"Play" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... goodly palfrey, with rich caparisons, and he rode out with them on their way. And when he took leave of the Count he said to him, Now go freely, and I thank you for what you have left behind; if you wish to play for it again let me know, and you shall either have something back in its stead, or leave what you bring to be added to it. The Count answered, Cid, you jest safely now, for I have paid you and all your company for this twelve months, and shall not be coming to see you again so ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... band stop that piece, Mr. Tyers," cried Lady Sarah. "I declare, it is too much for my nerves. Let them play Dibbin's Ephesian Matron." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... answered; "but just as you like. Opportunities of speaking English are not far to seek. Most of the visitors at the hotel are English. I dare say you have noticed it already. But they are not the best sort. They are common city people, who even drop their h's, but who play at being lords on the Continent. Of course I have learned already to tell a 'gentleman' ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... English used to be socially brutal—quite as much so to each other as to us, or any one. One should bear that in mind. I know of nothing more English in its way than what Eton answered to Beaumont (I think) when Beaumont sent a challenge to play cricket: "Harrow we know, and Rugby we have heard of. But who ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... new cult of aesthetics whereof Lessing and Winckelmann, Goethe, and Schlegel, were in different ways and degrees the apostles. And it seems to have been generally admitted, even by the most fervent admirers of Madame de Stael and of Corinne itself, that the first purpose has not had quite fair play with the other two. "A little thin," they confess of the story. In truth it could hardly be thinner, though the author has laid under contribution an at least ample share of the ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... Georgetown had hardly begun to be fashionable again, and on first coming to Washington and hunting for a house, Mrs. Baker told a friend she was discouraged trying to find one with a yard where her three children could play, and that she thought they would have to go to Fort Myer. The friend answered in a tone of deep commiseration, "Too bad! You will have to pass ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... bitterly toward you for what I now understand as your harsh and cruel attitude toward the world, and the role you play as an exploiter of human labor, I shall not reproach you. You simply cannot see these things as I have come to see them since my feet have been set upon the road toward Socialism. Don't start, Wally—that's the truth. Perhaps ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... fraenum: they ought to bridle him. And, Sir, we know very well the stories of old: those wars that were called the Barons' War, when the nobility of the land did stand out for the Liberty and Property of the Subject, and would not suffer the kings, that did invade, to play the tyrants freer, but called them to account for it; we know that truth, that they did fraenum ponere. But, sir, if they do forbear to do their duty now, and are not so mindful of their own honour and the kingdom's good as the Barons of England ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, "What, done already?" On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... the Bishop, "music pleases me right well, and if you can play up to your prattle, 'twill indeed grace your ceremony. Let us have ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... moved toward the door, and dropped her eyes on the little hard-coal fire in the grate; it tempted her, and, with a sort of defiance, she moved over to it and warmed her chilled fingers. A piano, too, and not to teach children on! To play upon, to enjoy! When was her time to come? Every dog has his day! Where was hers? Here some man was surrounded with comforts and pleasures, and she slaved all day at her teaching, and came home at night tired, cold, to ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... she had known what Foster's reply would be. She had listened with keen interest, and he stopped, half amused and half embarrassed. Perhaps he had talked too much, and while he meant to do Lawrence justice, he did not want to play the part of the indomitable pioneer for the girl's benefit. Moreover, he knew she would detect, and despise him for, any attempt to do so, and as he valued her good opinion, it was not modesty alone that led him to make Lawrence the hero of ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... writers on the evidences have labored to convict of an absurdity, on this special head, the atheistic assertors of an infinite series of beings. Even Robert Hall (in his famous Sermon on Modern Infidelity) could but play, when he attempted grappling with the subject, upon the words time and eternity, and strangely argue, that as each member of an infinite series must have begun in time, while the succession itself was eternal, it was palpably absurd to ask us to believe in a succession ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... saw a person take one of them in his hand, and holding it up, give a smart stroke, till he brought it into an horizontal position, striking with the foot on the same side upon the ground, and with his other hand beating his breast at the same time. They play at bowls with pieces of whetstone mentioned before, of about a pound weight, shaped somewhat like a small cheese, but rounded at the sides and edges, which are very nicely polished; and they have other bowls of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... praise when it is best expressed & most apparant, & most studiously. Man also in all his actions that be not altogether naturall, but are gotten by study & discipline or exercise, as to daunce by measures, to sing by note, to play on the lute, and such like, it is a praise to be said an artificiall dauncer, singer, & player on instruments, because they be not exactly knowne or done, but by rules & precepts or teaching of schoolemasters. But in such actions as be so naturall & proper to man, as he may become ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... filled the mind of our young soldier as he stood there, alert, watchful, with weapons ready, ears open to the slightest sound, and eyes glancing sharply at the perplexing shadows that chased each other over the ground like wanton Soudanese at play. His faculties were intensely strung at what may well be styled "attention," and riveted on that desert land to which Fate—as he called his own conduct—had driven him. Yet, strange to say, his mysterious spirit found leisure ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... persecution. But after rumaging about among the boxes kept in the lobby, his patience was at length rewarded. There, in a corner, was the missing cap; but torn and dirty and much injured. Nothing daunted, he cleaned it as well as he could, and, putting it on, emerged into the play-ground. ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... Colorado unarmed, and that in consequence I left Estes Park with a Sharp's revolver loaded with ball cartridge in my pocket, which has been the plague of my life. Its bright ominous barrel peeped out in quiet Denver shops, children pulled it out to play with, or when my riding dress hung up with it in the pocket, pulled the whole from the peg to the floor; and I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which I could feel it right to make any use of it, or in which it could ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... hams, whose fireplace was vast and black save for a small wood fire filling but a quarter of the hearth. Grocer's almanacs brought brave color to the walls, sharing the same with a big dresser where the china made a play of reflected light from the windows. Above the lofty mantel-piece there hung an old fowling-piece, and a row of faded Daguerreotypes, into most of which damp had eaten dull yellow patches. The mantel-shelf carried some rough stoneware ornaments, an eight-day clock, a ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely forgot the role he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection that they would have been but clumsy actors. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... and not political dominions merely. To the creative genius which waited on the philosophic mind of that age, making up in the splendour of its gifts for the poverty of its exterior conditions, such persons,—persons of any amount or variety of capacity which the necessary question of its play might require, were not wanting:—'came ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... easily distinguished from silver by a fine bluish color, which has been compared to that of tin; by its small specific gravity, from 2.5 to 2.67, and its ring like that of iron. Hence it is very doubtful whether aluminum can be made to play the part of a substitute for silver, and still more so whether it ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... longer the Committee discussed plans for the eventful day. Certain details were left for future deliberations; each person had his part to play and each one was settled in his or her determination that nothing should ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... I shall go down to Hampton Court and play tennis," said Lord Eugene. "As it is the Derby, nobody ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Along the Marina, with its huge serpent of lights, the street singers and players were making their nightly pilgrimage, pausing, wherever they saw a lighted window or a dark figure on a balcony, to play and sing the tunes of which they were weary long ago. On the wall, high above the sea, were dotted the dilettante fishermen with their long rods and lines. And below, before each stone staircase that ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... often bored her, for he was always saying and doing the same things. But as a philosopher he really was a joy for ever, an inexhaustible buffoon. Taking up her pen, she began to caricature him. She drew a rabbit-warren where rabbits were at play in four dimensions. Before she had introduced the principal figure, she was interrupted by the footman. He had come up from the house to answer the bell. On seeing her ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... Mars, that of the consecration of arms (-armilustrium-, October 19). Lastly, to the second Mars, Quirinus, the 17th February was appropriated (-Quirinalia-). Among the other festivals those which related to the culture of corn and wine hold the first place, while the pastoral feasts play a subordinate part. To this class belongs especially the great series of spring-festivals in April, in the course of which sacrifices were offered on the 15th to Tellus, the nourishing earth (-fordicidia-, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... reindeer unharness'd in freedom can play, And safely o'er Odin's steep precipice stray, Whilst the wolf to the forest recesses may fly, And howl to the moon as she glides through ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... that the men were compelled to wade and push the batteaux against the current. There was a little grumbling among us, and quite a number of the men deserted. Two days after reaching the Carratunc Falls, we came to the Great Carrying Place. There work was to begin to which all our other work was play. The Great Carrying Place extended from the Kennebec to the Dead River, about fifteen miles, and on the road were three small ponds. Before we took our batteaux out of the water of the Kennebec, we built a block-house on its banks, ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... morality; must accept and rejoice in a "healthy animalism"; must estimate life by the number of its few wildest pulsations; must reckon that life is worthless without the most thrilling experiences of horror or delight! Comedy must be actual shame, and tragedy genuine bloodshed. When the play of Afranius, called The Conflagration, was put on the stage, a house must be really burned and its furniture really plundered. In the mime called Laureolus an actor must really be crucified and mangled by a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... staircase of the Propylaea, we may say with truth that all our modern art is but child's play to that of the Greeks. Very soul-subduing is the gloom of a cathedral like the Milanese Duomo, when the incense rises in blue clouds athwart the bands of sunlight falling from the dome, and the crying of choirs upborne upon the wings of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... overmatch; top, o'ertop, cap, beat, cut out; beat hollow; outstrip &c 303; eclipse, throw into the shade, take the shine out of, outshine, put one's nose out of joint; have the upper hand, have the whip hand of, have the advantage; turn the scale, kick the beam; play first fiddle &c (importance) 642; preponderate, predominate, prevail; precede, take precedence, come first; come to a head, culminate; beat all others, &c bear the palm; break the record; take the cake [U.S.]. become larger, render larger &c (increase) 35, (expand) 194. Adj. superior, greater, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... bank. Funniest people I ever saw, that way. Usually when a rube makes a winning he gambles or gets him a woman, but these hicks take their coin and buy banks.... Ranger's a real town; everything wide open and the law in on the play. That makes good times. Show me a camp where the gamblers play solitaire and the women take in washing and I'll show you a dead village. The joints here have big signs on the wall, 'Gambling Positively Prohibited,' ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... to multiply examples of such merry-making from the poets of the Augustan age, nearly all of whom were born and bred in the country, and shared Virgil's tenderness for a life of honest work and play among the Italian hills and valleys. But in this chapter we are to deal with the holidays and enjoyments of the great city, and the rural festivals are only mentioned here because almost all the characteristics of ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... the last two months I have only once crossed the outer threshold, and, indeed, I have never been a day well since the united effects of the tragedy and the influenza ... [word destroyed by the seal]. What will become of that poor play is in the womb of time. But its being by universal admission a far more striking drama than Rienzi, and by very far the best thing I ever wrote, it follows almost of course, that it will share the fate of its predecessor, and be tossed about the theatres for three or four years to come. Of course ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... connections. We almost always had guests in our large, roomy house, especially at Christmas and Fair-time, when the house was full, and we kept open table from morning till night." The mind reverts to the majestic old wooden mansions which play so prominent a part in Thomas Krag's novels, or to the house of Mrs. Solness' parents, the burning down of which started the Master-Builder's fortunes. Most of these grand old timber houses in Norway have indeed, by this time, been ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... sparingly of bread and milk, slightly salted, for two or three days, then take more solid food, but do not eat meat more than once a day for a week or two. Any exercises that call the muscles of the stomach into play are beneficial and should be practiced daily, especially horseback riding and rowing. Exercise by bending forward, trying to touch the toes without bending the knees; at the same time taking a deep breath—you then have the liver as in a vise, thus inducing ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... deflection calculations. As is well known, deflection does not play much of a part in the design of beams. Sometimes, however, the passing requirement of a certain floor construction is the amount of deflection under a given load. Professor Gaetano Lanza has given some data on recorded deflections ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... The linguistic educational qualification for the post is evidently confined to Russian, for on finding that I spoke Persian, the officer asked me for the information he pretended to seek from the English passports. He acknowledged the farce he was called upon to play, and we proceeded without any farther inquiry. The day was warm, but not oppressively so; the sea-breeze helped the boat across the lagoon and up the Pir-i-Bazaar stream, and the weather being dry, we ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... a school in the country—two schools, one for girls who have misbehaved, one for youths who are similarly delinquent. And, during recreation, we mean to let them meet in a natural manner—play games together, dance, mingle out of doors in a wholesome and innocent way—of course, under necessary and sympathetic supervision—and learn a healthy consideration and respect for one another which the squalid, crowded, irresponsible conditions of their former street life in the slums and tenements ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... doctor. No other career entered his mind. He would finish his college work at the State University, and then go to medical school. He would devote himself without ceasing to all the studies he would need. Not for him any social life, any relaxation of purpose. Grimly he told himself that his play days were over. They had been lively while they lasted; but they ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... I have no fear," declared the man whose vanity was so overweening. "Soon you will see that Nicholas himself will do my bidding. I shall play the tune, and he will dance. All appointments will, ere long, be in my hands, and I will place one of our friends as Procurator of ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... where they had passed the night. Soon after sunrise they made their appearance on a field of snow which sloped down into the Val,—nine, young and old. I shall never see anything prettier than the play of those young chamois on the snow. They butted and chased each other over the snow, frolicked like kittens, standing on their hind legs and pushing each other, until, probably, they grew hungry, and then came down to the grass to feed. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... fires of Socialism, by placing in positions of authority and responsibility, and thereby withdrawing them from the army of disaffection, the ablest leaders of the working-class movement. The Labour member who cannot settle down to legislative or administrative work, but attempts to play the agitator's part in the House of Commons or the council chamber, is generally doomed to banishment from official public life, and is ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... standing round the fount of mercy who play in idleness and wantonness with its waters, and let them not flow widely, nor take their natural course. Dutiful gallants may encompass it, and it may linger among the flowers they throw into it, and never reach the parched lip on ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... vexed with us," tittered Miss Annabel, "that they won't even hold prayer meeting on the same night as ours. They have theirs on Thursday nights and it's as good as a play to hear them shout and sing and carry on. You'll enjoy the Come-Outers, Mr. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... another Expedient for taking of great Fowl, being Rods that are long, small, strait, and pliable, the upper part apt to play to and fro; being besmeared with Bird-lime warm. Thus to be used, Observe the Haunts of the Fowl, have a Stale, (a living Fowl of the same kind you would take) and cross pricking your Rods, one into, and another ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... the best known of them, was a brave soldier, and had served with distinction as an officer in the French service; he was one of the excellent swordsmen of Europe; had fought several duels in France, where it is no child's play to fight a duel; but had never unsheathed his sword for single combat, but in defence of the feeble and insulted—he was kind and open-hearted, but of too great simplicity; he had once ten thousand pounds left him, all of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... play ball this afternoon," said Jack, when it was a mortal impossibility for any one to eat more. "Mr. Hamlin gave orders that we must go far enough away so that there would be no danger of striking any of the kids with the ball. ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... to play in safety, little Duke Jarl could not keep his red head from peering over the parapet. He began making fierce faces at the enemy—he was still too young to fight: and quick a grey goose-shaft came and sang its shrill song at his ear. So close had it gone that a little of the ducal blood ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... fair. The pack had now got up, and Mr. Worcester began his issue. At his feet stood a little lassie, whom he overlooked, and whose countenance, as she saw the red cloth diminishing and likewise her chances, displayed the most vivid play of emotion. Finally, when the last yard of the stuff had been given out and she had got none of it, two large tears formed and ran down her cheeks. Poor little thing, but ten minutes ago she had braved it with the best of them, but her skirt had now suddenly gone out of style! ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... half-raising veils which hide what it instinctively shrinks from, sending through it unexpected thrills and shocks; large-hearted in indulgence, yet exacting; most tender, yet most severe. And against all this real play of nature he sets in their full force and depth the great ideas of God, of sin, and of the Cross; and, appealing not to the intelligence of an aristocracy of choice natures, but to the needs and troubles and longings which make all men one, he claimed ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... own volition, to admit or free some ghostly guest. The dwelling was known as the Roscoe house, a family of that name having lived there for some years, and then, one by one, disappeared, the last to leave being an old woman. Stories of foul play and successive murders had always been rife, but ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... my little niece," said Kuhleborn, "that I am with you here as a guide; otherwise those madcap spirits of the earth, the gnomes that haunt this forest, would play you some of their mischievous pranks. Let me therefore still accompany you in peace. Even the old priest there had a better recollection of me than you have; for he just now assured me that I seemed to be very familiar to him, and that I must have ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... Jones strutted his brief hour on this stage in which the play had been both a bloodcurdling tragedy and a comedy; and now he was to step down and out. In the last act he had said, "I have done it!" And he had done it! He and his fellow conspirators, whether of high or low degree, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... large blow-pipe, such as the blow-pipe of a Fletcher crucible furnace, Select a length of tubing and clean it. Lash one end to the cylinder by means of a bit of wire, and hold the other end out nearly horizontally. Then start the blow-pipe to play on the tube just where it runs on to the asbestos cylinder, and at first right up to the lashing. Get an attendant to assist in turning the handle of the windlass, always keeping his eye on the tube, and never turning so fast as to tilt the tube upwards. By means of the blow-pipe, ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... beard is evident from what he says at the close of the play, when his daughter is about to be married to Lysimachus, governor of Mitylene (Act ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... for they were destroyed in the wilderness. [10:6]But these things are examples for us, that we should not desire evil things, as they did. [10:7]Neither be idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written; The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. [10:8]Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them did and fell in one day twenty-three thousand. [10:9]Neither let us try Christ, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. [10:10]Neither ...
— The New Testament • Various
... take you on to the Tavern in the car," she said. "Turn about is fair play. I cannot ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... what trick Gottlieb would be able to play, I accordingly arranged my work so as to attend the hearing, which was to be held in the referee's office in an old wooden building on Broadway. As I climbed the stairs I caught sight of Hawkins skulking on ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... the boy to bring you some food,' said the doctor. 'It's a rotten game to play tricks with ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... the old spinet. She liked it very much herself. Doris was quite wild over it. Madam Royal begged that she might be allowed to take lessons on it with the girls. Uncle Winthrop said in a year or two she might have one if she liked it and could learn to play. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... morals, the training of the hand, and the enlightenment of the mind. With an informed mind, a skillful hand, and an upright conduct, there is no reason why the Negro should not take his place upon the stage of action; play well his part in the drama of life, and meritoriously receive the plaudits of the gazing ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... "We can't play well, sir," Tom answered, his spirits rising again, "but we have practiced for some time, and know a ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... within her by Margaret's speech surged up to meet the crisis. She was no longer an isolated atom, a girl fresh from home, and on trial before the critical eyes of her new form, but a unit in the great life of the school, bound to play her part for the good of the whole, and specially pledged not to fail Garnet in this emergency. Self faded in the larger vision. The color flooded back into her face. She made a desperate effort, and ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... my idea. Jack and Ben Armstrong had been friends since boyhood and Jack, quick-tempered as he was, was warm-hearted and loyal. It was like him to decide suddenly to go to Ben and make friends. He had been to a play in the evening which had more or less that motif; he was open to such influences. It was like the pair of them, after the reconciliation, to set to work looking at Jack's new toy, the pistol. It was a brand-new ...
— The Lifted Bandage • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... curious to see the junks and other craft suddenly burst into full blazes of light, like so many monstrous fire-flies, to disappear and reappear as the lights came and went. Thus is the mid-strait city lighted and policed and thus have steps been taken to lessen the number of cases of foul play where people have left the wharves at night for some vessel in the strait, never to ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... spasmodically at the nest throughout the hours of daylight. For ten minutes or so they would bring in piece after piece of moss at a great pace and then indulge in a little relaxation. All work and no play makes a tit a ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... is, after all, one of extreme realism, which should also result in an increase of interest. As the series developed, however, I perceived that something more than a new short story form was involved; I perceived that the "read-aloud" play has a distinct character and function of its own. In the long run, everything human rises or falls to the level of speech. The culminating point, even of action the most poignant or emotion the most intimate, is where it finds the right word or phrase by which it is translated ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... which are now spring-like idyls and now wintry episodes, now sombre etchings and now gayly-colored pastels—in all the works of the story-teller we see the firm grasp of the dramatist. The characters speak for themselves; each reveals himself with the swift directness of the personages of a play. They are not talked about and about, for all analysis has been done by the playwright before he rings up the curtain in the first paragraph. And the story unrolls itself, also, as rapidly as does a comedy. The movement is straightforward. There is the cleverness ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... the Aga of cavalry, venting a sigh of relief, which propelled a miniature gunshot half-way across the room; "that enables me to decide the course which I shall pursue, and gives us a little breathing-time before entering on the final act of the play." ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the art of the chef, and the wine flows freely. The flow of animal spirits increases proportionately; conviviality, wit and humor rise by leaps and bounds. But the apparent joy and happiness are in reality nothing but the play of the lower animal impulses, unrestrained by the higher powers of mind ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... men, prominent men, & I believe they are all educated men. They are well off; some of them are wealthy. They have a lot of books to read, they play games & smoke, & for a while they will be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for long, not for very long, I take it. I am told they have times of deadly brooding and depression. I made them a speech—sitting down. It just happened ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... mere pretence. I wonder you are not ashamed to play on his honourable feelings, when you know everything is changed, and that it is absolutely ridiculous and derogatory for a peer of the realm to stoop to a mere drudge of ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when, hunting in the forest of Rouen, he got the news of Harold's coronation—play with his bow, stringing and unstringing it nervously, till he had made up his mighty mind? Then did he go home to his lodge, and there spread on the rough oak board a parchment map of England, which no child would deign to learn from now, but was then good enough to guide ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... depositum. But, good heaven! that fellow is a wild ferocious beast. He says, it is a bargain; that the receiver is the thief, and not the bidder. He insists on having the patent for the monopoly dispatched; if not, he swears he will play the deuce. ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... Mr. Symmes." She turned from the window and glanced at the wizenedness, the fragile remainder of the man, the almost empty shell. It was a pity he wasn't able to play games with her like some of the others. That made it so much easier. "Don't you think it's about time you went to bed? Early to bed and early ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... go, if he would be sure to be careful. He was often allowed to visit his father's lumber yard, for it was known he would be safe there. And Johnnie's mother said he might go also. So the little fellows trudged away, leaving the girls to play dolls ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... may our merchant princes modestly play their part, Speeding the silent process of soldering heart to heart, Just as the forces of Nature silently swell the bud, For blood may be thicker than water, but Trade is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... down the staircase, along the portico he passed, as swiftly as though he carried but a child. The wind came damp and cold against his cheek, the rain poured pitilessly upon his head, the arrowy lightning seemed to play around his feet, but manfully he hurried on with his precious charge. The gate was reached; he paused but an instant to hail the groom and take breath, then slid into the moat, and in a short space stood safe upon the other side. ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... bring just one jot or tittle from the Scriptures in defence, and I will call you a hero. On what foundation have you builded, however? On your own dreams; and yet you boast you will argue against me with the Scriptures. It was not necessary for you thus to play the fool against me, I should have had a fool to overcome at ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... was light down at the railroad station, anyhow. If you had any sand—thunder, but I did get up early this morning! Say, do you play tennis?" ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... speech that makes it peculiarly interesting, however, is its strength in the advocacy of the Union. Seward believed that he had a difficult role to play. Had he so desired he could not support the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line, for the President-elect had ruled inflexibly against it; neither could he openly oppose it, lest it hurry the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... very little hope goes to the head Eke wine to the brain of a faster, and, though still very tremulous, Grace could even smile a little now and was almost cheerful. Secretly already she was beginning to play false with fate, and, in flat repudiation of her last night's compact, to indulge the hope that her soldier had not been even wounded. But this was only at the bottom of her heart. She did not own to herself that she really did it. She felt a little safer ...
— An Echo Of Antietam - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... this time; but let all the officers; and then I shall be able to play them a little trick that will make us ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... set, but yet I linger still, Gazing with rapture on the face of night; And mountain wild, deep vale, and heathy hill, Lay like a lovely vision, mellow, bright, Bathed in the glory of the sunset light, Whose changing hues in flick'ring radiance play, Faint and yet fainter on the outstretch'd sight, Until at length they wane and die away, And all th' horizon round fades ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... words. At any instant the savages might return to complete their devilish task; the chance of beating them back, slight as it was must be made the most of. Our last card was staked on that, and we grimly prepared to play it. Eight men were assigned to the loopholes—there were four on each side of the shuttered windows—and five others, including Christopher Burley, brought powder and ball, and set to work to load spare rifles. The rest were sent back to watch at ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... went to it again briskly for more than four glasses. At this time we saw the Duchess steer ahead to windward, clear of the enemy, as I supposed to stop her leaks or repair her rigging. Meanwhile the Marquis kept the enemy in play, till the Duchess again bore down, when each fired a broadside or two, and left off because it grew dark. They then bore south of us in the Duke, which was right to windward, distant about two leagues; and about ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... no children for her to play with! What if she did not have fine clothes and beautiful toys! In summer there were always the birds in the forest, and the flowers in the fields and meadows,—the birds sang so sweetly, and the flowers ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... but Mary first, David having been sent into Germany with the Army of Occupation. Modest announcements in the theatrical columns informed an indifferent theater-going world that Miss Marie Courtenay, an actress new to Broadway, was to play the ingenue part in the latest comedy by a highly popular dramatist. Immediately upon the production, the theater-going world ceased to be indifferent to the new actress; in fact, it went into one of its occasional furores about her. Not that she was in any way a great ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... he would not. That, at any rate, no fantastic refinement of fair play could demand of him. He knew his mind at least on this point; he would answer at once, and he got out a sheet of paper for his refusal. It was easy to write the number of his house, and the street, and Cullerne, and the formal "My lord," which he used again for the address. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... was to be a man in the fullest sense of the word—man in the most complete development of his bodily strength and beauty, in the active exercise of the keenest senses, in the greatest because tempered enjoyment of sensual pleasure, in the free and joyous play of an intellect strong by nature, graced and guided by the most exquisite taste, and enlightened by the sublimest philosophy." Thus, beauty was so important to the Greek that every parent prayed that his children might have this gift, and the names ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... sometimes get up at five o'clock in the morning in order to fill the tank. Then, in his shirt sleeves, his big stomach almost bursting from his trousers, he would pump wildly, so that on returning from the office he could have the satisfaction of letting the fountain play and of imagining that it ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... never lost a strain. When she got through, I asked her to play it again. She did it with a pleased alacrity and a heightened enthusiasm. She made it ALL discords, this time. She got an amount of anguish into the cries of the wounded that shed a new light on human suffering. She was on the war-path all the evening. All the time, crowds of people gathered ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of bridges, by imitation stairways, and other illusory communications which the phantasmagoria of human eloquence can always establish between incompatible things and which procure for man, if not the acquisition of a truth, at least a pleasure in the play of words. The ascendancy of the Catholic faith over these uncertain, inconsequent, tormented souls is more or less weak or strong according to time, place, circumstance, individuals and groups; in the larger group it has diminished, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Remus enters the fields of childhood, and leads another little boy to that non-locatable land called "Brer Rabbit's Laughing Place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play their parts, for the edification of a ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... which at first were considered only as inexpedient, from being opposed to self-love, at length and insensibly come to be considered as immoral. This can be considered as nothing more than an ingenious play upon words, and deserves only to be mentioned as a historical fact, in a view of those speculations by which this important subject has been obscured ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... one day, on the ridge of the Cordilleras, inhabit towns higher than the summit of the volcano we were to scale on the morrow. As the temperature diminished, the peak became covered with thick clouds. The approach of night interrupts the play of the ascending current, which, during the day, rises from the plains towards the high regions of the atmosphere; and the air, in cooling, loses its capacity of suspending water. A strong northerly wind chased the clouds; the moon at intervals, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... And, in truth, the seventeenth century gave many ladies to the stage, Mrs. Barry being the most famous of them. Like many eminent actors, she was famous for the way in which she would utter one single expression in a play. Dr. Doran gives some curious instances from later actors. "What mean my grieving subjects?" uttered in the character of Queen Elizabeth, was invested by her with such emphatic grace and dignity as to call up murmurs of approbation [87] which swelled into thunders of applause. Her noble head ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... whup yer, whe'r ur no, baby? Now I gwine meck a bargain wid yer. You set down an' write, an' I gwine play de pianner on de washboa'd, an' to-night you can read off what yer done put down, an' ef yer done written it purty an' sweet, you can come an' turn de flutin'-machine fur me ter-morrer. Yer gwine meck de ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... for work and time for play, but as the former is usually out of the question, that very moment our should-be-home instructors are guilty of ...
— Plain Facts • G. A. Bauman
... have more freedom of choice regarding the places they play in and the ways in which they play there than do people at the urban center. Many of them live fairly close to outlying parks and open areas, and if good planning gains in strength and effectiveness as the metropolis spreads, this neighborhood ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... tell you: I happened to be sitting at his right hand, near the bed, upon a low seat, but he himself sat much higher than I. Stroking my head, then, and laying hold of the hair that hung on my neck—for he used, often, to play with my hairs—"To-morrow," he said, "perhaps, Phaedo, you will cut ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... only to suffer ignominies?" I asked. "Why have you made me with pride that cannot be satisfied, with desires that turn and rend me? Is it a jest, this world—a joke you play on your guests? I—even I—have a better ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... these matters were concluded, and the future of Poictesme had been arranged in every detail, then Miramon Lluagor's wife told him that long words and ink-bottles and red seals were well enough for men to play with, but that it was high time something sensible was done in this matter, unless they expected Niafer to bring up the ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... speeches as the one which you have just made do not indicate something totally wrong in our modern life. You, for instance, have no profession, Charlie, and you devote your life to a systematic course of what is nothing more or less than pleasure-seeking. You hunt or you shoot, you play polo or golf, you come to town or you live in the country, entirely according to the seasons. If any one asked you why you had not chosen a profession, you would as good as tell them that it was because you were a rich man and had no need to work for your living. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 378; annoy &c. 830; injure., harm, wrong; do harm to, do an ill office to; outrage; disoblige, malign, plant a thorn in the breast. molest, worry, harass, haunt, harry, bait, tease; throw stones at; play the devil with; hunt down, dragoon, hound; persecute, oppress, grind; maltreat; illtreat, ill-use. wreak one's malice on, do one's worst, break a butterfly on the wheel; dip one's hands in blood, imbrue one's hands in blood; have no mercy &c. 914a. Adj. malevolent, unbenevolent; unbenign; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... render it impossible to even get them alongside, and there is no help for it but either to cut the line or pull up anchor and land him on the shore. Even then the task of despatching one of these creatures is no child's play on a dark night, for they lash their long tails about with such fury that a broken leg might be the result of coming too close. In the rivers of Northern Queensland the saw-fish attain an enormous size, and the Chinese fishermen about Cooktown and Townsville often have their nets destroyed by ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... were in play, this is in earnest," she said, "and for luck. Good-night, companion, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... side there was the same grit and endurance, the same love of fair play. But added to that the Americans had fought for a great cause. Their hearts were in it, as the hearts of the British had never been. This was their great advantage. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... nobody afterwards could say. There is no doubt that the little Vicomte's sword-play had become more and more wild: that he uncovered himself in the most reckless way, whilst lunging wildly at his opponent's breast, until at last, in one of these mad, unguarded moments, he seemed literally to throw himself upon ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... not till about the middle of the play, and after a narcotic had been administered to him, that Anthony got there; but we were in Wonderland almost from the start, without the aid of drugs. For we were asked to believe that Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY was a visionary, amorous of an ideal which no earthly woman could ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... had a letter to-day from Mr. Chorley; he has been staying all the autumn with Sir William Molesworth, now a Cabinet Minister, but he complains terribly about his own health, notwithstanding he has a play coming out at the Olympic, which Mr. Wigan has taken. Mrs. Kingsley, a most sweet person, has a cough which has forced them to send her to the sea. You shall be sure to see both him and Mr. Willmott if I can compass it; but we live, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... ground of confidence. We find that all the great nobles retained in their service one or more of these tabellarii. Cicero was often disquieted by the thought that his letters might have miscarried; at times he dared not write at all, so great was the risk of accident or foul play. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... that the Archbishop had maintained that future, as distinguished from endless punishments, were doubtful. We are told that 'when this sermon of hell was first published, it was handed about among the great debauchees and small atheistical wits more than any new play that ever came out. He was not a man of fashion who wanted one of them in his pocket, or could draw it out at the coffee-house.'[278] In certain drawing-rooms, too, where prudery was not the fault, there were many fashionable ladies who would pass from ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton |
