"Playing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good touch you have!" she said, sitting down by the piano, and apparently quite unaware of the storm. "I love music dearly, and I thought perhaps you'd let me come and listen to your playing for a little while. The fingering of that 'Serenade' is awfully hard, isn't it? I thought I should never get it, myself—never did, really well, in fact! Do you ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... with natural and artificial beauties, Grottoes, fountains, lakes, cascades, terraces of flowers, statuary, arbors and foliage in endless variety, that rendered it a miniature paradise. In these grounds, darting in and out among the avenues, playing hide-and-seek behind the statuary, or otherwise amusing themselves, I met eight lovely children, ranging from infancy to young maidenhood. The glowing cheeks and eyes, and supple limbs spoke of perfect health and happiness. When they ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... and fair towards the south, stretching deep into winding creeks, and hemmed in by jutting promontories, and shelving smooth off towards the shallow side. On its bosom the reflected fire of the sun lay playing, and seeming to float upon ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... was turned out into the stables, 'there as a mulett to attend his master's mule.' Here he remained till a Mr Carew, a kinsman, happened to come to the French Court, and near the Court gate passed 'sundry lackeys and horseboys playing together, one of whom called to another, "Carew Anglois! Carew Anglois!"' This attracted Mr Carew's attention. He called the boy and questioned him, and finding 'Carew Anglois' to be his cousin, Mr Carew took him under his protection, rebuked ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... distinguished client was engaging the attention of Mr. Dowling, Senior, of Messrs. Dowling, Spence & Company, auctioneers and estate agents, whose offices were situated in Waterloo Place, Pall Mall. Mr. Dowling was a fussy little man of between fifty and sixty years, who spent most of his time playing golf, and who, although he studiously contrived to ignore the fact, had long since lost touch with the details of his business. Consequently, in the absence of Mr. Dowling, Junior, who had developed a marked partiality for a certain bar in the locality, Tavernake was hastily summoned ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had invented the ceremonies of worship, as a means of attracting the reverence of the people, while they were playing the parts of gods, of whom they styled themselves the interpreters and mediators, to assume all their powers; that, with this design, they had (according to the degree of ignorance or information of their people) assumed by turns the character ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... leavest thou me to die, O my guest? since to this the name of husband is dwindled down. For what do I wait? till Pygmalion overthrow his sister's city, or Gaetulian Iarbas lead me to captivity? At least if before thy flight a child of thine had been clasped in my arms,—if a tiny Aeneas were playing in my hall, whose face might yet image thine,—I would not think myself ensnared ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... a door, it observed very attentively, then put a piece of wood in the keyhole, and tried to turn it round. Having been scratched by a cat with which it was playing, it could never be induced to touch pussy again. It untied knots easily, and regularly practised upon the shoes of those who came near. It could lift very heavy burdens, and made as good use of its hind as of its fore legs; for ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... so engaging, his humility so genuine, that her manner underwent a swift and agreeable change. She advanced slowly to the fireplace, a shy, abashed smile playing about her lips. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... put on to stay a while. They told me we were so fond of playing the noble red man's part that they would fix me so I could play it for a week or two. Some of them advised me to use sand to scrub myself with if I hoped ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... boys went into the kitchen again, leaving our tutors playing at chess, which Mr Clare was trying to teach Captain Mugford. That kitchen was a favourite resort of ours in the evenings, and Clump and Juno liked to have us there. There was a famous fire—three or four fresh logs singing over a red mass of coal; plenty of ashes; and ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... been considerably out of our way to go round by the floating bridge*, permission was applied for and granted, to pass directly through Bayonne. With bayonets fixed, band playing, and colours flying, we accordingly marched along the streets of that city; a large proportion of the garrison being drawn up to receive us, and the windows crowded with spectators, male and female, eager to behold the troops from whom not long ago they had probably ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... that hast truth for thy prowess. O Bharata, I am an adept at dice, superior to all in the world. I can ascertain the success or otherwise of every throw, and when to stake and when not. I have special knowledge of the game. The Son of Kunti also is fond of dice playing though he possesseth little skill in it. Summoned to play or battle, he is sure to come forward, and I will defeat him repeatedly at every throw by practising deception. I promise to win all that wealth of his, and thou, O Duryodhana, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... ORGANIZATION.—Men should be given a certain amount of theoretical instruction as to the composition of the armies now on the western front; this in order that they may see the part that grenadiers and bombers are playing in the struggle. They should be shown the organization of the British Infantry and how the first section of each platoon is composed exclusively of bombers and—rifle grenadiers; they should also be taught how the bombers and grenadiers are concentrated in the French organization. The typical bombing ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... crowded. All the benches were occupied and men who were unable to find seats stood around in groups. There was noisy conversation and singing and shouting. Nearly everyone was drinking beer. Those who sat at the tables were playing cards. The air was thick with tobacco-smoke. Two or three candles were burning on every table. And all at once, without any warning, the thunder was loosened upon us. There was an ear-splitting roar and in a moment candles were swept away, benches ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... deliberate. Scarlatti leads to Haydn, Haydn to Mozart and hence, through Beethoven, to modern music. That Handel foresaw this I do not doubt, nor yet that he felt, as I do myself, that modern music means something, I know not what, which is not what I mean by music. It is playing another game and has set itself aims which, no doubt, are excellent but which ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... is written largely in symbols. In Revelation 14:2,3 and 15:2,3 we find a brief description of a class of glorious beings who are playing upon their harps, and these are described as the 'harps of God'. The harp here is used as a sign or symbol of some great truth, or feature of the divine program; in fact, a great deal of the Bible is written in symbolic phrase. The ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... all these, our friend Nature jumps up and greets us with new greetings. The cool wind and the pretty birds and wonderful little flowers and giant-like rocks help us to feel the presence of God. We cannot appreciate all these when we are walking with the crowd and talking and playing, but, if we are left alone when we go out to see God, then even the stones and tiny flowers which we often see look like a mystery to us. In thinking about them we can feel ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... men are away hunting, the younger boys spend the day shooting, fishing, swimming, and playing games. If they wish to throw mud balls at each other, no one scolds them for being dirty. But if one of them whimpers or cries, his companions will not let him play. So the Indian boy learns early in life to bear ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor
... interesting time for Ken. There was always something lively going on. He wondered when the boys studied. When some of the outside students dropped in there were banjo and guitar playing, college songs, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... if we only knew,' says Despard, yawning. 'What do you say, Haughton?' looking at Starlight, who was playing with his glass and not listening much by the ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... little child, with curling hair, running, playing among the flowers, like a flower itself of life and love, and ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... Seville, that no one dared to try it. His daughter would not, though she is a professor of music herself. After her father's death she went into the convent as a novice. Her unwillingness to play was the most natural thing in the world; accustomed as she was to those marvellous performances, any other playing must have appeared bad to her, not to speak of her desire to avoid comparisons. But when the sisterhood had already decided that in honor of the dead organist, and as a token of respect to his memory, the organ should not be played to-night, here comes this fellow along, and says that he is ready ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... nights of the remolienda, [a popular gathering or festival in Chile] his glance was many times distracted from the dark-hued and youthful beauties dancing the Zamacueca [the national dance of Chile.] in the middle of the room, to the matrons swathed in black veils, who were playing the harp and piano, accompanying the dance with languishing songs which interested him greatly. Perhaps one of these sentimental, bearded ladies might have ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... indictment the Count d'Auzers had written folios in the French and German newspapers. At the end of the memorandum Cavour transcribed an extract from Santa Rosa's work, in which he invoked the advent of an Italian Washington. Was that the part which Cavour dreamed of playing? A few years after, he wrote in a fit of despondency, "There was a time when I should have thought it the most natural thing in the world that I should wake up one morning prime minister of a kingdom of Italy." The words written ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... winced, and Tommy urged, "Come to Capella with me. You can stay with my family as long as you want to, and appeal to the Interplanet authority to find your father. They'd protect him against the Lhari, surely. You can't chase all over the galaxy playing interplanetary spy all by ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... go elsewhere. It was a pleasant walk. When she had passed the last house, the bank sloped in open uncared-for grass where cows were grazing. Only here and there she had seen a house-door open, and as yet in this place no one was abroad except a boy who was playing idly in a boat, which was drawn half up on ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... something mild and kindly and rather feeble, for there was some other and stronger force keeping me back. I yearned to move nearer, but I could not drag my limbs an inch. There was a spell somewhere which I could not break. I do not think I was in any way frightened now. The starry influence was playing tricks with me, but my mind was half asleep. Only I never took my eyes from the little tower. I think I could not, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... expect plain sailing all the time she warned her. She must expect to be up against it frequently. She must keep her class motto in mind and not expect everything to be dead easy. It was hard not to be able to claim one's beautiful mother; but she was playing a part; she was on the stage in costume, and the part-she-was-playing's mother's name wasn't Middleton nor Moss and was Augusta Pritchard. She must keep her motto in mind and say continually to herself: "Act well your part, there ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... whispered, "I wish to speak with you when I can get my breath. Peter, you think poorly of me, do you not? No—be silent; it is my turn to talk. You think that I am heartless, and have been playing with you. Well, I only did it to make sure that you really do love me, since, after that—accident of a while ago (when we were picking up the violets, I mean), you would have been in honour bound to say it, would you not? Well, now I am quite sure, so I will tell you something. ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... stumbled forward, a bevy of squaws lashed him with corded whips. I caught one glimpse of his face in the light of the flames; it was that of a young soldier I recalled having seen the evening before within the Fort, playing a violin. He was a brave lad, and although his face was pale and drawn by suffering, he fronted the crazed mob that buffeted him with no sign of fear, his eyes roving about as if still seeking some possible avenue of escape. Once he sprang suddenly aside, tripping a giant brave who grasped ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... in this way, singly, playing his instrument, had sung his sistine, they danced altogether in a circle and sang together in praise of the one Nymph with the softest accents a song which I am not sure whether I ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... with the long face, scant beard, black skull-cap, and plain crimped ruff. His visage is pulled into so solemn a length that were we at home in Edinburgh, I should expect to see him ascend a pulpit, and deliver a screed to us all on the iniquities of dancing and playing on the lute!" ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to think longingly of the basket of food which she had left in the tent and wondering if it would do for her to go after it while Madge stayed on guard. As she sat deliberating as to what course of action would be the wisest, a sudden commotion arose among the children playing on the deck of the shanty boat. The dog began to bark furiously. "Mammy, here comes Pap," the oldest ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... The last of the Roman musicians were either killed or became tramp-fiddlers going from city to city and playing in the street, and begging for pennies like the harpist on ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... said Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to pour in the right elements—genuine observation, humor and passion. But it is precisely this absence of rigid requirement which constitutes the fatal seduction of novel-writing to incompetent women. Ladies are not wont to be very grossly deceived as to their power of playing on the piano; here certain positive difficulties of execution have to be conquered, and incompetence inevitably breaks down. Every art which has its absolute technique is, to a certain extent, guarded from the intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility. ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... under the low-swaying boughs, showed the old red wall of the tavern, and against it a great mass of blooming phlox, all vague with distance like purple smoke. Over on the left, fence rails glistened purple in the sun and wind—a bluebird sat on a crumbling post and sang. But the young men and girls playing Copenhagen saw and heard nothing ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she fleets herself off that bit of a scrape she's playing at now. Well, what a hand she is at it, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... obliteration was not superficial merely, and must have been achieved by processes at once subtle and profound. The result obtained, however, showed unquestionably charming—if in a line slightly finical and exotic—as she picked her way through the fragrant undergrowth of the pine wood, slanting sunshine playing on her dark blue raiment, wide-brimmed ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... be considered as the Minerva of the Hindoos. She is the goddess of music as well as of speech. To her is attributed the invention of the systematic arrangement of the sounds into a musical scale. She is represented seated on a peacock and playing a stringed instrument of the guitar kind. Brahma, himself, we find depicted as a vigorous man with four handsome heads, beating with his hands upon a small drum. Arid Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, is represented as a beautiful ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... and sisters like it no better than I do. I hate this town with its rampant, affected fashion and frivolities! It is all a pretence! The people are naturally saints, and they are absurd and detestable, scheming to make the most of both worlds—going to meeting and quoting texts—and then playing that they are men and women of fashion. Mother, let us go home at once. Lucinda can pack our trunks to-day, and we ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... His faithful horse, Little Sorrel, had been worn out by incessant marchings and must rest for a while. The people gave him a splendid horse, but one that had not been broken well. The first time he mounted it a band happened to begin playing, the horse sprang wildly, the saddle girth broke and Jackson was thrown heavily to ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... first, but she can't help her eyebrows; and when you come to know her there is a vast deal in her- thought, and originality, and purpose. I am sure it has been good for Gerald. He has seemed more definite and in earnest lately, less as if he were playing with everything, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... young man," said the traveller; "and as for my intelligence, I have for some time known the finesses of this Master Bulmer as perfectly as if I had been at his elbow when he was playing all his dog's tricks with this family. You would hardly suspect now," he continued, in a confidential tone, "that what you were so desirous a while ago should take place, has in some sense actually happened, and that the marriage ceremony has ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... fidelity and attachment were exemplary, notwithstanding this low account at which her perfections were rated—"Why, sir," cries the Doctor, "being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited, and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best, and commonly destroy the tree ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... stable and prosperous of the post-Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. Growth in 2000-07 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 the availability of credit cards and mortgages increases. The current account deficit has declined to around 3.3% of GDP as demand for automotive and other products ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... which has been reached is that which gives you a contingent fund, which seems to have been adequate for the meager necessities of the past, but I believe that up to this hour the exact part your board is playing in connection with making this exposition a success, is far too indefinite to be satisfactory to you, and it is certainly not satisfactory to the Commission. Our Commission will adjourn to meet on the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... on her and did not leave her for ten days, at the end of which time she began to mend. So I left the house and went to my shop, where I sat buying and selling. About mid-day a great ugly black slave came into the bazaar, having in his hand one of the three apples, with which he was playing; so I called to him and said, "Prithee, good slave, tell me whence thou hadst that apple, that I may get the fellow to it." He laughed and answered, "I had it of my mistress; for I had been absent and on my return ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... really thought it possible till to-day when you were playing ball and it went in at the upper window, and Ben climbed up the porch after it; you remember you said, 'If it had gone in at the garret gable you couldn't have done that so well;' and he answered, 'Yes, I could, there isn't a spout I can't shin ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... Wait until you have to tell that story in court. You know the first rule of equity? Do you go into court with clean hands? There is a day of reckoning coming to you, young woman, and to these other meddlers here—whether they are playing politics or meddling just ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... experience that I have yet to see a case in which both the child's nutrition and discipline cannot be efficiently maintained at one and the same time, though it does sometimes require adroit scientific and artistic management. But the game we are playing is worth the effort—the battle must be fought—and it can be fought with the least suffering and sorrowing the earlier the conflict is waged to a ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... terrific vengeance upon his betrayers came very close to him, but passed him by. This chance occurred in 1505, when—Queen Isabella being dead—King Ferdinand discovered that Gonzalo de Cordoba was playing him false in Naples. The Spanish king conceived a plan—according to the chronicles of Zurita—to employ Cesare as a flail for the punishment of the Great Captain. He proposed to liberate the duke, set him at the head of an army, and loose ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... revealed the United States to the world and to its own people as a great nation playing a mighty role in international affairs. Most Europeans had not suspected the extent of its power. Even the Americans did not realize it. Nevertheless, the processes of economic empire building had laid a foundation upon which the superstructure of political empire is reared as a matter ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... 1488-1489; he was in close relations with France and Denmark, and caused anxieties to the first Tudor king, Henry VII., who kept up the Douglas alliance with Angus, and bought over Scottish politicians. While James, as his account-books show, was playing cards with Angus, that traitor was also negotiating the sale of Hermitage Castle, the main hold of the Middle Border, to England. He was detected, and the castle was intrusted to a Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell; it was still held by Queen Mary's Bothwell ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... houses. The father of this person had lately lost all his property at Talcahuano, and he himself had only just escaped a falling roof at Valparaiso, in 1822. He mentioned a curious coincidence which then happened: he was playing at cards, when a German, one of the party, got up, and said he would never sit in a room in these countries with the door shut, as owing to his having done so, he had nearly lost his life at Copiapo. Accordingly he opened the door; and no ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... into the town, and, in fine, that he was sure to please all the ladies. Meanwhile the drumming in the streets continued, and I went out before the house-door and looked at the French troops marching in that joyous people of glory, who, singing and playing, swept over the world, the serious and yet merry-faced grenadiers, the bear-skin shakoes, the tri-colored cockades, the glittering bayonets, the voltigeurs, full of vivacity and point d'honneur, and the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... barred, who perchance would have been wiser to follow Basil. A debased and fraudulent lawyer of no character at all, this man lived upon such fees as he could wring without authority from those who came to lay their suits before the Papal Court, playing upon their hopes and fears and pretending to a power which he did not possess. Had they done so, they might have seen him turn up a certain side street, and, when he was sure that none watched him, slip into the portal of an ancient house where visitors of ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... nestling under limestone hills, where the scream of the railway whistle is seldom heard and the smoke of the factory darkens not the long summer days? Away, in the smooth "Flying Dutchman"; past Windsor's glorious towers and Eton's playing-fields; past the little village and churchyard where a century and a half ago the famous "Elegy" was written, and where, hard by "those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade," yet rests the body of the mighty poet, Gray. How those lines run in one's ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... warn us of the presence of deception, and will prevent its playing a part. I have attempted to compile forms of it according to intent, and will here ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... lighthouse before the night made the rough track dangerous. The sky was threatening, and had to the west and north-west an aspect ominous of storm. It was on that night that Wallingford was swept almost out of existence by a tornado. Before we arrived at the lighthouse the lightning was playing brilliantly over the dense mass of clouds that overhung the Connecticut shore. Gradually the black bank drifted eastward, and then to the south, and as it drew near the rumble of the thunder became more audible. By and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knoweth his going down," we read in the Rig-Veda X. 85, 18, in a verse addressed to sun and moon, "They walk by their own power, one after the other (or from east to west), as playing children they go round the sacrifice. The one looks upon all the worlds, the other is born again and again, determining ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... 