"Billiards" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is flattered by receiving only the general obsequiousness which most men give to the whole sex. In the man who contradicts and strives with her, she discovers a truer interest, a nobler respect. The empty-headed, spindle-shanked youths who dance admirably, understand something of billiards, much less of horses, and still less of navigation, soon grow inexpressibly wearisome to us; but the men who adopt their social courtesy, never seeking to arouse, uplift, instruct us, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... There isn't a sentimental chord in my being that you can twang any longer.... But we can be good-tempered and sensible about it. Run along now and have your cigar, or go over to the country club and find some one to play billiards,—only let me finish what you are pleased to call my rotten reading,—it is ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... that old muff means," he says innocently, when he has finished his bitter draught. "He's always flying out at me, the old turkey-cock. He quarrels with my play at whist, the old idiot, and can no more play than an old baby. He pretends to teach me billiards, and I'll give him fifteen in twenty and beat his old head off. Why do they let such fellows into clubs? Let's have a game at piquet till dinner, Heavyside. Hallo! That's my uncle, that tall man with the mustachios and the short trousers, walking with that boy of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... back wearied in his chair. But then came the contrast. The Dean went to the library, Lady Richard strolled out of doors with Fred, Mrs. Baxter withdrew into seclusion with a novel and a petticoat, Dick Benyon asked May to walk in the garden with him, and when she refused went off to play billiards with Morewood. May had pleaded letters to write and sat down to the task. The man who a little while ago had been the centre of attention was left alone. He wandered about idly for a few moments, then dropped into a chair, seeming ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... not be happier. They took the boy's misdemeanors too much to heart; they talked to him too solemnly; they frightened and bewildered him. Of course there was the great standard of morality, which forbade that a man should get tipsy, play at billiards for money, or cultivate his sensual consciousness; but what fear was there that poor Clifford was going to run a tilt at any great standard? It had, however, never occurred to Acton to dedicate the Baroness Munster to the redemption of a refractory collegian. The ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... blew down the irregular street, ruffling the reflected light in the puddles, making a shutter bang interminably somewhere. Fuselli went to the main square again, casting an envious glance in the window of the Cheval Blanc, where he saw officers playing billiards in a well-lighted room painted white and gold, and a blond girl in a raspberry-colored shirtwaist enthroned haughtily behind the bar. He remembered the M. P. and automatically hastened his steps. In a narrow street the other side of the square he stopped before the window of a ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... out and cannot hunt, she plays scratch-cradle with him in the boudoir of her father's country house, or pitches chocolate into his mouth from the oak landing; and she lets him fasten the skates on to her pretty feet. Happy cornet! And she plays billiards with her handsome cousin—a guardsman at least—and informs him that she is just eighteen to his love—and stands under the mistletoe and asks this enviable relation of hers to show her what the garroter's hug is like; and when he proceeds to do so she calls out in distress ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... boxes, listening to sermons, reading the cheerful histories of the Old Testament, imagining the joys of heaven and the torments of hell. The church is opposed to the theatre, is the enemy of the opera, looks upon dancing as a crime, hates billiards, despises cards, opposes roller-skating, and even entertains a certain kind of ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... were recreations other than work at the Memoirs. He often played chess and billiards, at the latter using his hand instead of the cue! Dinner was generally at a very late hour, and afterwards he took pleasure in reading aloud. Voltaire was the favourite author, and Montholon afterwards confessed to Lord Holland ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... to do that better than he loves his money. But that is not the only reason. They hope he will leave them those houses when he dies. They certainly deserve that he should. For years, before they owned carriages, they would tramp through wind and rain every Sunday in winter to play billiards with him, to say nothing of the hot days of summer. They have eaten this mid-day dinner that they hate time out of mind. They have listened to his interminable yarns, oft repeated, about early ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... was not like others. In my marriages, I had an eye to the main chance; and you see how some unlucky blow would come and throw them over. In the army I was just as prudent, and just as unfortunate. What with judicious betting, and horse-swapping, good-luck at billiards, and economy, I do believe I put by my pay every year,—and that is what few can say who have but an allowance of a hundred ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of feeling from John, Mrs. Pitt came to the rescue, suggesting a game of billiards. John brightened very considerably after this, and the remainder of the day was pleasantly spent in writing letters, playing games, and reading aloud from Scott's "Kenilworth," in preparation for the morrow's visit to ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... had out-of-door games, such as "Bowls," "Aunt Sally," and the like, Dickens leading off with great spirit and fun. Billiards came after dinner, and during the evening we had charades and dancing. There was no end to the new divertisements our kind host was in the habit of proposing, so that constant cheerfulness reigned at Gad's Hill. He went into his work-room, as he called it, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... had long wanted to learn the game of billiards, and this seemed a good opportunity. Perhaps this consideration as much as any determined him to close with his friend's proposal. When, therefore, they had reached the Brooklyn side, instead of taking the horse-cars to Dr. Graham's house, Sam followed his ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... Club was established for the three regiments of Foot Guards, and was conducted upon a military system. Billiards and low whist were the only games indulged in. The dinner was, perhaps, better than at most clubs, and considerably cheaper. I had the honour of being a member for several years, during which time I have nothing to ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... "Haven't I been trying to get a position ever since I came home? Who wants to tie up to me until this cursed case is decided? I have been trying to write, but my things come back faster than I can send them out. What am I good for? A game at billiards, sixty miles an hour in a motor car, a lark with any idler that happens in the club. Bah! I'm sick of having people patronize me because I am not in the game, because I've never earned a penny, except by ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... him, and was self-centred and self- sufficing: for a sociable being, the most self-sufficing I have ever known; I can think of no one of such vitality who was so independent of other people; he could golf alone, play billiards alone, walk alone, shoot alone, fish alone, do everything alone; and yet he was dependent on both my mother and my stepmother and on all occasions loved simple playfellows. ... Some one to carry his clubs, or to wander round the garden with, would make him perfectly ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... Besides this, there's billiards and gambling for the gentlemen, a little dancing for the gals, and scandle for the dowygers. In none of these amusements did we partake. We were a LITTLE too good to play crown pints at cards, and never get paid when we won; ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to my mother. They were based in part upon my well-known pecuniary success at billiards—I need not say that I prefer the push game, as requiring no expenditure of muscular force. They were also based in part upon my intimacy with a distinguished operator in Wall Street. Our capital would infallibly have been quadrupled,—what do I say? decupled, centupled, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... existence had now, for some years, flowed. At two he usually breakfasted, and at three, or, as the year advanced, four o'clock, those persons who were in the habit of accompanying him in his rides, called upon him. After, occasionally, a game of billiards, he proceeded,—and, in order to avoid starers, in his carriage,—as far as the gates of the town, where his horses met him. At first the route he chose for these rides was in the direction of the Cascine and of the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... "have a special physiognomy,—they are not, as in the provinces, discreet localities, with an atmosphere of familiar conventionality, in which the father brings his eldest son to pass the evening with the notary of the quarter and the pharmacien of the public square, in an interminable game of billiards or of piquet voleur. Houses very comme il faut, in which no incongruity would be tolerated, from which a Parisian was even chased one day for having pronounced a gross word. Neither do they ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... that a letter from Jennie might be awaiting him at the hotel, but there was no word from her. He was a man not easily wrought up, but to-night he felt depressed, and so went gloomily up to his room and changed his linen. After supper he proceeded to drown his dissatisfaction in a game of billiards with some friends, from whom he did not part until he had taken very much more than his usual amount of alcoholic stimulant. The next morning he arose with a vague idea of abandoning the whole affair, but as the hours elapsed and the time of his appointment drew near he decided that it might ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... managed to draw the line At going to tango teas, For, after all, I am fifty-nine And a trifle stiff in the knees; But I've had to give up billiards for "slosh," And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... Bartenstein, and I will reward your interest in his misfortune by making you his successor. You shall be state referendarius yourself. Come along, you chicken-hearted statesman, and let us play a game of billiards." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... day, and after breakfast most of the company assembled on the promenade deck, some to lounge and smoke and chat or read, others to play quoits or deck billiards. ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... and listening to the loud and rhythmical breathings that fanned the tranquil air, certainly went out to tea-parties afterwards and played bridge till dinner-time; or if no such entertainment was proffered them, occupied arm-chairs at the county club, or laboriously amassed a hundred at billiards. Though tea-parties were profuse, dining out was very rare at Tilling; Patience or a jig-saw puzzle occupied the hour or two that intervened between domestic supper and bed-time; but again and again, Miss Mapp had seen lights ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... under the collars of their coats; and the remainder turn into the first house of public entertainment they arrive at on emerging from the smoke of London to the rural districts, and remain all day absorbed in the mysteries of ground billiards and knock-'em-downs, their principal vegetable studies being confined to lettuces, spring onions, and water-cresses. But all this is very proper—we mean the botanical part of the story—for the knowledge of the natural class and order of a buttercup must be of the greatest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... chess and checkers here. Wrestling, boxing, snowballing are variations on attack and defense. A great many are variations on action at a distance, of which instances have already been cited from children's toys; in adult games we find here golf, croquet, bowling, quoits, billiards, shooting. Many games emphasize motor skill, as skipping ropes, knife, cat's cradle, usually however with competition in skill between the different players. This element of manual skill enters of course into nearly all games. ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... themselves in order before his mind, and an awful whole rose out of all these reflections, a terrible suspicion which he tried to throw off. But he could not do so, and when he met the captain and D'Effernay in the evening, and the latter challenged his visitors to a game of billiards, Edward glanced from time to time at his host in a scrutinizing manner, and could not but feel that the restless discontent which was visible in his countenance, and the unsteady glare of his eyes, which shunned the fixed look of others, only fitted too well into the shape of the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... Yesterday and last night it was 12—and I slept until 8 this morning without waking. The billiard table, as a Sabbath breaker can beat any coal-breaker in Pennsylvania, and give it 30 in, the game. If Mr. Rogers will take to daily billiards he can do without doctors and the massageur, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sympathy with the trouble of the moment, and was as gay as the youngest imagination conceives Paris to be. There was a constant throng loitering along the arcades; the cafes were lighted and crowded; men were smoking, sipping coffee, playing billiards, reading the newspapers, discussing the debates in the Chamber and the coming "Prophete" of Meyerbeer at the opera; women were chatting together in the boutiques, pretty grisettes hurrying home; little blanchisseuses, with their neatly-napkinned baskets, tripping among the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... leaves of his book. "What do you say to going down to the hotel and having a game of bazzica, as they call billiards here?" ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... a popular institution, where the male element of the community, frequently representing many nationalities, gathers for a game of billiards and a chat, and where the home and local papers, together with a fair number of books and magazines, are to be found. One evening during the tea season, just before dinner, I counted at one time fourteen nationalities in the bar ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... be LET, FURNISHED, cosily FURNISHED COUNTRY HOUSE, offering rest, recuperation, recreation, and the acme of comfort; 10 bedrooms, 2 bath, 4 reception; stabling, garage, billiards, tennis, croquet, miniature rifle range, small golf course, fringed pool, gardens, walks, telephone, radiators, gas; near town and rail; rent L3 3s. weekly, including gardener's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... sign. Decidedly, the Ethics of the Turf offer an odd study for the moralist; and, in passing, I may say that the national ethics are also a little queer. We ruin a tradesman who lets two men play a game at billiards for sixpence on licensed premises, and we allow a silly boy to be rooked of a quarter of a million in nine months, although the robbery is as well-known as if it were advertised over the whole front page of The ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... thrifty and cleanly appearance, and possesses two very fair inns. The saloon of one of these appeared to be the rendezvous of the opulent townspeople. Music, chess, billiards, and tobacco-smoke, appeared to be the amusements most in vogue; the indulgence in the latter being of course universal. Here I took leave of my companions of the steamer, whose loss I much regretted, especially M. Burgstaller, a gentleman of much intelligence, who requested me to examine his ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... billiards with Mr. Erskine," said Agatha, interposing quickly to forestall a retort from Jane, with its usual sequel of ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... had a strange pleasure in venturing his person. It was remarked that his spirits were never so high and his manners never so gracious and easy as amidst the tumult and carnage of a battle. Even in his pastimes he liked the excitement of danger. Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no pleasure. The chase was his favourite recreation; and he loved it most when it was most hazardous. His leaps were sometimes such that his boldest companions did not like to follow him. He seems even to have thought the most hardy ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... serving their King, a picture of polish and smartness. Facing the barracks is a smaller building called "The Jockey Club" where the Commander-in-Chief himself and many of his staff meet to lunch or dine, play billiards, or chat pleasantly over their liqueurs ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... "occupy your mind", take up some very simple, quiet hobby. Gardening, fretwork, photography and gymnastics are not necessarily quiet hobbies. Chess, billiards, and contortions with gymnastic apparatus are not to ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... the major affected to laugh over this social failure, and to regard it as somewhat in the nature of a practical joke, but privately he was deeply incensed. One day he momentarily dropped his veil of unconcern while playing billiards with the Honourable Fungus Brown, who was generally credited with having had some hand in the major's exclusion. "Be Ged! sir," the veteran suddenly exclaimed, inflating his chest and turning his apoplectic face upon his companion, "in the old days I would have called ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you, but many of our boys know money only in the form of pocket-money, when it becomes to him a metal token mostly signifying so much "tuck"; becoming, as he grows older, more and more deleterious "tuck" in the shape of billiards, betting, etc., and ending in a general going "on tick," which is worse still. But in this matter we are improving. I think most sensible parents nowadays place a small sum at their bank to the boy's account, with a check-book, ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... the fifteen hundred members of the Hull-House Boy's club, hundreds seem to respond only to the opportunities for recreation, and many of the older ones apparently care only for the bowling and the billiards. And yet tournaments and match games under supervision and regulated hours are a great advance over the sensual and exhausting pleasures to be found so easily outside the club. These organized sports readily connect themselves ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... so! Well, Prince Tchetchensky is a well-known figure. No matter, though. He's always playing billiards here. Only three years ago he was not a shlupik and kept up his spirits and even used to call other people shlupiks. But one day he turns up, and our porter...you know Vassily? Why, that fat one; he's ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Lounsbury, Brannon entertained him no less gladly. His was the rare good-humour that enlivens every occasion. He practised at target-shooting with the enlisted men; he played billiards with the officers; he dined; made up sleigh rides; lent himself to theatricals; furnished a fourth at cards, and, at the frequent dances, led out ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... Strutt had bespoke his new liveries of old Lewis Baboon. This coming to Mrs. Bull's ears, when John Bull came home, he found all his family in an uproar. Mrs. Bull, you must know, was very apt to be choleric. "You sot," says she, "you loiter about ale-houses and taverns, spend your time at billiards, ninepins, or puppet-shows, or flaunt about the streets in your new gilt chariot, never minding me nor your numerous family. Don't you hear how Lord Strutt has bespoke his liveries at Lewis Baboon's shop? Don't you see ...
— English Satires • Various
... spoke to Madame of her affairs, Alphonse and Isabella were engaged in a game of billiards in the hall, where stood the table; but their talk seemed of greater interest than the game, for I heard no sound ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... idea at the back of them," Dennis replied. "I thought perhaps the white chalk which was deposited in the blade-pocket, and was even noticeable on the handle, might be due to billiard chalk. But, of course, I didn't mention billiards, because it would have given my line of reasoning away. I thought it was better to spring it ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... especially devoted to his sister. Her death indeed grieved him so deeply, that he died shortly after. A man of the utmost cheer and wholesomeness, revelling in dancing, swimming, riding, sketching, and billiards; he was idolised in the circle around him, though his life was not without its enmities. He had many slight flirtations, but seems to have been even engaged but once, to Cecile Jeanrenaud, whom he married. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... every house qualified to do everything except handle a book. There is no reason why the Library should not be just as much a place of amusement as the billiard-room, where the men are usually to be found. Books are much more amusing than billiards, and you may learn to play in jest or work in earnest with books just as you take to any other amusement. The whole truth is that at present books do not get a proper share of attention, and it is with the desire to remedy such a condition of things that I have printed this little ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... on the beach and sunburns, there's so everlasting much of him to be sunburned that he practically amounts to a conflagration. He can't shoot rapids, craps or big game with any degree of comfort; nor play billiards. He can't get close enough to the table to make the shots, and he puts all the English on himself and none of ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... gentleman, for he kept the Cockchafer public-house at Maltby, and often served behind the bar in his own person. Neither was he altogether a reputable person, for he frequently helped himself to an overdose of his own beverages, besides being a sharp hand at billiards, and possessing several packs of cards with extra aces in them. Neither was he a particularly refined personage, for his choice of words was often more expressive than romantic, and his ordinary conversation was frequently the reverse of edifying; it mainly had to do with ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... horses" at once. Men who marry sisters are united by a stronger tie than the usual brother-in-law bond, and the Englishman and the American felicitated themselves upon their capture of the Sawyer sisters. They played billiards on a table where the balls had not clicked for a generation. They smoked in a room which had been free from the odour of tobacco for a score of years. They rode horseback upon steeds whose principal duty, ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... some poetical excerpts of a moral tendency, and spread thick over a violent lad smarting under a sense of demerit justly scorned, Turn him out into the world, then scrape clean and return him to his true friends. Cards, race-meetings, and billiards may be introduced ad lib., also passion, prejudice, a faithful dog, and an infant prattler. Death-scenes form an effective relief. I have several which only need a touch or two to be complete. That is the way to please the publishers ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... humorous eyes, which could bore like augers on occasion, and a mouth as firm and close as a steel trap. His name was William Bates Rapp, and his specialty was corporation law. He was counsel for the Western Airline Railway, and just then he was pretending to play billiards with ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... countrymen. They are entirely ready and anxious to see a Cromwell for Italy. They, too, think, when the people starve, "It is no matter what happens in the back parlor." What signifies that, if there is "order" in the front? How dare the people make a noise to disturb us yawning at billiards! ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... of it there is no doubt. The words she says, "Flax, grow," prove the point. She does what she wants done. Her intense desire finds utterance in an act. She obeys the simplest possible impulse. Let anyone watch an exciting game of tennis, or better still perhaps a game of billiards, he will find himself doing in sheer sympathy the thing he wants done, reaching out a tense arm where the billiard cue should go, raising an unoccupied leg to help the suspended ball over the net. Sympathetic magic is, modern psychology teaches us, in the main and at the outset, not the outcome ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... A merry country party, A drive, and then croquet, A quiet, well-cooked dinner, Three times at billiards winner,— The evening sped away; When Brown, the dear old joker, Cried, "Come, my worthy broker, The hour is growing late; Your room is cool and quiet, As for the bed, just try it, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... petting, but not all. He was at bottom really true-hearted, frank and generous—generous even to an extreme—but he had acquired a habit of producing striking impressions which dogged and perverted his every action and speech. He disliked losing a few shilling at billiards, but he did not mind losing a few pounds: the latter was good for a story. Had he possessed any money to invest in shares, he would have been irritated by small rises or small falls; but he would have been vain of a big rise, and he would have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... our Town Halls for gratuitous concerts and dances! But that's not half enough. Some of us don't care for dancing, and abhor music. What I propose is that Free Billiard-tables should be established in each parish. Billiards is much better exercise than sitting still on a chair listening to singing. Then there ought to be places where one could get municipal tobacco without paying for it. Tobacco is just as much a necessary of life as education—more so, in fact, in my opinion. On ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... observation the investigators learned what sort of moving pictures Delafield demanded, or, at least what sort it got. They took note of the Amethyst Coterie's Saturday night dances—"Wardrobe, 50 cents, Ladies Free"—and of the boys and girls who patronized the place. The various cigar and pocket-billiards combinations were quietly observed, some of the observers learning for the first time that young men are so determined to get together that they are not to be deterred by dirt or bad air or foul and ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... realized in everybody, from highest to lowest, that they kept the habitual garb of an incurious reticence, neither asking nor giving information. We found, as if carelessly loitering around the hotel, or playing billiards in it, several young men who spoke excellent French, and we laid cautious traps for conversation, but no one could tell us any news or give us any information about the fighting, or answer any questions other than evasively. And ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... should say about eleven-fifteen, sir. As soon as Major Colford and Captain Dancy had finished billiards. What was Mr De Levis doing out of his room, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 247. Billiards.—In billiard matches the chief thing to note, in addition to points already mentioned in other sporting news stories, is the scoring of the individual runs. If it is necessary to write up the individual ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards. Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity: He loved men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure to think of an equally distributed affection is that their love of humanity is ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... in this form of distress. So in his kindly feeling Harold offered to drive him home, for he knew that he could thus keep him out of further harm. Leonard thanked him in uncertain speech, and said he would be ready. In the meantime he would go and play billiards with the marker whilst ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... of body was little short of an abuse of the privileges of the place. But since he could give no real explanation of his feelings, and only sighed vaguely when engaged in the daily preprandial game of billiards at the club, it was thought best to ignore his new departure, and to ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... individual; and therefore he fails, as it seems to me, to give the right explanation, or any explanation at all, of many gestures and expressions. As an illustration of what he calls symbolic movements, I will quote his remarks (p. 37), taken from M. Chevreul, on a man playing at billiards. "Si une bille devie legerement de la direction que le joueur pretend zlui imprimer, ne l'avez-vous pas vu cent fois la pousser du regard, de la tete et meme des epaules, comme si ces mouvements, purement symboliques, pouvaient rectifier son trajet? Des mouvements non moins significatifs ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... in safety, and solaced himself for his defeat in New England by attention to his pretty person, and his pretty customers, balls, assemblies, and billiards; in process of time made a fashionable failure, a fashionable marriage, and commenced business afresh. To the questions of his acquaintance respecting his excursion "down east," he was shy and reserved; evading ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Dmitri went in to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, the young official with whom he had pawned his pistols. It was by now half-past eight, and Pyotr Ilyitch had finished his evening tea, and had just put his coat on again to go to the "Metropolis" to play billiards. Mitya ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... altogether short of foxes, and some one who understands the matter must take that point up before they can do any good. And after that he had had rather a dull dinner with the duke. Sowerby had been there, and in the evening he and Sowerby had played billiards. Sowerby had won a pound or two, and that had been the extent of the damage done. But those saunterings over to the parsonage might be more dangerous. Not that it ever occurred to Lady Lufton as possible that her son should fall in love with ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... your impertinence, you vulgar, low people!' says Betsinda, walking off with her pan of coals. She heard the young gentlemen playing at billiards as she went upstairs: first to Prince Giglio's bed, which she warmed, and then to Prince ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... afternoons a week. Incidentally I may mention that his presence caused me a difficulty with the Comptroller, who refused to audit a bill I put in for a wrestling-mat, explaining that I could have a billiard-table, billiards being recognized as a proper Gubernatorial amusement, but that a wrestling-mat symbolized something unusual and unheard of and could not be permitted. The middleweight champion was of course so ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the lad admiringly. "There's 'Muggins' Watson over there," and he pointed to a man in his shirt sleeves, playing billiards with a young fellow whom Joe recognized, from having seen his picture in the papers, as 'Slim' Cooney, one ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... from committing violence on the inhabitants, when a shot was fired from a window, and one of his men killed. They entered the house, went to the room from the window of which the shot had been fired, and found a number of men playing at billiards. They insisted on the culprit being given up, when a man was pointed out as the one who had fired the shot. They all agreed as to the culprit, and he was carried off. Sir Thomas considering that a severe example was necessary, ordered the man to be ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Tressilvain tried the billiards, but found the game inferior to the English game. So he burrowed into a box of cigars, established himself before the fire with all the newspapers, deploring the fact that the papers were not ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... business at that; the other type, like these Arthur fellows, and Dave Allan and T. Fordham Brown, who go in for afternoon teas and such gentlemanly pastimes, and whose most strenuous exercise is a game of billiards. Shucks, there isn't a real man in the lot. Maybe I'll run across some people who don't take a two-by-four view of life if I stay around here long enough, but it hasn't happened to me yet. I hope I'm not an intellectual snob, little person, any more than I'm puffed up over happening to be a ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... out much, but I have told my wife about you, and she would be glad to see you at the house. I have a notion, too, that my girls are worth knowing. Suppose you come out to-morrow at six and dine with us, en famille; and then if the ladies can't amuse you afterward I'll stand in with a few games of billiards." ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... Albert de Luynes, clever in training little sporting birds, called butcher-birds (pies grieches, or shrikes), then all the rage; and the king made him his falconer and lived on familiar terms with him. Playing at billiards one day, Marshal d'Ancre, putting on his hat, said to the king, "I hope your Majesty will allow me to be covered." The king allowed it, but remained surprised and shocked. His young page, Albert de Luynes, observed his displeasure, and being anxious, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... for the very excellent reason that there was no other place to go. We hadn't any Clubs to begin with, so that on his way home from business there was no temptation for him to stop off anywhere and frivol away his time playing billiards, or squandering his limited means on rubbers of bridge or other ruinous games. The only Vaudeville shows we had at the time consisted of the somewhat too continuous performances of the monkeys and the poll-parrots right there in our own back-yard, so that that menace to ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... shake the columns of society, by detracting from or burlesquing the elevating principles which have produced so many illustrious men, has recently attempted to reduce the labours of literature to a mere curious amusement: a finished composition is likened to a skilful game of billiards, or a piece of music finely executed; and curious researches, to charades and other insignificant puzzles. With such, an author is an idler who will not be idle, amusing or fatiguing others who are completely so. The result of a work of genius is contracted to the art of writing; ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... by the sea!" remarks Mr. Ellins. "No billiards! No cards! Say, what the merry Mithridates do you think I'm going to do with myself from now ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... letch was strong on me, I went to stay with my mother to be nearer my game, and passed my time in playing billiards at the public-house, and nightly I hunted the girl; so that at length under promise to take her to Vauxhall she agreed to come and dine with me, or as she said, have supper at eight o'clock with me. I usually then went ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... billiards, and a bit of racing, and fellows at the club rallying round and kind of taking me out of myself, as it were, I got over it, and came to look on the affair as a closed page in the book of my life, if you know what I mean. It didn't seem likely to me that we should ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... communities as it does in a regiment. Bonnebault, like Tonsard and like Fourchon, desired to live well and do nothing; and he had his plans laid. Making the most of his gallant appearance with increasing success, and of his talents for billiards with alternate loss and gain, he flattered himself that the day would come when he could marry Mademoiselle Aglae Socquard, only daughter of the proprietor of the Cafe de la Paix, a resort which was to Soulanges what, relatively speaking, Ranelagh is ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... to nothing!" was the prompt reply. Meanwhile, those whose appetites were not quite so urgent had distributed themselves about the place, and were already busy with draughts, billiards, etcetera, while those who were of more sedate and inquiring temperament were deep in the columns of the ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Theatre du Pantheon—playing wind instruments at dead of night to the torment of his neighbors, or, in vocal mood, traversing the Quartier with a society of musical friends about the small hours of the morning—getting into scuffles with the gendarmes—flirting, dancing, playing billiards and the deuce; falling in love and in debt; dividing his time between Aristotle and Mademoiselle Mimi Pinson ... here, and here only, in all his phases, at every hour of the day and night, he ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... look, and very much the air of what is called "a young man about town;" that is, one who rides out to Cato's every afternoon, eats oyster suppers at Windust's every night after the play, and spends the rest of his time and his money at billiards. I had cast my eye upon him occasionally during the affair of the shawl, and saw that he took a deep interest in its termination. The moment the poor woman was gone, he twitched from his neck a gold chain, at the end of which was a small gold watch, and placing it in the hands ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... coolly. What is it to her? But she had finished with song. Jenny takes her place at the piano; and, as Rose does not care for instrumental music, she naturally talks and laughs with Drummond, and Jenny does not altogether like it, even though she is not playing to the ear of William Harvey, for whom billiards have such attractions; but, at the close of the performance, Rose is quiet enough, and the Countess observes her sitting, alone, pulling the petals of a flower in her lap, on which her eyes are fixed. Is the doe wounded? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was otherwise entitled to enter. He was a capital cricketer; was so good a shot, that any house desirous of reputation for its bags on the 12th or the 1st, was glad to have him for a guest. He taught young ladies to play billiards on a wet day, or went in for the game in serious earnest when required, He knew half the private theatrical plays off by heart, and was invaluable in arranging impromptu charades and tableaux. He had his own private reasons for ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... or tribune, of brick and stone, is reserved for the chief of the state. In the time of the last presidency it was almost always occupied by the marshal, a great lover of horses, and by his little court; but his successor, M. Grevy, whose sporting propensities are satisfied by a game of billiards or a day's shooting with his pointers, generally waives his privilege in favor of the members ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... for fear of the evening dew, the company retired to the apartments, lit by a multitude of candles, and there tables were prepared for every sort of game: lansquenet, billiards, reversi, bagatelle, pigeon-holes, turnstile, porch, beast, hoca, brelan, draughts, backgammon, dice, basset, and calbas. Bluebeard was uniformly unfortunate in these various games, at which he lost large sums every night. He could console himself for his continuous run of bad luck by watching ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... but I can quickly show you a close connection. Here are the missing links of the very simple chain: 1. You had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. 2. You put chalk there when you play billiards to steady the cue. 3. You never play billiards except with Thurston. 4. You told me four weeks ago that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month, and which ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with a twinkle, "when I last came, you talked to me for about two minutes and then left me to play billiards with your brother. He was polite, but in Canada we play pool and my game's not very good. I imagined ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... golf, billiards, hill-climbing, are all beneficial forms of exercise for the middle-aged and elderly, who are ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... difficult game to describe. I should liken it, in some respects, to billiards on a grand scale, except that the balls have to be put into holes instead of pockets; that they have to be struck with the side instead of with the end of a club, and that there is ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... his excellent book—"Napoleon and His Detractors"—refers to the young Prince playing a game of billiards with Marmont and Don Miguel, the former having been one of his father's most important generals. He it was who betrayed him, and now he is become the Duke's confidant and instructor. The Prince says that his cousin asked ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... "What! do you cry out against your foster-mother for a matter of fifteen francs? you that turn out an article as easily as I smoke a cigar. Fifteen francs! why, you will give a bowl of punch to your friends, or win an extra game of billiards, and there's an end ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... It was during the vacation at Freiberg last winter, and I had come over to Dresden to have a good time. We stayed at the same hotel. We played a game of billiards together, and he chatted with me about America, and asked me about my mining studies at Freiberg; and I thought him about the best fellow I'd ever met. But I didn't know then —I hadn't any conception what a splendid fellow he really was. If ever I hear anybody talking of their ideal of ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... judge, the male portion of the population passed their evenings in smoking cigars and playing billiards, when not engaged in dancing or listening to music. Every evening, before the captain-general's house in the Plaza, a military band played for an hour, when the men collected by hundreds, but a few ladies, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the Americans while they waited for the British commissioners. "We dine together at four," Adams records, "and sit usually at table until six. We then disperse to our several amusements and avocations." Clay preferred cards or billiards and the mild excitement of rather high stakes. Gallatin and his young son James preferred the theater; and all but Adams became intimately acquainted with the members of a French troupe of players whom Adams ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... according to opportunity or the taste of the hour, now taken up and now let alone, and the abbe soon writes: "I do not speak about our races because we race no more, nor of our readings because we do not read, nor of our promenades because we do not go out. What, then, do we do? Some play billiards, others dominoes, and others backgammon. We weave, we ravel and we unravel. Time pushes us on and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... crowd, who both came in just too late to secure the table. It is understood that the game was arranged as the result of a heated discussion during lunch the same day, in the course of which Herbert had the effrontery to tell me—I mean, to tell James—that what I—that is, he—knew about billiards wouldn't cover the pyramid-spot. James, who some hours later thought of a perfectly priceless repartee, which he has since forgotten, replied with dignity by challenging the other to an immediate game. Herbert accepted and, hastily finishing their lunch, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... covered rink can be constantly flooded, it can be kept in the most perfect order, and with the heavy stones far greater accuracy can be attained than with the granite stones used in Scotland. The game becomes a sort of billiards on ice. The Rideau Hall team consisted of Lord Lansdowne himself, General Sir Henry Streatfield, a nephew of mine, and one of the footmen, who seemed to have a natural gift as a curler. Our team were invincible in 1888. At a curling-match ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... nominally belonged to the army, was a member of "The Canteen," a military club, played billiards in Winter and cricket in Summer, and if at long intervals he got plain drunk, it was a matter of patriotism done by way of celebrating a victory of English arms in the Congo, and therefore in the line of duty. Captain O'Shea never beat his wife, even in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard |
