"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his acquaintance the only one who could accompany him was Olga Ivanovna; then there was a literary man, young but already well known, who had written stories, novels, and plays. Who else? Why, Vassily Vassilyitch, a landowner and amateur illustrator and vignettist, with a great feeling for the old Russian style, the old ballad and epic. On paper, on china, and on smoked plates, he produced literally marvels. In the midst of this free artistic company, spoiled by fortune, though refined and modest, who recalled the existence ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... which delights the matutinal kipper and twin eggs of England. It's all so simple; it all sounds such a ridiculously easy matter to those who read. Map maniacs stab inaccurate maps with pins; a few amateur strategists discourse at length, and with incredible ignorance, on the bearing it—and countless other similar operations—will have on the main issue. And the vast majority remark gloomily to the other members of the breakfast table that there is nothing in the paper as usual. Nothing, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... the denouement, and "a lot more excitement all through than there is in Mr. Gillette's play," as Mary modestly informed her caste. It was necessarily cruder, as it was far more ambitious, than the commoner sort of amateur play; but the audience, whether little freshmen who had seen few similar performances, or upper class girls who had seen a great many and so fully appreciated the novelty of this one, were wildly enthusiastic. ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... an age of good ready made clothes and it is also an age of clever amateur dressmaking. With excellent patterns which may be easily handled there is no reason why the woman who can sew should not make her own clothes, and have smart clothes at a reasonable price—that is, provided she has the time to give ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... intestinal cases, was sorely missed. But it was quite out of the question. The river fish, of course, were fairly numerous, but the uncertainty of their supply was too great, and they had to be cooked very soon after being caught. There was always a great deal of amateur angling in the evenings, and in the creek by our hospital a kind of mud fish was caught, full of small, apparently unattached bones, ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... been like a couple of babes playing 'Here we go round the Mulberry Bush.' Now I'm going right along to Scotland Yard to ask them to take me by the hand and show me the way I should go. I guess the professional always scores over the amateur in the end. Are you coming along ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... than Pompeius himself, who sent ashore to demand, on the strength of former services to the late King Ptolemaeus Auletes, a safe asylum, and assistance to make fresh head against the Caesarians. There was a hurried convening of the council of Pothinus—a select company of eunuchs, amateur generals, intriguing rhetoricians. The conference was long; access to its debates closely guarded. The issue could not be evaded; on the decision depended the reestablishment of the Pompeians in a new and firm stronghold, or their abandonment to ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... owned how little she had cultivated those accomplishments, he persuaded Helen to sit down to the piano, and stood by her side while she did so, turning over the leaves of her music-book with the ready devotion of an admiring amateur. Helen always played well, but less well than usual that day, for her generous nature felt abashed. It was as if she were showing off to mortify Violante. But Violante, on the other hand, was so passionately fond of music that she had no feeling left for the sense of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lockhart's solitary original tune, harmonized by Mr. A.H. Prendergast, and set to Father Faber's Hymn to St. Joseph, "There are many saints above," is another example of tender sentiment by an amateur that outweighs any technical ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... and judicious dogs. They had hunted bears enough to know that Pinto would be very sore and ill-tempered by that time, and being men of discretion as well as valor, they had no notion of trying to follow the dogs through the scrub oak brush. Amateur hunters might have sent the dogs into the brush and remained on the edge of the thicket to await developments, thereby involving themselves in difficulties, but these old professionals promptly shinned up tall trees when the dogs struck the trail. The dogs roused the bear ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... conditions I have been describing are evidently unfavourable to the development of literature or science or art. Art has scarcely begun to exist. Science is represented only by a few naturalists in Government employment, and by some intelligent amateur observers. Researches in electricity or chemistry or biology require nowadays a somewhat elaborate apparatus, with which few private persons could provide themselves, and which are here possessed only ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... artist. He painted the face of one of the ancients." He laid before his silent auditors another drawer which contained a sheet of card-board on which was a fairly good pastel of an Arab in a burnouse. It had the weak and false drawing which would result in the attempt of an amateur to copy an engraving in color. "This came in broad daylight while I held the clean card-board on my ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... and one that reveals most palpably the ultimate gesture of filial love and devotion. It arises from one of the extraordinary ordeals that our recent and tyrannical intervention inflicts on these hapless, unflinching heroines. I, in common with all amateur bee-keepers, have more than once had impregnated queens sent me from Italy; for the Italian species is more prolific, stronger, more active, and gentler than our own. It is the custom to forward them in small, perforated boxes. In these some food is placed, and the queen enclosed, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... ancestor, Joe Miller, has recorded, in his "Booke of Jestes," an epitaph written upon an amateur corn-cutter, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... nature of a real man to play dry nurse to a dog in public. I never saw one leashed to a bow-wow yet that didn't look like he'd like to lick every other man that looked at him. But your boss comes in every day as perky and set up as an amateur prestidigitator doing the egg trick. How does he do it? Don't ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... are dealing. A mail may bring in two letters—one, from a farmer, laboriously scrawled on a bit of wrapping paper; the other, from a lady in town, written on the finest stationery. Both may request catalogues and the same printed matter will be sent to each, but only the amateur correspondent would use the same form letter ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... sixteenth and seventeenth centuries amateur dramatic productions called masques were presented. Sometimes even nobles and members of the royal family took part. These plays were accompanied by music, dancing, and spectacular effects. The literary character of the masque developed into the compositions of Ben Jonson, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Cole, he recognized in him a character that would drive steadily and straight for its goal. Also, he recognized behind the millionaire that had succeeded in pulling wires enough to see him, the scientist who had had more than one paper published "in an amateur way." ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... capital, and, owning nothing but a love for horsemanship and a head full of Browning and Shelley, plunged into the varied life which gold-mining, "overlanding", and cattle-driving affords. From this experience he emerged to light in Melbourne as the best amateur steeplechase rider in the colonies. The victory he won for Major Baker in 1868, when he rode Babbler for the Cup Steeplechase, made him popular, and the almost simultaneous publication of his last volume of poems gave him welcome entrance to the houses of all who ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... shrunk from every crudity, and exquisiteness that would have shriveled at the touch of hardship. This studious-looking, fever-stricken soldier, a nobleman under a bygone regime and in his youth a great amateur of love, had known well many women of whom this suppliant was the virtual counterpart, fragile, complex, too sensitive, too ardent, the predestined prey of impulses and disabilities that none but themselves, their adorers, and specialists in neurasthenia, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... orchestra polished to the last touch of execution, discoursing the divinest work of some highest priest of music. Sentinel the scene with marbles that would have doubled the fame of a Praxiteles. Now, with your stage set, invite to its sumptuous midst some amateur of all the arts whose senses were born for the beautiful. Do what you will to endow your artist with contentment in perfection. Fill his pockets with gold, give him wine of his fancy, have the woman he loves by his side, so surround him that the eye, the ear, the stomach, the heart, the pocket, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and self-respect. The descendants of Aemilius and Gracchus—even generals and consuls and praetors—mixed familiarly with the lowest canaille of Rome in their vilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as amateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on the race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the excitement of gambling, that we read of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... amateur-sculler, well up to his work though taking it easily, in so light a boat that the Rogue remarked: 'A little less on you, and you'd a'most ha' been a Wagerbut'; then went to work at his windlass handles ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... air, nourishment, orderly surroundings, and to be let judiciously alone; those are the conditions which the amateur nurse must further, according to her own judgment and, her knowledge of ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... you have taken the responsibility in this matter. You understand, of course, Mr. Whitney, that we want no amateur work in a ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... wonderful ideas these remarkable amateur experts publish they won't "go down" with the man who has humped his ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... rather a nuisance, I daresay in a way it won't be bad fun. You shall help me, dear, and I'm sure I shall be able to arrange for you to see the performance. Yes! you've guessed it; I thought you would. I've been asked to play in some amateur theatricals that are being got up by Mitchell of the F O in aid of the 'Society for the Suppression of Numismatics', or something—I can't think why he ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... round!" The book was already "radiant with inborn genius," but it still lacked the "acquired art," and feeling this, she sat down to it regularly, and rewrote it from beginning to end, greatly enriching it. She had no amateur impatience to appear in print and become known; the thought of production induced her to delay and do her utmost rather than to make indiscreet haste; her delight was in the doing essentially; she was not one to glory in public successes, however great, or find anything but a tepid ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... feminine element. The principal roles were all represented; and if occasionally a re-enforcement was required, they could almost always pick up some provincial actress, or even an amateur, at a pinch. The actors were five in number: The pedant, already described, who rejoiced in the name of Blazitis; Leander; Herode, the tragic tyrant; Matamore, the bully; and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... "we are not going to do anything. The Neighborhood Club has been doing a little amateur research work, which is now over. That ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... said, if you have access to a variety of amateur pictures created during the mid-Victorian era, of whatever style or subject, you will find in them the most admirably sincere qualities of painting as well as singularly enchanting gifts for simplication and the always engaging respect for the fact itself out of which these painted romanzas ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... flock of elders to the beautifully-mown putting-tracks radiating from the central circle of "holes" for the putting competition, she informed him that she adored putting, so much so that she wanted lessons from him, the local amateur golf-champion. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... said, was a very beautiful one, a clear, fine soprano, with a timbre rare in quality, and naturally thrilling. She had not been taught well enough to be a public success perhaps, but was much more accomplished than the average amateur. ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... and his young officers, electing them the leaders and the favorites in all the social gayeties and amusements of the season. Such was the luxury and dissipation of the British in the city, at dinner parties, cock-fights, amateur theatrical performances, that Dr. Franklin was led to remark in Paris that General Howe had not taken Philadelphia as much as Philadelphia had ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... communication from the Record Officer now serving with the Canadian Division at the front and published in the British press on May 1, 1915. The division was commanded by a distinguished English General, but these "amateur soldiers of Canada," as the narrator describes them, were officered largely by lawyers, college professors, and business men who before the war were neither disciplined nor trained. Many striking deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice were performed in the course of their ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... giving full details of radio work, both in sending and receiving—telling how small and large amateur sets can be made and operated, and how some boys got a lot of fun and adventure out of what they did. Each volume from first to last is so thoroughly fascinating, so strictly up-to-date and accurate, we feel sure all lads will peruse ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... of Pembroke, an intelligent lover of the arts, and an amateur architect of considerable merit. Walpole says of him, in his account of Sculptors and Architects, The soul of Inigo Jones, who had been patronised by his ancestors, seemed still to hover over its favourite Wilton, and to have assisted the Muses of Arts in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... had come upon the stage of National Politics and had already begun to play a role in the great drama of American Democracy. But even the prophets did not so much as dream that, within the memory of men then living, the awkward amateur would take the part of a leading ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... under snow. I've heard (Angus McGeochan, one of our crofters, told me) he was an inventor, and had made a few odd millions out of a machine for sticking labels on canned meat. That and the fact that he is a very keen amateur photographer is the complete history of Mr. Hilderman so far as I know it. Anyway, he has a gorgeous view, hasn't he? It's nearly as ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... be, his bitterest enemies had never accused him of lack of physical courage. Indeed, he had been—in the rollicking days of old that were gone—celebrated for the display of very opposite qualities. He was an amateur at manly sports. He rejoiced in his muscular strength, and, in many a tavern brawl and midnight riot of his own provoking, had proved the fallacy of the proverb which teaches that a bully is always a coward. He had the tenacity of a bulldog—once ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... To be sure, he was neither a good judge nor a distinguished amateur; but he was an astonished admirer, and sincere admiration is always flattering, ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... tails, as if to restrain their impatience; when, giving his arm and body a full swing, embracing three-fourths of the circle, he inflicted a tremendous stroke on the back of the unfortunate culprit. This specimen seemed to satisfy the amateur captain, who nodded approbation to the inquiring look of the amateur boatswain. The poor man lost his respiration from the force of the blow; and the tails of the cat coming from an opposite direction to the first four dozen, cut the flesh diamond-wise, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... comic songs, be careful that they are of the most unexceptionable kind, and likely to offend neither the tastes nor prejudices of the society in which you find yourself. At an evening party given expressly in honour of a distinguished lady of colour, we once heard a thoughtless amateur dash into the broadly comic, but terribly appropriate nigger song of "Sally come up." Before he had got through the first verse, he had perceived his mistake, and was so overwhelmed with shame that he could scarcely preserve sufficient ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... about Jupiter for the amateur astronomer consists in observing four of its moons, which are visible with a small telescope. They appear like mere dots of light, and their transit of or occultation with the planet (that is, their disappearance before or behind its disk) can be watched, and is a never failing source ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... boy. Physically the portrait standing on the chair did him more than justice. Painted by a mother's loving hand, it flattered him. It was bulgy. He was more bulgy. It was sullen. He scowled. And, art having its limitations, particularly amateur art, the portrait gave no hint of his very repellent manner. He was an intensely sophisticated child. He had the air of one who has seen all life has to offer, and is now permanently bored. His speech and bearing were those of a young man, and a ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... that would identify them with the crime they had suggested; and, in such a case, what more likely than that they should adopt the spectral forms of their human victims—murdered and murderer, or otherwise—according to the nature of the wickedness perpetrated? This is but an amateur opinion, monsieur; I offer it as an individual, not as a priest speaking on the part of the Church. But it may serve to account for a real difficulty, and may be held without impiety. Of one thing ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... Regent's Park, London, but in 1878 he removed to the Albany, Piccadilly. In anticipation of his change of residence he determined to part with a portion of his collection of French books, and on the valuation of the late M. Potier, of Paris, he offered it to an eminent French amateur en bloc for four thousand pounds. This offer was declined, and he sent the books to Paris to be sold by auction. The sale took place at the Salle Drouot on the 12th of March 1878, and the four following days, when the lots, seven hundred and seventy-four in number, realised three hundred ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to Lausanne in May, 1846, and begins "Dombey"; has great difficulty in getting on without streets; the "Battle of Life" written; "Dombey"; its pathos; pride the subject of the book; reality of the characters; Dickens' treatment of partial ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... had leave, indeed, rigged out in their best, and adorned themselves to the utmost of their power. The boatswain, also, got them a dozen flags, which they hoisted on boathooks and other small spars; and they had on board, besides, a one-legged black fiddler, and a sort of amateur band, all of whom were allowed to ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... vouch for the excellence of this bread, and may say that I have managed it with very little difficulty. I use a gas oven and loaf pans made of black steel, as these take and retain the heat much better than tins. If any amateur, however, is doubtful as to how this loaf should be, she cannot do better than send for a sample loaf or two to the Wallace Bakery, 465 Battersea Park Road, London, S.W. There is also a depot in Edinburgh—Messrs Richards & Co., 7 Dundas Street, where these ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... lot of the average woman sufficiently lucky to own a garden at all, but to develop the best possibilities of any one family, like the rose, carnation, or lily, that is a bit whimsical about food and lodging, each one must have a garden of its own, so to speak, which, for the amateur, may be made to read as a special bed in a special location, and ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... of 1834-5 witnessed the birth, perhaps also the extinction, of an amateur periodical, established by some of Mr. Browning's friends; foremost among these the young Dowsons, afterwards connected with Alfred Domett. The magazine was called the 'Trifler', and published in monthly numbers of about ten pages each. It collapsed from lack of pocket-money on the part ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... an epic in an epigram—"She seen her duty and she done it!" but the space and time covered are generally as far beyond our plans as the estimates of an amateur mountain climber exceed ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Edinburgh mail bears the hardy traveller to a cold climate, with snowy mountains and wintry blasts; but here the further north one goes the hotter it gets, till one arrives in Queensland, where the heat is so great that a profane traveller of an epigrammatic turn of mind once fittingly called it, "An amateur hell." ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... the most difficult form of the problem of amateur staging, let us suppose that this play is to be given in a parlor or hall, without platform, without proscenium arch or curtains, with the walls, floor and ceiling of such material and finish that no nails may be driven into them, ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... Miss Madge Hampton, an amateur of some small private means, and he thought no more about her. Rehearsal in an insignificant part displayed her as capable ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... happy country life with manual labour as an equally necessary part of a completely healthy and rounded human existence, and in this experiment he practised what he preached. The experiment caused no little stir in Oxford, and even the London newspapers had their gibe at the "Amateur Navvies of Oxford"; to walk over to Hinksey and laugh at the diggers was a ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Few can sit down and peruse a musical composition even for its melody; and very few, indeed, can gather from the silent notes the full effect of its splendid combinations. Yet even here the great master has analogous compensations. The idle amateur, the boarding-school girl, the street minstrel, and the barrel-organ, reflect his more palpable beauties; and, subjecting them to the severe test of incessant reiteration, make us wonder that "custom cannot stale" the infinite variety that is shut up even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... with large capital, able to employ the best experts, and to avail themselves of all the advantages of scientific methods in culture, regardless of expense. So uncertain is the business, that even with all these facilities, they rarely guarantee seeds. It is obvious that the amateur has little chance of succeeding in such a difficult business. Nevertheless, he will be able after a few seasons of increasing experience to gather seeds from selected plants and so furnish his own supply. It must be borne in mind, ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... had been looking a little glum since his last speech. "Yes," he answered, "I can. Well, I'm not a professional, you understand, but for an amateur I am supposed to have as much technique and a good deal ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... had been interested, fascinated; she had studied the case, formed her own theories, thought about it all often and often, had even written one or two letters to the Press on the subject—suggesting, arguing, hinting at possibilities and probabilities, adducing proofs which other amateur detectives were equally ready to refute. The attitude of that timid man in the corner, therefore, was peculiarly exasperating, and she retorted with sarcasm destined to completely annihilate her ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... hound. There is some excuse, indeed, for the pathologic labor of the modern novelist in the fact that he cannot easily, in a city population, find a healthy mind to vivisect: but the greater part of such amateur surgery is the struggle, in an epoch of wild literary competition, to obtain novelty of material. The varieties of aspect and color in healthy fruit, be it sweet or sour, may be within certain limits described exhaustively. ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... number of good snap-shots of the game," said Polly Vane, who was quite an amateur photographer. "I'll have the pictures developed and printed, and give each of you copies ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... musical. Montresor had a clever barytone voice, and sang with sufficient grace and memory for an amateur. Adelaide was more remarkable than her husband; she had genius more than culture, and sang good old music with an unconscious creative grace. At their house we used to get up 'Il Matrimonio Segreto,' scenas from 'Don Giovanni,' and many other passages ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of the Shelley family gave him (in 1844 when Sir Percy Shelley came into his property) a regular annuity of L120; two royal gifts of L200 each and in 1847 a pension of the same amount were added; and two benefit nights of Dickens's famous amateur company brought him in something like a cool thousand, as Dickens himself would have said. Of his last years Mr. Kent, who was intimate with him, gives much the pleasantest account known to me. He died on 28th August 1859, surviving ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... For the amateur co-ordinates matters, knowing that one thing axiomatically leads to another. There is no harm at all in respectful allusions to a love that comprehends its hopelessness: it was merely a fact which Jurgen mentioned, and was about to pass on; only Guenevere, in modesty, was ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... Greek jacket to the discouraging comments of Madame Savarin. Monopolizing the coupe, she became absolute mistress of the situation. She went to no fashionable couturiere's. She went to a magasin that she had seen advertised in the Petites Afiches as supplying superb costumes for fancy-balls and amateur performers in private theatricals. She returned home triumphant, with a jacket still more dazzling to the eye than that of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the public. During the excitement of triumph in the month of August he was promoted lieutenant, received the cross of the Legion of honor, and was attached as aide-de-camp to La Fayette, who gave him the rank of captain in 1832. When the amateur of the best of all possible republics was removed from the command of the National guard, Oscar Husson, whose devotion to the new dynasty amounted to fanaticism, was appointed major of a regiment sent to Africa at the time of the first ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... an amateur. He may know something of statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer when he sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; he may be able to observe carefully and accurately the actions and antics of ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... superior to the captain of an Alexandrian corn-ship, and Paul had already made his force of character so felt that it is not wonderful that he took part in the discussion. Naturally the centurion was guided by the professional rather than by the amateur member of the council, and the decision was come to to push on as far and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... it was a simple fact that when, meditating his sermon one day in the North Meadow, he flopped into their midst and his son insisted on introducing him to the boarders and to Miss Letitia, the poor man went home to bed and left the pulpit next Sunday to an amateur exhorter. His plan of campaign was to arrive on the opposite side of the terrace about a quarter to three, and, as the hour drew near, reconnoitre the door from behind a clump of bushes at the foot of the garden. Nestie usually made his appearance with a bodyguard of maidens, who kissed ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... house; they paid all the bills. Lillian has her suite of rooms, and I mine. Julie is very prettily fond of me; they like to give a big tea, two or three times a winter, and have me in evidence, or Lillian likes to have me plan theatricals, or manage amateur grand-opera for her. When Julie was about ten I had my own ideas as to her upbringing, but there was a painful scene, in which the child herself was consulted, and stood with her ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... amateur horticulturist once said to me, "I do not see why it is I have so much trouble with lettuce. My land is rich, and the lettuce grow well, but do not head. They have a tendency to run up to seed, and soon ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... of culture and refinement, born with an income of a hundred thousand a year, is not tempted to become either manufacturer, lawyer, or physician. For want of other occupation he loiters about, entertains his friends, chats, indulges in the tastes and hobbies of an amateur, is bored or enjoys himself. As a result one of society's great forces is thus lost to the nation. In this way the best and largest acquisition of the past, the heaviest accumulation of material and of moral capital, remain unproductive. In a pure democracy the upper branches ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to bring to the enterprise all that ability which used to characterize your efforts as an amateur actor, Bunny," she replied. "Summon all your sang-froid to your aid; act with deliberation, courtesy, and, above all, without the slightest manifestation of nervousness, and we should win, not a petty little twenty-seven hundred dollars, but as many ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... designed it,) but really by H. Lutzelburger, that the late Mr. Douce did not believe it could ever be copied so as to afford any adequate impression of the beauty of the original. A German artist, Heinrich Loedel, has, however, disproved the accuracy of this opinion; and the amateur may now, for a few shillings, put himself in possession of most admirable copies of a work which is a masterpiece of design, and a gem in point of execution, and of which the original is of the extremest rarity. There are two editions ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... young Cruickshank was put to a Friends' school in Cumberland. He was a farmer's son, and seems to have conceived a great fancy for cattle from childhood. A gentleman resided not far from the school, who was an owner and amateur of Shorthorns, and Anthony would frequently spend his half-holidays with him, inspecting and admiring his herd, and asking him questions about their qualities and his way of treating them. From this school ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... that time, and for many years after, than a youth with whom she had been acquainted in Cambridge before he left the University, and the unfolding of whose powers she had watched with the warmest sympathy. He was an amateur, and, but for the exactions not to be resisted of an American, that is to say, of a commercial, career,—his acceptance of which she never ceased to regard as an apostasy,—himself a high artist. He was ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... contrasts piquantly with occasional glimpses of true Creole character, and of a son of 'the best horseman in South America,' who is too much at home among the fierce people whom he describes to fully assume the tone of a foreigner and amateur. In this latter respect Don Ramon seems to have been influenced by regarding as models the works of European travellers, as well as by a very commendable spirit of modesty; for modest he certainly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... belonged to an amateur play company; that accounts for it. But come, fill up, and let's talk ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... see that he has been trained, while Conrad, though he pulls a strong oar, rows like a country amateur." ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... had more especially in view the wants of the less experienced Amateur; and as all descriptions and modes of culture are given from specimens successfully grown in my own garden, I hope I may have at least a claim ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... thrilling effect. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who had a prejudice for bravura singing, said: "No doubt the deaf would have been charmed with Grassini, but the blind must have been delighted with Mrs. Billington": a malicious comment on the Italian singer, which this distinguished amateur, when in a less cynical mood, revoked by cordial admiration of Grassini's remarkable gifts both as vocalist and actress. Many interesting anecdotes are told of this singer while in London, one of which, related by Kelly, then stage-manager, illustrates the difficulties of operatic ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... more was soon forced from the "Grigsby's" engines, though at that racing gait it would have been difficult for an amateur observer to have detected the fact that speed had been gained. The "Reed," ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... revelation which was translated into a feeling that censorship could not stifle of the failure of the campaign to crush France. They called for the man who had won victories and the Kaiser gave them von Hindenburg, whom fortune favored when he sent armies inspirited by his leadership against amateur soldiers in veteran confidence, while the weather had stopped the Allied ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... by older friends, and about which I was inordinately conceited, I enjoyed greatly taking part in operettas, cantatas, etc. The dramatic instinct, if so it may be called, has always been marked with me, and amateur dramatics are still my chief diversion. When I was about the age mentioned above my voice changed quite rapidly, greatly to my distress of mind, as I was obliged to give up taking a part for which I had been cast in a school entertainment. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... that purpose. Meanwhile the champion looked on and laughed, being too lazy to redeem his promise of teaching the novice to defend himself. The latter, however, watched the lessons which he saw daily given to others, and, before the end of a month, he so completely turned the tables on the amateur pugilists of Melbourne that Skene one day took occasion to remark that he was growing uncommon clever, but that gentlemen liked to be played easy with, and that he should be careful not to knock them about too much. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... his favorite instrument, executing with ease the most difficult and critical composition. He is generally preferred in social and private parties, among the first families of the city, where the amateur and gentleman is more regarded than the mere services of the musician. Mr. Jackson is a teacher of music, and only requires a more favorable opportunity to vie with Ole ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... not. We're simply making up a little group, which we call 'The Coterie,' to have a few dancing parties and amateur concerts, and the like, in the big hotel dining room, during the winter. We've a notion that the young people of Cairo ought to know each other better. Our idea is to promote social intercourse and so we're all chipping in to pay the cost, which ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... account, and by now he was deep in her debt. For one thing, she had set the fashion in the matter of legislative receptions—her detractors, knowing nothing whatever about it, hinted that she had been an amateur social lobbyist in Washington, playing the game for the pure zest of it—and at these functions Kent had learned many things pertinent to his purpose as watch-dog for the railroad company and legal adviser to his chief—things ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... and energy during my residence in San Francisco. I have done some things because I was obliged to and many others because I wished to. When one is fitted and trained for some one thing he is apt to devote himself steadily and profitably to it, but when he is an amateur and not a master he is sure to be handicapped. After about a year in the Indian department a change in administration left me without a job. For about a year I was a bookkeeper for a stock-broker. Then for another year I was a money-broker, selling currency, silver, and revenue ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... not so well situated as either Darwin, the well-to-do amateur who was naturalist to the expedition, or Hooker, the son of a distinguished botanist, receiving many privileges from his father's friend, Captain Ross, while officially he was but an assistant-surgeon and second naturalist. Huxley had neither friends nor influence beyond the ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... exact science. Now, had there been an atom of pride in my composition I might have glorified myself, for it certainly seemed as if the heap upon the floor could never have come out of a single trunk. Clearly, Toddie was more of a general connoisseur than an amateur in packing. The method of his work I quickly discerned, and the discovery threw some light upon the size of the heap in front of my trunk. A dress-hat and its case, when their natural relationship is dissolved, occupy nearly twice as much space as before, even if the former contains a blacking-box ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... pleasure himself in the display of that wild, unschooled imagination which was the prevailing quality in the mind of Margaret Cooper. He was a man of education and taste. He could be pleased as an amateur; but he wanted the moral to be touched, and to sympathize with a being so gifted and so feeble—so high aiming, yet so liable ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... without trouble. "I have not rowed for a good while," she said, "but I am getting used to the oars already. Now then, I'm off," and she began to pull with a strength which, had it been suitably paired with skill, would have made her an excellent amateur oarswoman. But the place of skill was supplied by enthusiasm and determination. Once or twice an oar slipped from the rowlock and she nearly went over backward, and several times one of the blades got under the water with the ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... be well aware of the strict laws of the chase, except when some good-natured monk gave her leave and accompanied her—generally Augustinians, who were more of country squires than ecclesiastics. Watch needed no leash—he kept close to his master, except when occasionally tempted to a little amateur shepherding, from which Hal could easily call him off. The great stag-hounds evidently despised him, and the curs of the waggon hated him, and snarled whenever he came near them, but the Prioress respected him, and could well believe that the hermit King had ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rolling and pitching about in his pannier like a raw amateur in a howdab on an elephant's back, and after contemplating him for a few moments Langdon caught ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... Caesar, I really do not know. I believe there are some somewhere at the back of that ugly building which we call the National Gallery; and I think there have been some meetings lately in the East End, and an amateur concert at the Albert Hall, for restoring, by private subscriptions, some baths and wash-houses in Bethnal Green, which had fallen to decay. And there may be two or three more about the metropolis; for parish vestries have powers by Act of Parliament to ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... and in clearing away the deep dust from what seemed to be the bottom of the step, which was perhaps four feet in height, by accident thrust my amateur spade somewhat strongly against its base where it rested ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... elegant Persian rugs, and those four "old masters," and the bronzes and the teakwood carvings—you can see for yourself. Lucy wasn't quite satisfied with the room at first. She missed the fish-net draperies and cozy corners and the usual clap-trap of amateur studios. But she's educated up to it now, and it's a daily joy to me. On the other hand my broiled steaks and feather-weight waffles and first-class coffee are a joy to poor Henry, who can't even boil an egg properly, and who hasn't ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... situation now when we are trying to tidy up our social life. Health, that was necessary in war time, is surely equally important in peace? Even the prostitute, the professional and the amateur, will benefit: restrict the opportunities of this easy way of getting money and presents from men and other ways of living and obtaining presents must be resorted to. Thus there will be a finer chance of reformation than ever there was before. ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... color in the small oblong of shabby front yard. The father, Felix Millsap, was an odd-jobs woodworker. He made his living by undertakings too trivial for a contracting carpenter and joiner to bid on and too complicated for an amateur to attempt. The mother, Martha by name, took in plain sewing to help out. She had about her the air of the needle drudge, with shoulders bowed in and the pricked, scored fingers of a seamstress, and a permanent pucker at one corner of her mouth from holding pins ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... of 'Mary' in Doctor Robin which we are to present next week. Some amateur wishes to join our company and he is to make ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... To an amateur in sensations there was true piquancy in the thought that one was travelling in company with a thug who had already had two tries for one's life and would not hesitate to essay a third; in the same coach, separated only by the thin partition between the compartments, safe only in the thug's unconsciousness ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... wounded at Vicenza in 1848, fighting for Italian independence; entered the Piedmontese Parliament, was Victor Emanuel's right-hand man, retired in favour of Cavour; he was not altogether engrossed with politics, being an amateur in art (1798-1866). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... While the amateur examiner is likely to have more or less trouble in deciding upon scores, this difficulty rapidly disappears with experience. The following samples of satisfactory and unsatisfactory responses will serve as a fairly adequate guide in dealing ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... exclaimed Carlton, delightedly, as he hurried forward. "It looks as though my chance had come at last." But as he approached the stranger he saw, to his great disappointment, that he had nothing more serious to deal with than one of the international army of amateur photographers, who had been stalking the Princess as a hunter follows an elk, or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a prominent politician, or a Lord Mayor's show, everything being fish that came within the focus of his camera. A helpless statue and an equally helpless ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... take him off?" he moaned. There were tears in his eyes. I do not quite understand that feeling. I can watch absolutely anything, but I never want to do more. I was not made to undertake principal parts—I can witness amateur theatricals without wishing to be the prompter. I review novels, but I do not ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... an actress of pronounced magnetic appeal—and lost no time in falling deeply in love with the manly playwright. They were serious-minded, ambitious young people. It is of small consequence that he was an untried, unskilled dramatist, and of equally small moment that she was little more than an amateur. They saw a bright light ahead and trudged steadily toward it, prodding themselves—and each other—with all the vain-glorious artifices known to and employed by the young and undefeated. The young man's dramatic aspirations were somewhat retarded, however, by the fact that ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... at table one has to outshine other people, and show the difference between amateur and professional: is that to be ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... they got along nicely together. They leased a theatre in the town for the whole winter and sublet it for short periods to a Little Russian theatrical company, to a conjuror and to the local amateur players. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... models and sculptural models, while the architect, already present, supplies the architectural models, all three giving us visible scenarios to furnish the cardinal motives for the acting, from which the amateur photoplay company of the university can ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Zealanders. The portrait of Major Kemp and that of a Muaopoko Maori standing by a carved canoe-prow were given to me by Sir Walter Buller. "A New Zealand Settler's Home" was the gift of Mr. Winckleman of Auckland, well known amongst New Zealand amateur photographers. I have also gratefully to acknowledge the photographs which are the work of Mr. Josiah Martin of Auckland, Messrs. Beattie and Sanderson of Auckland, Mr. Iles of the Thames, and Mr. Morris of Dunedin, and to thank Messrs. Sampson, Low and Co. for the use of the blocks from ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Morris step is occasionally varied, so as to make it exactly like the polka-step—that is, with the final hop danced like a dotted note; like a quaver, if the music be in common time. This is a variation practised occasionally by the Morris men themselves, and the enthusiastic amateur will find himself dropping into it occasionally, following his enthusiastic leader. No instructions for this changing of the step will be given in the Notation, for it cannot be specified. The whole side will fall into it naturally, upon occasion: for ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... the editor. "Surely the young lady does not expect to be paid for anything so very amateur—no, she cannot expect to be paid in money—in another way she is paid, and largely; she obtains a reputation, and what immature talent she has is brought to the fore! I am afraid, Miss Mainwaring, I must not take ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... one week, Mr. Maraton," she suggested softly, "that you could bring your work with you. You could have a study in a quiet corner of the house, and if you did not care to bring a secretary, I would promise you the services of an amateur one." ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first brooded over the contrasts between the Englishman and the Virginian. With obstinate complacency Braddock had disregarded Washington's counsels of prudence. He showed arrogant confidence in his veteran troops and contempt for the amateur soldiers of whom Washington was one. In a wild country where rapid movement was the condition of success Braddock would halt, as Washington said, "to level every mole hill and to erect bridges over every brook." ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... wished that his warlike career might have offered more excitement and opportunity for personal distinction than had been afforded him in spending an afternoon on horseback, listening to the singing of bullets overhead. His amateur soldiering was over long ago, but he was strong, brave and intelligent, and if he had been convinced that a second and more radical revolution could accomplish any good result, he would have been capable of devoting himself to its cause ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... getting well on towards eleven o'clock, and I sought out Hawley for the purpose of thanking him for a delightful evening and of taking my leave. I met him in the hall talking to Euripides on the subject of the amateur stage in the United States. What they said I did not stop to hear, but offering my hand to Hawley informed him of my ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... nothing to say in reply, but lifted up his face and looked at Radley with the gratitude of a dog. For my part I felt a pleasing, squirmy excitement to think that we were to walk on to the Nursery field in the company of the great Middlesex amateur; and, incidentally, I took the opportunity of measuring ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... race at any time. Amateur actors are said to have—one and all—a belief that each and every one can play any part of any kind. Shakespeare found that some of them thought they could play every part also! But besides this general error, each actor has his own peculiarities, which the stage-manager ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... jostle, and a rustic boy must stand puzzled for a little how to use his placid and unjaded strength. It happens, too, though in a deeper and more subtle way, to the man who marries for love, if the love be true and fit for foul weather. Mr. Bagehot used to say that a bachelor was "an amateur at life," and wit and wisdom are married in the jest. A man who lives only for himself has not begun to live—has yet to learn his use, and his real pleasure, too, in the world. It is not necessary he should ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson
... Florence, said the amateur, rings and a sunrise, not out of the clouds either. Look, too, at the oval forms like eggs. At home we can't get such cups. Here we are in the higher waves. We are determined to read something to inspire others, as you read to us, said ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara |