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 ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... diameter at the top, and forty-four feet deep. Below twenty-seven feet it contracts to nineteen inches, so that the turf thrown in completely chokes it. Steam collects below; a foaming scum covers the surface of the water, and in a quarter of an hour it surges up the pipe. The fountain then begins playing, sending its bundles of jets rather higher than those of the Great Geyser, flinging up the clods of turf which have been its obstruction like a number of rockets. This magnificent display continues for a quarter of an hour or twenty ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... said I, "at the Hotel de—, Rue de Rivoli, au second at present; next year, I suppose, according to the usual gradations in the life of a garcon, I shall be au troisieme: for here the purse and the person seem to be playing at see-saw—the latter rises ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs. Nunsuch, as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever before, from walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... should have summoned him out of mere presumption, seized him by the throat and strangled him. When Agrippa returned, a few days afterwards, he found his house beset with devils. Some of them were sitting on the chimneypots, kicking up their legs in the air; while others were playing at leapfrog, on the very edge of the parapet. His study was so filled with them that he found it difficult to make his way to his desk. When, at last, he had elbowed his way through them, he found his book open, and the student lying dead upon the floor. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... not arranged his campaign, but he was determined to raise himself in the world by playing on the fears of the man he had ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... that she was forced to sing the six verses twice and for a third encore the entire family responded with "The Washington Post March" which enabled Mr. Snow, who had tottered down from his aerie, to again demonstrate his versatility by playing the concertina with long, yellow fingers, beating the cymbals and working the snare-drum ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... two before the breakfast party broke up. Then, for the amusements of the morning, there was reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttle-cock, in the great room; practising with pistols in the hall; walking—riding—cricket—sailing on the lake, playing with the bear, or teasing the wolf. Between seven and eight we dined; and our evening lasted from that time till one, two, or three in the morning. The evening ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... in the castle, too, for occasionally they could be seen frantically spurring their defenders on to renewed exertions. Others may have been playing the part of prisoners, for the boys discovered a white handkerchief waving from a window in one of the turrets, as though to encourage the assailants in their work. Perhaps this was Rebecca ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... of this tune when he plays it slow: in fact he makes it the language of despair. I shall here give you two stanzas, in that style, merely to try if it will be any improvement. Were it possible, in singing, to give it half the pathos which Frazer gives it in playing, it would make an admirably pathetic song. I do not give these verses for any merit they have. I composed them at the time in which "Patie Allan's mither died—that was about the back o' midnight;" and by the lee-side of a bowl of punch, which had ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... back involuntarily. He found conversation with detectives as lively as playing at skittles with bombshells. They got on his nerves terribly, these undemonstrative gentlemen with ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... ten years he had been blind, deaf, and crazy, having lost his reason not very long after the jubilee, which celebrated the fiftieth year of his reign (1809). Once, in a lucid interval, he was found by the Queen singing a hymn and playing an accompaniment on ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... to the brethren at Nain. He was in the beginning apparently very earnest in seeking his soul's salvation and was baptized in 1801. But he afterwards fell into temptation, and again took refuge in his old practices, playing at the same time the part of a most consummate hypocrite: being discovered, he was excluded; yet when his health began to decline, the missionaries waited upon him, and as they saw him drawing apparently near his end, were the more earnest in exhorting him to turn to Jesus, who alone could deliver ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... to you some of the innocent mirth of those "evenings" in Troy—those noctes Limpennianae when the ladies brought their cap-boxes (though the Buzzas and Limpennys were but semi-detached neighbours), and the Admiral and his wife insisted on playing against each other, so that the threepenny points never affected their weekly accounts. Those were happy days when the young men were not above singing the "Death of Nelson," or joining in a glee, and arming the young ladies home afterwards. In those days "Hocken's Slip" had ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Ahi as meaning he who causes his waters to rise, and recognizes this personage as being, among other things, a form of the Nile. The interpretation offered by myself is borne out by the many scenes representing the child of Hathor playing upon the sistrum and the monait. Moreover, ahi, ahit is an invariable title of the priests and priestesses whose office it is, during religious ceremonies, to strike the sistrum, and that other mystic musical instrument, the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... stand the thirst no longer, and asked her husband to go for a drink for her; the brats, she said, were of course running about and playing themselves, just as she had expected they would, little ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... used to split rails; every other town has its wagon-load of thirty-one girls in white to represent the States; bands of music, numerous almost as those of McClellan on Arlington Heights in 1862, are playing; old men of the War of 1812, with their old wives, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, are here: making a procession of human beings, horses, and carriages not less than ten miles in length. And yet the procession might ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... been playing him tricks, a trap of some kind had been opened above his head and someone had looked in at him; yet—and his fingers were trained to such work—he was prepared to swear that the surface of the Chinese paper covering the wall ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... troubled morning for Hannibal. Before he had finished his breakfast a party of men rode by the house, and one of them was playing on a bugle. He had set Hannibal's mind at work upon army matters and war; so when Barry and Prue came to see him, he would not even nibble. He smelled of the apple, and he looked at the bun, but that ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the fields did range Fearlesse and free, a faire young Lionesse, White as the native rose before the chaunge Which Venus blood did in her leaves impresse, I spied playing on the grassie plaine 110 Her youthfull sports and kindlie wantonnesse, That did all other beasts in beawtie staine. [Ver. 107.—A fair young Lionesse, So called from the white lion in the arms of the Duke of Norfolk, the head ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... the few times in his life, doubted his eyes. What trick were they playing him? For it was not a real, sharp figure that he saw; it was an indefinite one, shimmering and elusive, like a mirage. A prank of the strange light, perhaps. But Ku Sui ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... Comines. "Not a French banner has been borne down, not a sail spread from England—where Edward is too much amused among the wives of the citizens of London to think of playing the Black Prince. Hear the extraordinary truth. You know, when you left us, that the conference between the commissioners on the parts of France and Burgundy was broken up, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... was subsequently revived by the Washington Square Players at the Comedy Theatre, New York City, beginning June 5, 1916, with Margaret Mower playing the part ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... Mr. Huttle, "a man is little less than a murderer who does. That is the province of the milksop, who wastes his evening at home playing dominoes with his wife. I've heard of these people. We don't want them at this table. Our party is well selected. We've no use for deaf old women, who cannot ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... weeks now. An' I wisht I'd never started on this trip, Henry. I don't like the looks of it. I don't feel right, somehow. An' while I'm wishin', I wisht the trip was over an' done with, an' you an' me a-sittin' by the fire in Fort McGurry just about now an' playing cribbage—that's what I wisht." ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... of marriage, all the duties lie upon the man and all the privileges appertain to the woman. In part this doctrine has been established by the intellectual enterprise and audacity of woman. Bit by bit, playing upon masculine stupidity, sentimentality and lack of strategical sense, they have formulated it, developed it, and entrenched it in custom and law. But in other part it is the plain product of the donkeyish vanity ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... and no reason even spoken of. It is therefore understood to be for his activity during the late election. It is said that the people from hence, quite to the eastern extremity, are beginning to be sensible, that their government has been playing a foul game. In Vermont, Chipman was elected Senator by a majority of one, against the republican candidate. In Maryland, Loyd by a majority of one, against Winder, the republican candidate. Tichenor chosen Governor of Vermont by a very small majority. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... me down to rest on a bench. Among the children near me was a beautiful little boy, playing with a brand-new toy—a horse and wagon. While I was watching him busily plucking up the blades of grass and loading his wagon with them, I felt for the first time—what I have often and often felt since—a creeping chill come slowly over my flesh, and then a suspicion of something ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... when Jessie and I were playing tennis, you fellows were so busy talking to the girls you forgot all about your games," retorted Dave. "And one of you was spouting poetry, about 'eyes divine,' or something ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... whole-hearted and might become hostile, while the black population might conceivably throw in its weight against us. Only half the regulars could be spared to defend Natal, and no reinforcements could reach them in less than a month from the outbreak of hostilities. If Mr. Chamberlain was really playing a game of bluff, it must be confessed that he was bluffing ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they hold loosely in one hand, and knock them to the ground with another; if two of them fall with the round side undermost, she that played counts one; but if only one, she counts nothing. They are ashamed to be seen or found playing; and as far as I could discover, they never played for ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... play around, and have fun, and live in the country, and cultivate flowers and vegetables to live on. I have always felt so, and I always shall. I don't know that I'd be so particular about living in the country; but the playing part, that's what I'm particular about. If we lived on a farm, I suppose Theodore would wear cowhide boots, and pants too tight and short for him, and a swallow-tailed coat. I declare! I'm afraid I never ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... the case.' Then waving his hand as Eustacie's face grew crimson, and her eyes flashed indignation, while her lips parted, 'It was her own folly that rendered it needful to put an end to the boy's presumption. Had she been less willful and more obedient, instead of turning the poor lad's head by playing at madame, we could have let him return to his island fogs; but when SHE encouraged him in contemplating the carrying her away, and alienating her and her lands from the true faith, there was but one remedy—to let him perish with the rest. My son is willing to forgive her childish ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the King at the head of his regiment, and Lord Rosslyn at the head of his. Lord Rosslyn is delighted with the opportunities of wearing his uniform, and playing the general ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... matter itself sleep potencies and possibilities not dreamt of in our philosophy. The world of complex though invisible activities which science reveals all about us, the solar and stellar energies raining upon us from above, the terrestrial energies and influences playing through us from below, the transformations and transmutations taking place on every hand, the terrible alertness and potency of the world of inert matter as revealed by a flash of lightning, the mysteries ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... their gardens, the shops along the street, all seemed to have been deserted the day before, and I felt inclined to walk discreetly as one feels in a silent forest. All of a sudden we came round a corner, and there, in a little green round the church, was a bevy of girls in Parisian costumes playing croquet. Their laughter, and the hollow sound of ball and mallet, made a cheery stir in the neighbourhood; and the look of these slim figures, all corseted and ribboned, produced an answerable disturbance in our hearts. We were within sniff of Paris, it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which began to settle about his discerning eyes speedily dissolved in wonder as they encountered the strange creature in the lady's company. He stared, he gaped, then slapped his thigh. "Jack Senhouse! That's the man. God of battles, what a start! Now, what on earth is Jack Senhouse doing, playing courier to ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... with rebels. (They advanced into the broadway, the orderly following at a respectful distance.) Now, look here, we are to have a big fight to-morrow. You saw that funny little beggar in the hat. Well, he wasn't playing at robbers, though you would never have known it. He was really bringing the good news to Ghent—killing horses all the way. He's a local Burnham, and passing good, according to the commandant. Well, he's located Brand, Pretorius, and our old friend Hedgehog[23] ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... heroes, only with some considerable change of mode. One touch of Nature makes not only the whole world, but all time, akin. Set men face to face, with weapons in their hands, and they are as ready to slaughter one another now, after playing at peace and good-will for so many years, as in the rudest ages, that never heard of peace-societies, and thought no wine so delicious as what they quaffed from an enemy's skull. Indeed, if the report of a Congressional committee ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... here, though they were too scattered to allow of a Battalion Mess, and we spent a very enjoyable fortnight training, playing football, and listening to rumours about our destination. The most persistent of the last was Egypt, based in the first instance on a telephone conversation between a Corps and Divisional Signaller, overhead ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... for a time, things went uneasily at Knockowen. For a sour man, his honour kept a good deal of company; and I, who waited upon them, with eyes and ears open, could see that my master was playing ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... playing with him) You're an ambitious vassal, aren't you? I'm afraid you wouldn't be content with being anything less ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... acres were Oscar's world. He could not see beyond them. The dam was a mere adjunct to the Ames ranch. He would leave no stone unturned to see that it served his own ranch's needs as he saw them. If Sara saw this quality in Oscar and had any motive for playing on it, he could do ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... four other children began playing rather roughly with him in their enthusiasm, Marianne carried him away. And once more, on the same spot, on the young grass, did she give him the breast. And again did the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... Artillery Regiment was playing "Yankee Doodle" near headquarters as we sighted the General's marquee, and the martial sounds ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... made higher, and the depths deeper by the glamour and witchery of light and shade. Away to the south, the Uinta mountains stretch in a long line; high peaks thrust into the sky, and snow-fields glittering like lakes of molten silver; and pine forests in sombre green; and rosy clouds playing around the borders of huge black masses; and heights and clouds and mountains and snow-fields and forests and rock-lands are blended into one ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... was meanwhile producing its sequel in a little incident which would have astonished Langholm considerably. Severino had been playing for nearly an hour on end, had seemed thoroughly engrossed in his own fascinating performance, and quite oblivious of the dining and smoking going on around him according to the accepted ease and freedom of the club. Yet no sooner was Langholm gone than ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... welcomed at the moment by all those who had been thoroughly frightened by the French Revolution and saw in the "modern philosophy," as it was called, a serious danger to society. [Footnote: Both Hazlitt and Shelley thought that Malthus was playing to the boxes, by sophisms "calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind into a security of everlasting triumph" (Revolt of Islam, Preface). Bentham refers in his Book of Fallacies (Works, ii. p. 462) to the unpopularity of the views of Priestley, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... gradually out towards the leg of a man who stood near. Then there was a pause, and then the other hand began to move. It wasn't at all like the aimless way that the arms of a badly hit man would move, and I saw at once that Rube had been playing ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... went by, and then, in the very midst of a polka, the orchestra suddenly ceased playing. But a moment afterwards, with all the blare of its brass instruments, it struck up the Royal March. The dancers fled in confusion, the centre of the gallery was cleared, and the King and Queen entered, escorted by the Prince and Princess Buongiovanni, who had received ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... earnest a moment ago also. Your playing is too serious, and that's the dangerous thing about it. Now I am tired of playing, and I ask to be excused in order to resume my work. The count wants his boots to be ready for him, and ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... blood-vessel on the lobe of the brain has destroyed all this, not in a day, not in an hour, but in a second. M. Noirtier, who, on the previous night, was the old Jacobin, the old senator, the old Carbonaro, laughing at the guillotine, the cannon, and the dagger—M. Noirtier, playing with revolutions—M. Noirtier, for whom France was a vast chess-board, from which pawns, rooks, knights, and queens were to disappear, so that the king was checkmated—M. Noirtier, the redoubtable, was the next morning 'poor M. Noirtier,' the helpless old man, at the tender mercies of the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in rags, and seen through the bedimmed atmosphere at the further end of the den, are half-frantic men, women, and girls, now sitting at deal tables, playing for drinks, now jostling, jeering, and profaning in wild disorder. A girl of sixteen, wasted and deformed with dissipation, approaches Brother Spyke, extends her blanched hand, and importunes him for gin. He shudders, and ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... lay in their luxurious ease, Playing with grapes and rose-leaves, slim And willowy slave-girls, in the hope to please, Twisted and danced before them, to the dim Uncertain music in the shadows played; Some came with supple limb, With Mystery's aid And snake-like creep, Others with riotous leap And made festivity to Bacchus ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... playing, and they break my childish sleep! What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree? Known before all others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... that wicked pony's carried To the dark cave, the goblins' hall, Or in the castle he's pursuing, Among the ghosts, his own undoing; Or playing with ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... journey, all the forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims, giants, and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones, and shining ones, the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with the money, the black man in the bright vesture, Mr. Wordly-Wise-man and my Lord Hategood, Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous, all are actually existing beings to us. We follow the travellers ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels, Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these, That are as puppets in a playing hand? When shall the saner softer polities Whereof we dream, have sway in each proud land, And Patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand Bondslave to realms, but ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... walked briskly along the natural mound or sea-wall. Now and then he stepped down upon the white coral sand, picked up a shell, looked at it, and threw it away. When he came to the sea-birds' rock, he sat down and watched it. In the deep water below, sea-snakes, red and purple and green, were playing about; the bluefish, who are not in the least afraid of the snakes, rolled lazily round and round the rock; in the recesses lurked unseen the great conger-eel, which dreads nothing but the thing of long and horny tentacles, the ourite or squid: round and round the rock darted the humourous tazaar, ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... elucidate, at last, a thread of blood relationship between the, at present, strongly contrasted and antagonistic deer and tiger, and passing thence into still wider generalizations, it would be possible to connect the rabbit playing in the sunshine, with the frog in the ditch, the dog-fish in the sea-waters and the lancelet in the sand. For the transition from dog-fish to rabbit differs from the transition from one species of deer to another only in magnitude: it is an affair of vast epochs instead merely ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... Young Craven and Beryl were evidently "drawing together" now Adela Sellingworth was happily out of the way. He heard of them dining together at the Bella Napoli, playing golf together at Beaconsfield—or was it Chorley Wood? He was not quite sure. He heard of young Craven being seen at Claridge's going up in the lift to Miss Van Tuyn's floor. All this was very encouraging. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... ez I kin see, Slinn," he said, gravely, "the pint between you and me ain't to be settled by our children, or wot we allow is doo and right from them to us. Afore we preach at them for playing in the slumgullion, and gettin' themselves splashed, perhaps we mout ez well remember that that thar slumgullion comes from our own sluice-boxes, where we wash our gold. So we'll just put THEM behind us, so," he continued, with a backward sweep of his powerful hand towards the chimney, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... Tolstoi, combined with Fraeulein's music, had upon me. My heart hung upon the pauses in her song; it beat, as I read, as if I had been running. I would forget to breathe between the pages. One day Fraeulein came in and found me in the back chapters of 'Anna Karenina.' She had been playing one of Lizst's rhapsodies—the twelfth. Waves of storm and passion had been thundering through the house, with keen little rifts of melody between, too sweet almost to be endured. She was very negligee, as the weather obliged us to be. Her great ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... necessary and universal form of its whole musical experience. To complete the perhaps fantastic analogy we must imagine the world to be one co-ordinated musical system, and our instrument to be endowed with the power of playing upon the other keyboards; of thence deriving the suggestion of the distinction between the internal and external impulses which respectively awakened harmonies within itself; and lastly, of thus at length conceiving in ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... be no doubt that the Western allies are playing a winning game upon the western front, and that this is the front of decision now. It is not in doubt that they are beating the Germans and shoving them back. The uncertain factor is the rate at which they ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... he wondered if his fancy were playing him a trick; then his reason sprang to certainty with so fierce a leap that for an instant his mind recoiled. For we more often stand aghast at the strength of our own feelings than before the enormity of our ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... thee, and then La Beale Isoud swooned to the earth. And when Sir Kehydius saw Sir Tristram come upon him he saw none other boot, but leapt out at a bay-window even over the head where sat King Mark playing at the chess. And when the king saw one come hurling over his head he said: Fellow, what art thou, and what is the cause thou leapest out at that window? My lord the king, said Kehydius, it fortuned me that I was asleep in the window above your head, and as I slept I slumbered, and so I fell ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... this is most provoking," he interrupted. "I really ought not to stay. But I certainly mean to hear this." He turned irritably to the servant. "Tell the hansom to wait," he commanded, and, with an air of a boy who is playing truant, ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... gentleman of Kent. Like many sons of the poor country gentlemen, he was sent up to London and apprenticed to Sir William Hewitt a cloth worker who lived on London Bridge. His master had a daughter named Anne, a little girl who one day, while playing with her nurse at an open window overhanging the river, fell out into the rushing water sixty feet below. The apprentice, young Osborne, leaped into the river after her and succeeded in saving her. When the girl was grown up her father gave ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant |
