing out of functions, anyway. It is not imperative that you should do this. It's merely a safeguard against a bomb ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... brings her to his cave, and tries to soothe her. They sit down on a sofa (the regular sofa! in the regular place, O. P. Second Entrance!) and a procession of musicians enters; one creature playing a drum, and knocking himself off his legs at every blow. These failing to delight her, dancers appear. Four first; then two; THE two; the flesh-coloured two. The way in which they dance; the height to which they spring; the impossible and inhuman ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... as well go the limit with the bluff he was playing. "Sure. I'll help you make a fourth o' July outa the ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... "King or no king," he gibbered, "I sway a maid's heart." He was playing his part bravely, for the air seemed full of ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... extraordinary and unheard-of thing occurred: Juancho, after playing the bull and manoeuvring his cloak with consummate dexterity, took his sword, and, instead of plunging it into the animal's neck, as was expected, hurled it from him with such force, that it turned over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... approaching the stanitsa. The Vyestnik cannot go on either, and both steamers stay stock-still. There is a military band on the Vyestnik, consequently there has been a regular festival. All yesterday the band was playing on deck to the entertainment of the captain and sailors, and consequently to the delay of the repairing. The feminine half of the public were highly delighted; a band, officers, naval men ... oh! The schoolgirls were particularly ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the leaves of the doom-palm, called by the people kabba. Our caravan resembles the march of a wandering tribe, there being camels, sheep, oxen, asses, dogs, with all the paraphernalia of tents, cooking utensils, &c. Some of the animals are laden, some unladen, playing, running, and skipping about. Then come the human animals, men, women, and children of every age. Our own caravan is mostly composed of the household and slaves of En-Noor, with two or three strangers. But now all changes ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... strange sort of laugh, "do you remember this morning, before the light came? Do you remember that I asked you about a brass-band that I heard playing?" ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... and yon among its green islands, the shadowy woods darkening one bank, and the vast meadows stretching northward from the other. Below the bend an Indian village, already rebuilt and occupied, slept in the sun, and I could see children and dogs playing before ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... market-day, not a fair. Ambrose recognised one or two who made part of the crowd at Beaulieu only two days previously, when he had "seen through tears the juggler leap," and the jingling tune one of them was playing on a rebeck brought back associations of almost unbearable pain. Happily, Father Shoveller, having seen his sheep safely bestowed in a pen, bethought him of bidding the lay brother in attendance show the young gentlemen the way to Hyde Abbey, and turning up a street at right angles to the principal ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... treacherously deprived Coburg of forces for its defence. But, apart from other evidence, the tone of exasperation that runs through Thugut's private letters is irreconcilable with this theory. Lord Elgin, whose reports are used by Von Sybel, no doubt believed that Thugut was playing false; but he was a bad judge, being in the hands of Thugut's opponents, especially General Mack, whom he glorifies in the most absurd way. The other English envoy in Belgium, Lord Yarmouth, reported in favour of Thugut's good faith in this matter, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... then in the way of a ragout of conspiracy. God help him! he's a greater lunatic than ever." This was spoken aside into the marchesa's ear. "If you have a soul of pity, marchesa, order him a chicken before we begin playing, or he will faint upon the floor." ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... will, who carry in them, however, so lightly! a learning equal to Balzac's, greater than that of Dumas. He knows with like completeness the mere fashions of the time—how courtier and soldier dressed themselves, and the large movements of the desperate game which fate or chance was playing with those pretty pieces. Comparing that favourite century of the French Renaissance with our own, he notes a decadence of the more energetic passions in the interest of general tranquillity, and perhaps (only perhaps!) of general happiness. "Assassination," he observes, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... viols are playing That grand old wordless rhyme; And still those two ate swaying In perfect tune and time. If the great bassoons that mutter, If the clarinets that blow, Were given a voice to utter The secret ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... diversion and as an antidote to depression, as well as for intellectual improvement, some of us studied mathematics[11] or Shakespeare. Three or four classes were formed in modern languages. We had card-playing with packs soiled and worn; checkers and chess on extemporized boards with rudely whittled "pieces"; occasional discussions historical, literary, political, or religious; many of us quite regular ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... expedients ran over his cards reflectively and decided that the moment for playing his ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... fireworks that are let loose on the Marina several evenings each week. Here, however, a distinct advance has been made upon the familiar pyrotechnic display of former events. The use of powerful scintillators with their colored rays playing upon smoke clouds and flying devices from exploded bombs high in the air, or upon weird shapes of steam sent out by the engine on the border of the yacht harbor, lends infinite variety and beauty. In several of the numbers the scintillators secure the effects unaided, their ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... Cemetery a stone could be seen in Martense's Lane, south of that burial-ground, that bore a hoof mark. A negro named Joost, in the service of the Van Der Something-or-others, was plodding home on Saturday night, his fiddle under his arm. He had been playing for a wedding in Flatbush and had been drinking schnapps until he saw stars on the ground and fences in the sky; in fact, the universe seemed so out of order that he seated himself rather heavily on this rock to think about it. The behavior ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... was won on the playing fields of some damned place. A million of money will be won or lost in this house in ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany
... Mr. Vholes. "Bear with me for a moment. Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the three hours playing tennis, and at four p.m. precisely the introduction took place. By great good luck Duncan was absent; Simpson would have wasted his whole two minutes ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... absolutely terrified. He wondered if he were not the victim of some absurd nightmare—if his senses were not playing him false. He had little conception of the terrible dramas which are constantly enacted in these superb mansions, so admired and envied by the passing crowd. He thought that the baroness would be crushed—that she would fall on her knees ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... understand, or to consider that you are running into any one's debt. You may remember that afterward, perhaps, but that is as may be. For the present there is no question of obligations. We are all in the same boat—all playing the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... animation, scarcely touched the earth while darting after the gaudy insect. How graceful she is, as, halting for an instant beneath the coquettish moth, she looks up to behold its gold-and-purple wings dancing round her head, mocking and playing with its gay pursuer! She thinks she has caught it; but, alas! the edge of her net only touched the butterfly's wings, and away it dashes, over hedge and copse, far, far beyond her reach! How beautiful she is, as, in that golden light, warmed with ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... 31, when I visited him, and confessed an excess of which I had very seldom been guilty; that I had spent a whole night in playing at cards, and that I could not look back on it with satisfaction; instead of a harsh animadversion, he mildly said, 'Alas, Sir, on how few things can we ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... post-Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. Growth in 2000-05 was supported by exports to the EU, primarily to Germany, and a strong recovery of foreign and domestic investment. Domestic demand is playing an ever more important role in underpinning growth as interest rates drop and the availability of credit cards and mortgages increases. The current account deficit has declined to around 3% of GDP as demand ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... "Die kuenstliche Beschraenkung der Kinderzahl" (The Artificial Limitation of Progeny)[235] claims that Socialism is playing a tricky manoeuvre by its opposition to Malthusianism: a rapid increase of population promotes mass proletarianization, and this, in turn, promotes discontent: if over-population is successfully ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... 262). A writer in the Gent. Mag. for 1799, p. 1171, who had been employed in Strahan's printing-works, says that 'Stewart was useful to Johnson in the explanation of low cant phrases; all words relating to gambling and card-playing, such as All-Fours, Catch-honours [not in Johnson's Dictionary], Cribbage [merely defined as A game at cards], were said to be Stewart's corrected by the Doctor.' He adds that after the printing had gone on some time 'the proprietors of ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... cribbage and all-fours, together with the method of storming the castle, acting the comedy of Prince Arthur, and other pantomimes, as they commonly exhibited at sea; and instructed the seniors, who were distinguished by the appellation of bloods, in cudgel-playing, dancing the St. Giles's hornpipe, drinking flip, and smoking tobacco. These qualifications had rendered him so necessary and acceptable to the scholars, that exclusive of Perry's concern in the affair, his dismission, in all probability, would have produced some ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should I throw down my friends to save a rustler ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... Birlad, between Barnaba, and Racovica. This battle he is said to have won by stratagem. He concealed a number of men in a neighbouring wood, and when the battle was at its height they were ordered to commence playing various instruments as though another force were approaching, and this created such a panic amongst the Ottomans that they gave way and fled precipitately, followed by Stephen, who put many to the sword. ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... to be called on to drive Mrs. Allen to Boston, secretly, and under cover of the night, seemed so much like becoming a party to some act of folly or crime, that he gave way to hesitation, and began to seek for reasons that would justify his playing the lady false. Then came up the image of her sweet, reverent face, as she said so earnestly, "Nothing wrong, as God is my witness!" And his first ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... was doing it as a favor to you—getting his surplus off your territory so your own cows would have a better chance. That's the same kind of talk he floated all round the line; playing the benevolent neighbor when in reality the old pirate had deliberately planned, year after year, to overcrowd your ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... usual hotly advancing rush upon the low-lying, sheltered southerly city. There had been a few days of magical warmth, full of spring madness, when every growing thing had expanded leaves with furious haste, when the noise of children playing in the street sounded loud through newly-opened windows, when, even on city streets, every breath of the sweet, lively air was an intoxicating potion. Then, with a bound, the heat was there. Evenings and nights were still cool, but ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the little boy was playing not far from Uncle Remus's cabin, a heavy black cloud made its appearance in the west, and quickly obscured the sky. It sent a brisk gale before it, as if to clear the path of leaves and dust. Presently there was a blinding flash ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... the boys gambled every evening and all day Sunday; but a famous player, who once passed that way on a prospecting-trip, declared that even a preacher would get sick of such playing; for, as everybody knew everybody else's game, and as all men who played other than squarely had long since been required to leave, there was an utter absence of pistols at ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Goethe to a house in Frankfort which during the next nine months was to be the centre of his thoughts and emotions. There was a crowd of guests, but Goethe's attention became fixed on a girl seated at a piano, and playing, as he informs us, with grace and facility. The house was that of Frau Schoenemann, the widow of a rich banker, and the girl who had excited Goethe's interest was her only daughter, Anna Elisabeth, known by the pet name of Lili—the name by which ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... replied, with a malicious twinkle in her eye, because she had already had a talk with her father on the altered title of the lecture, "but if I did, you know, I should only, as we say in England, be spoiling sport. However, I don't think I shall be playing traitor if I tell you to prepare ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... Filippo. Singing, playing, fresh air, and plashing water, stimulated our appetites. We had brought no eatable with us but fruit and thin marzopane, of which the sugar and rose-water were inadequate to ward off hunger; and the sight of a fishing-vessel between us and Ancona, raised ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... But some child playing there to-day may be like that other island child, Napoleon, and live to make the rest of the world talk about the island that bred him. Or, better still, some one of those children, with a brain made powerful by solitude and noble thought, may have the idea ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... lack of precision, combined with a want of energy and a weakness of will, that rendered her more than careless where her liking was not interested. Hence, while she would have been horrified at playing a wrong note or singing out of tune, she not only had no anxiety, for the thing's own sake, to have her accounts correct, but shrunk from every effort in that direction. Now I can perfectly understand her recoil from the whole ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... all the while in the highest of style and was fed at his country's expense, Yet he felt (did the Celt) that in Meshech he dwelt, and resided in Kedar its tents, And he yearned in his heart to be playing a part in a higher and holier sphere— For his soul was alight with a zeal for the Right that we ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... within range, and the chase was over. Up went the Stars and Stripes to the Sumter's peak, and the usual pause of excited expectation ensued; when, after bungling awhile with his signal halyards, as though playing with his pursuer's hopes and fears, the red ensign of England rose defiantly from the deck, and there was to be ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... mind to resign," said Godfrey, in a low voice, to Ben Travers. "I don't fancy playing with ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and again driven back by the fearful play of the enemy's artillery, the position being only accessible in a few places, and those so narrow that only a small body could move on them at once. But even with these disadvantages and the enemy's cannon playing on them our men, after receiving fresh and strong reinforcements, carried the heights; and not only this, but the whole of the army having been similarly engaged on the right, had meanwhile succeeded in driving the ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... him. What mattered to him the death of an obscure disciple like Fra Bonvicini? It was the master he would strike, the great teacher who must be involved in his own ruin. So he refused to enter the fire except with Savonarola himself, and, playing this terrible game in his own person, would not allow his adversary to play it ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... flocks." Of Payne's rendition a critic says, "He had all the skill of a finished artist combined with the freshness and simplicity of youth. Great praise, but there are few actors who can claim any competition with him." Six weeks later he was playing Hamlet there, and his elocution is spoken of as remarkable for its purity, his action as suited to the passion he represented, and his performance as an exquisite one that delighted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... their names—they mostly arrived yesterday. The woman with the green eyes is Mrs. de Yorburgh-Smith. I am sure she is a pig. The quite decent man, "Harry," is a Marquis—the Marquis of Valmond—because he took Lady Cecilia in to dinner. He is playing in the Nazeby Eleven. ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... eyes turned toward the carriage, her good-natured eyes only were dropping tears, and it was her sobbing voice alone that broke the silence with an appeal to me: "N'oublie pas ton francais, mon cheri." In three months, simply by playing with us, she had taught me not only to speak French, but to read it as well. She was indeed an excellent playmate. In the distance, half-way down to the great gates, a light, open trap, harnessed with three horses in Russian fashion, stood drawn up on one side, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... sat a great deal in her bed trying to make her forget him, which was my crafty way of playing physician, and if I saw any one out of doors do something that made the others laugh I immediately hastened to that dark room and did it before her. I suppose I was an odd little figure; I have been told that my anxiety to brighten her gave my face a strained ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... eddying coil of bluish smoke hurrying from the galley chimney under the high-arching foot of the fore-course and out over the port cat-head; and the watch, having no sail-trimming to attend to, were squatted upon their hams on the fore deck, playing cards. The hooker needed no looking after in such weather as this, and the only individual, beside ourselves, abaft ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... playing me tricks, Wayland; or do A see something stuck on yon bush along the way? First glance, it looks like the leaf of a note book. Keep looking, it might be a tent a couple of miles away. That used to happen when we were buildin' bridges in the Rockies. Surveyors crossing upper snows would ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... sir, but I don't. The way married couples live to-day is an outrage on common decency. If you had any backbone you'd make your wife behave herself. She is more of a belle, sir, right now than before you married her. She is crazy for excitement, and the whole poker-playing, wine-drinking set she goes with is on ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... then, or good fortune, or the skilful playing off of Bungay against Bacon which Warrington performed (and which an amateur novelist is quite welcome to try upon any two publishers in the trade), Pen's novel was actually sold for a certain sum of money to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... swore it was not empty—was quite upset about it—said there was some infernal influence at work in his neighbourhood. Nerves, he finds, I suppose, may revenge themselves on one who has made a habit of playing tricks with them. To satisfy him, I asked Johnson to open the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... course," said the other, with a sneer. "Sure to be handsome doings where you and me's concerned, friend Mick. But where are the creatures? You're not playing me a trick after all, are you?" he went on, looking round as if he expected to see the children start up from the earth or drop down ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... started to go to the camp. When she came to the top of the hill and looked across the river she saw that there were no lodges there, and did not know what to think of it. She called down to the children and said, "The camp is gone"; but they did not believe her, and went on playing. She kept on calling and at last some of them came to her, and then all saw that it was as she had said. They went down to the river and crossed it, and went to where the lodges had stood. When they ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... good authority, that he said more than this, and told them they were welcome to plunder and kill him. [Footnote: See Discovery of the Great West. La Barre denies the assertion, and says that he merely told the Iroquois that La Salle should be sent home.] The rapacious old man was playing ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... at noontide, the Queen and her escort beheld a motley crowd dispersed about the sward on the banks of the river, some playing at ball, others resting on benches or walking up and down in groups, exercise being recommended as part of the cure. All thronged together to watch the Earl and his captive ride in with their suite, the household ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... playing-areas, kindergartens, and other means of employing the time of the pre-school child outside the home is a matter that was brought before the notice of the Committee as another of the domestic difficulties. This is one of the factors preventing that amount of leisure which is necessary for the well-being ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan
... the boy is five or six years of age, he remains always under the care of his mother. He spends the day running about within and around the house and among the boats at the landing-place, playing with his fellows, chasing the pigs and fowls, and bathing in the river. The children are in the main what is commonly called good, they cry but little, and quarrels and outbreaks of temper are few. During the boy's third year a hole is punched in ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... life," she said, "and grown-up folks are playing it now. I heard the minister an' mamma talking about it las' week for hours an' hours an' hours. They give up pomps an' vanerties, the minister says, an' they mus'n't have luxuries, an' they mus' live like nature an' save their souls. They can't save their souls ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... nation of shop-keepers, but I think we spend as much time upon the moors and playing fields as Americans do in ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... I still believed in that pretence of hers. I thought she did, and attributed to this that embarrassment which she showed when she first greeted me. On this, as on the former occasion, her embarrassment had, no doubt, arisen from the fact that she was playing a part, and the consciousness that such a part was altogether out of her power to maintain. Yet, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... phrases about the One issuing forth into the Many, in order to make Itself more completely Itself than it was before, seem to us, when under the influence of our complex vision, no other than the meaningless playing with cosmic tennis balls ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... indignation. "The day you came, last night even, I thought you different. I deemed you"—she pressed her hand to her bosom as if she stilled a pain—"other than you are! I confess it. But you are their fellow. You begin as they began, by listening on stairs and at doors, by dogging me and playing eavesdropper, by hearkening to what I say and do. Right?" she repeated the word bitterly, mockingly, with fierce unhappiness. "You have the right that they have! ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... the work throughout the trade is out-work, and therefore escapes the operation of the Factory Act. The competition among small employers is greatly accentuated by the existence of a form of middleman known as the "factor," who is an agent who gets his profit by playing off one small manufacturer against another, keeping down prices, and consequently wages, to a minimum. A large number of the small producers are extremely poor, and owing to the System which enables them to obtain material from leather-merchants on short credit, are constantly ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... is added something else, such as a bunch of feathers, or two smaller bunches of feathers; and among these may be seen such miscellaneous articles as a fragment of dried-up fruit, or a part of the backbone of a fish. For playing the instrument, they place its tail end, with the hollow side inwards, to the mouth, holding the extreme tip of that end in the fingers of the left hand, and keep the tongue of the instrument in a constant state of vibration, ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... examined, charted, photographed, and to some extent plodded over a mountainous, heavily glaciated land lying in an area of the entire acreage of Kent, Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, one gets a fair idea of what "Griff" and Co. were playing at. ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... Chilian hands. Caramba! but the Maranon is sinking lower in the water every second; she will be gone in less than five minutes. I hope those brave fellows will be able to get out of her before she goes, for the bay is simply swarming with sharks! Look at the black dorsal fins of the beggars playing round the old Blanco! It's enough to make a fellow sick to think of those gallant chaps being torn to pieces by such monsters as these. Ah! I am glad to see that Condell has ceased firing to allow those Peruvian launches which ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... first, as it was the last time in the War that I heard a British band playing to cheer attacking "Tommies." I believe it used to be a British war custom to rouse martial instincts with lively music, but something must have gone wrong with the works in this War, there must have occurred a rift in the lute, for ever after ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... by standing upon the last round but one of the ladder, a man of about the middle height, as the king was, for instance, could easily hold a communication with those who might be in the room. Hardly had the ladder been properly placed, than the king, dropping the assumed part he had been playing in the comedy, began to ascend the rounds of the ladder, which Malicorne held at the bottom. But hardly had he completed half the distance, when a patrol of Swiss guards appeared in the garden, and advanced straight toward them. The king descended with the utmost precipitation, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... like his own,' said Irons; 'his wages come to nothing, and his services is hell itself. He could sing, and talk, and drink, and keep things stirring, and the gentlemen liked him; and he was, 'twas said, a wonderful fine player at whist, and piquet, and ombre, and all sorts of card-playing. So you see he could afford to play fair. The first time he came down, he fought three duels about a tipsy quarrel over a pool of Pope Joan. There was no slur on his credit, though; 'twas just a bit ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Playing in New York one evening on this her return, Carrie was putting the finishing touches to her toilet before leaving for the night, when a commotion near the stage door caught her ear. It ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... playing you tricks, dear," she said, smiling, and passed on to Cicely. After giving her the needed assistance, she left them, and a little further down ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... he had found some fruit of a new kind, a sort of huge almost brilliant all over, and with a kernel playing freely in its shell. But if he soon discovered his mistake he did not consider it a reason for throwing the case away; on the contrary, he grasped it more tightly in his left hand, and dropped the cudgel, which broke off a dry ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... the amiable young man from Baltimore shut themselves in their stateroom and played the flute and violin. The lovely lady who had made Sandy's acquaintance early in the voyage asked him if he could make one at a game of whist. Sandy replied that he could play "a very little." The thought of playing cards here on a steamboat, in public, as he said to himself, was rather frightful. He was not sure if his mother would like to have him do that. He looked uneasily around to see what Charlie would say about it. But Charlie ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... and the horse of Odin, this country is surely bewitched," he muttered. His fancy, he told himself, was playing him a pleasant trick: he had seen Osla so continually in his mind's eye, that this girl, for girl she seemed, shaped herself after his thoughts. That it could be she he loved, there in the flesh, was almost laughably impossible; yet as she talked, apparently with an air of some authority, to ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... poetry Tannahill early cultivated the kindred arts of music and song; a mere youth, he occasionally earned the payment of ten shillings for playing on the fife at the Greenock parades; he afterwards became eminent for his skill in the use of the flute. Having completed his education at school, which consisted of instruction in the elementary branches, he became apprenticed to a cotton-weaver. Collecting ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Richard, impatiently, and playing with his dagger hilt; "thy words, stealthy and evasive, prove thy guilt! Sure am I that this iron traitor with its intricate hollows and recesses holds what, unless confessed, will give thee to the hangman! Confess all, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "You're not playing in luck to-day," smiled Duff gently, as he tucked away the money in one of his coat pockets. "You're a good sportsman, ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... the restriction of musical instruments in visions of heaven to harps alone. They at first blister the fingers until they are calloused. The afflicted washerwoman, whose only daughter had just died, was not in the least consoled by the assurance that Melinda was perfectly happy, playing a harp in heaven. "She never was no musicianer, and I'd rather see her a-settin' by my tub as she used to set when I was a-wringin' out the clothes from the suds, than to be up there a-harpin'." Very different, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... yet. If you heard peals of laughter resounding from some unknown region, you might be sure enough of the cause. Going down into the kitchen, or the room, you would find Jane and Thomas, and Robert and Susan, all and sum, playing at ball with the little princess. She was the ball herself, and did not enjoy it the less for that. Away she went, flying from one to another, screeching with laughter. And the servants loved the ball itself better even than the game. ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... when the band returned to the ranche with their booty, he saw the dissolute brother, after the treasure was divided, winning it back to the family coffers with his dice. He saw the stricken father playing golf on his bicycle in grotesque ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... reason for his assumption,—the Archbishop had certainly prepared himself to meet in Felix Bonpre, a shrewd, calculating, clever priest, absorbed in acting the part of an excessive holiness in order to secure such honour in his diocese as should attract the particular notice of the Vatican. "Playing for Pope," in fact, had been the idea with which the archbishop had invested the Cardinal's reputed sanctity, and he was astonished and in a manner irritated to find himself completely mistaken. He had opened ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... by the Duke of Somerset, the foreign ministers and a large number of the nobility and general officers of the army. At Temple Bar he was met by the city marshal, by whom he was conducted to Goldsmiths' Hall. There a "noble treat" was set out for the guests, "the queen's musick playing all the while, and everything performed in great splendor."(1903) The Common Council acknowledged the great public spirit thus displayed by the Court of Aldermen and the sheriffs by passing an unanimous vote of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... laces to celebrate all-night dance in log houses where partitions were carpets and tapestries hung up as walls. Sometimes, too,—at least I have heard descendants of the eastern township people tell the story,—the jovial habits kept the father tippling and card playing at the village inn while the lonely mother kept watch and ward in the cabin of the snow-padded forests. Of necessity the Loyalists banded together to {315} help one another. There were "sugarings off" in the maple woods every spring ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Holliday; maybe that was what was the matter. He'd try to accommodate 'em. He pushed the referee aside and swung. But his glove met nothing. The floor came up and hit him in the face, that was all. Funny floor! Funny roof! No place to hold a prizefight. And where was Holliday, anyway? Holliday'd been playing for his good eye, till that was practically closed, too, and he couldn't see distinctly, couldn't see much of anything. He'd grope for him—he ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... of the Dons, and with a stout ship like this one under my feet and a band of brave hearts like you I wouldn't hesitate to tackle the whole Spanish navy. It means a little fighting, but think of the prize!" he cried, playing skilfully upon the cupidity of his men. "Some of us will lose the number of our messes, perhaps, before nightfall; but," he continued, making a most singular and effective appeal, "there will be more to divide for each man that is left alive. ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the facility with which you adapt yourself to circumstances," scornfully. "You knew that I was but playing. I am fully capable of repaying any insolence offered to me, whether from D'Herouville, the vicomte . . ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... you'd find it would matter to you right now without waiting for the end of a century," was the laconic answer. "But speaking of ball, what wouldn't you give to see the first League game of the season in town, Saturday? That will be some playing!" ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... there was a hollow in the cliffs, up which men, secretly conveyed above the town by water, could climb. At the top was a plateau, smooth and fine as a parade-ground, where battle could be given, or move be made upon the city and citadel, which lay on ground no higher. Then, with the guns playing on the town from the fleet, and from the Levis shore with forces on the Beauport side, attacking the lower town where was the Intendant's palace, the great fortress might be taken, and Canada ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... motion, a rising and falling. Rocking sets children to sleep better than absolute rest; there is indeed scarcely anything at that age, which gives more pleasure than to be gently lifted up and down; the manner of playing which their nurses use with children, and the weighing and swinging used afterwards by themselves as a favorite amusement, evince this very sufficiently. Most people must have observed the sort of sense they have had on being swiftly drawn in an easy coach on ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for a "tomasha," the word now used by people wanting to see me ride, and which really means an exhibition. His place is found in a brick court-yard with the usual central tank, and the airy rooms of the building all opening upon it, and once again comes the feeling of playing a rather ridiculous role, as I circle awkwardly around the tank over very uneven bricks, and around short corners where an upset would precipitate me into the tank—amid, I can't help thinking, "roars of laughter." The Prince is very lavish of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... freezing weather last night," Gerard communicated, at his ear. "Now it is beginning to melt again and playing the mischief with the roads. There is a ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... first night of his new theatre. The revival of Moliere's "Don Juan," at the Francais, has drawn money. It is excellently played, and it is curious to observe how different their Don Juan and valet are from our English ideas of the master and man. They are playing "Lucretia Borgia" again at the Porte St. Martin, but it is poorly performed and hangs fire drearily, though a very remarkable and striking play. We were at Victor Hugo's house last Sunday week, a most extraordinary ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... living altered since the old days, when He said, 'Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple'? Ah! I fear me that it is no uncharitable judgment to say that the bulk of so-called Christians are playing at being Christians, and have never penetrated into the depths either of the sweet all-sufficiency of the love which they say that they possess, or the constraining necessity that is in it for the surrender of all besides. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... were assembled. Vice-President the Hon. Wilcome was in the act of reading the premature dispatch, in which J. T. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had just been seen in the gigantic reflector of Long's Peak, and also that it was held by lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under satellite ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... land, and the great castle and piled town of Wetmore, cliffs of battlemented grey wall rising above a dense cluster of red roofs, form the background to innumerable gracious prospects of great stream-fed trees, level meadows of buttercups, sweeping curves of osier and rush-rimmed river, the playing fields and the sedgy, lily-spangled levels of Avonlea. The college itself is mostly late Tudor and Stuart brickwork, very ripe and mellow now, but the great grey chapel with its glorious east window floats over the whole like a voice singing in the evening. And the evening cloudscapes ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the sea the rock was once rent sheer away in some globe-cataclysm; it rises up a straight wall from the base where the waves gnaw at the stone below high-water mark. Any assault is made impossible by the dangerous reefs that stretch far out to sea, with the sparkling waves of the Mediterranean playing over them. So, only from the sea can you discern the square mass of the convent built conformably to the minute rules laid down as to the shape, height, doors, and windows of monastic buildings. From the side of the town, the church completely hides the solid structure of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the reader's perusal, informs us that,—'In every part of the town where the danger was most imminent, and the French the most numerous,—was Padre St. Iago Sass, curate of a parish in Zaragoza. As General Palafox made his rounds through the city, he often beheld Sass alternately playing the part of a Priest and a Soldier; sometimes administering the sacrament to the dying; and, at others, fighting in the most determined manner against the enemies of his country.—He was found so serviceable in inspiring ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... table a sequence of six low diamonds, together with the ace. I had thrown away king and queen of the same colour. But as he wanted a piquet, I got the better of my fear, and was confident at least of making two tricks. Besides the seven diamonds he had four spades, and playing the smallest of them, put me in the predicament of not knowing which of my two aces to keep. I threw away, rightly as I thought, the ace of hearts; but he had discarded four clubs, and I found myself made Capot by ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... that's Captain Byrton," exclaims the elderly lady, who, up to that moment, has been under the impression that he was playing the waiter.) ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... William. They're nice things for a boy to dress up in, no doubt. I can't say I—but she's very kind. Don't let her see you playing with ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... motives, but for the most part in our intercourse with one another we are really as superficially intentioned, when we are intentioned at all, as Charmian was in wishing to get what sensation she could out of the dramatic situation by hovering darkly over it, and playing perilously about its circumference. She divined that he was not there to deepen its tragical tendency at least, and she continued without well knowing what she was going to say next: "Yes, I think that the real reason why Cornelia wouldn't go in costume was that she ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells |
