"Dice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Against gaming at dice[198] & Cardes be it ordained by this present assembly that the winner or winners shall lose all his or their winninges and[199] both winners and loosers shall forfaicte[200] ten shillings a man, one ten shillings whereof to go to the discoverer, and the rest to charitable & pious uses in the ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... being so much inferior in numbers, were wasted by disease and famine, while their adversaries were fresh and vigorous, with a plentiful commissariat. But the latter were overconfident. They spent the evening in dice-playing and making wagers about the prisoners they should take; while the English, on the contrary, confessed themselves and received ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... treading their way among wagons, forage carts, and sick-litters. Here was a booth filled with all imaginable wares for sale; there was a temporary gin-shop established beneath a broken baggage-wagon; here might be seen a merry party throwing dice for a turkey or a kid; there, a wounded man, with bloodless cheek and tottering step, inquiring the road to the hospital. The accents of agony mingled with the drunken chorus, and the sharp crack of the provost-marshal's whip was heard above the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... experiments. The most ignorant compounder of simples could not fail to witness the magical transformations of chemical action; and every new product must have added to the probability that the tempting doublets of gold and silver might be thrown from the dice-box with which he ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... is enterprising enough to have a cinematoscope hall, was full of stalls given chiefly to the preparation and sale of cake like the Dutch wafelen, and among the stalls were conjurors, cheap-jacks, singers, and dice throwers; while every moment brought its fresh motor-car or carriage load, nearly all speaking English with a nasal twang. Meanwhile every one shouted, the naphtha flared, the drums beat, the horses champed. The street was ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... days, save thyself!" The priests and rabbis, standing by, joined in the mockery, saying, "Aha, he saved others, himself he cannot save! Let him come down if he be the Messiah, the chosen of God!" My soldiers meanwhile disputed as to the apportionment of his garments; I noted the rattling of dice in the brazen helmet wherein they were casting lots for ...
— The Centurion's Story • David James Burrell
... and Pundita appeared. For a moment they believed that Ramabai was going to guide them to the secret gallery. But suddenly he raised his head and stared boldly at the gate. And by that sign Bruce and the colonel understood: Ramabai had taken up the dice to make his throw. The two men put their hands on ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... that the Chinese will not readily do for money. But though they work with great diligence, and patiently undergo any degree of labour, yet no sooner have they laid down their tools than they begin to game, either at cards or dice, or some other play among the multitude that they have invented, which are altogether unknown in Europe: To this they apply with such eagerness as scarcely to allow time for the necessary refreshments of food and sleep; so ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... stood in the center of the room, and a number of small tables were placed around promiscuously, The bar-tender, a smooth-faced, beetle-browed rascal, was engaged in shaking dice for the drinks with a customer, and, to the music of the violin, a light-footed Irishman was executing his national jig, to the great delight and no small edification of his ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... servants, to bathe in perfumed waters. He had learned to eat tenderly and carefully prepared food, even fish, even meat and poultry, spices and sweets, and to drink wine, which causes sloth and forgetfulness. He had learned to play with dice and on a chess-board, to watch dancing girls, to have himself carried about in a sedan-chair, to sleep on a soft bed. But still he had felt different from and superior to the others; always he had watched them with ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... me hearties. Duke! Patch! I loves both o' yer. I loves yer equal, like two mugs o' grog as is full alike. Yer can pitch dice ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... and dice which he takes from his doublet): See, here be cards and dice. (He seats himself ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... in after the introductory collect; of fourpence for absence from public worship; of from two to six pence for absence from one's chamber during the time of study; of one shilling for picking open a lock the first time, and two shillings the second; of two and sixpence for playing at cards or dice, or for bringing strong liquor into College; of one shilling for doing damage to the College, or jumping out of the windows,—and so in many ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... play at cards or dice either for his apparel or arms upon pain of being disarmed and made a ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... the Healer soothes with a touch the wound that his own dart has made;[21] Love the Artist sets his signature beneath the soul which he has created;[22] Love the Helmsman steers the soul, like a winged boat, over the perilous seas of desire;[23] Love the Child, playing idly with his dice at sundawn, throws lightly for human lives.[24] Now he is a winged boy with childish bow and quiver, swift of laughter and speech and tears;[25] now a fierce god with flaming arrows, before whom life wastes away like ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... public prison of Padua; Guido lies asleep on a pallet (L.C.); a table with a goblet on it is set (L.C.); five soldiers are drinking and playing dice in the corner on a stone table; one of them has a lantern hung to his halbert; a torch is set in the wall over Guido's head. Two grated windows behind, one on each side of the door which is (C.), look out into the passage; the stage ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... Constitution. He was careful, however, not to lay this down categorically until many months later when his dictatorship seemed undisputed. But from the day of the Manchu Abdication almost, he was constantly engaged in calculating whether he dared risk everything on one throw of the dice and ascend the Throne himself; and it is precisely this which imparts such dramatic interest to the astounding story ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... meat into dice and mix it with twice the quantity of diced celery and one cupful of broken walnut meats. Mix all well together and moisten with a good boiled dressing. Serve in a nest ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... the direction of Chevalier de Macarty into a fortress of stone and garrisoned by nearly a regiment of French troops. A million crowns it cost the king, but this could not have distressed his Majesty, engaged in "throwing dice with piles of Louis d'or before him" ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... only adapt to the circumstances that old Lydian tradition which says that games of chance were invented during a great famine. Men permitted themselves to eat only every second day, and tried to forget their hunger in playing at draughts and dice. That is clearly the invention of a southern people, which never had occasion to wish it could become oblivious of the weather, as too many of us would like to be in England. Such shivering and indolent folks may be inclined to say that skating and curling and wildfowl-shooting, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... is not lettred that nowe is made a lorde, Nor eche a clerke that hath a benefice; They are not all lawyers that pleas do recorde, All that are promoted are not fully wise; On suche chaunce nowe fortune throwes her dice That though we knowe but the yrishe game, Yet would he have ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... merchant, banker, broker, shake In Crockford's club their elbow, And for St. James's clock forsake The chiming of thy bell, Bow: When Batson's, Garraway's, and John's, At night show empty boxes, While cits are playing dice with dons, Or ogling opera doxies; Then Gog shall start, and Magog ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... an old Puritan, we should consider him a man gracefully and picturesquely drest, but withal in the most perfect sobriety of good taste; and when we discovered (as we probably should), over and above, that the harlequin cavalier had a box of salve and a pair of dice in one pocket, a pack of cards and a few pawnbroker's duplicates in the other; that his thoughts were altogether of citizens' wives and their too easy virtue; and that he could not open his mouth without a dozen oaths: then ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... the diners began to arrive. They did not make any elaborate toilet, but sat down to table at once. The dishes were not many: a thick, black seal soup, with all manner of curious things in it — seal meat cut into " small dice" is no doubt the expression, but it would be misleading here; "large dice" we had better call them — with potatoes, carrots, cabbage, turnips, peas, celery, prunes, and apples. I should like to know what our cooks at home would call that dish. Two large jugs of ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... thoroughly Greek heaven. "For them," he says, "shineth below the strength of the sun while in our world it is night, and the space of crimson-flowered meadows before their city is full of the shade of frankincense trees, and of fruits of gold. And some in horses, and in bodily feats, and some in dice, and some in harp-playing have delight; and among them thriveth all fair-flowering bliss; and fragrance streameth ever through the lovely land, as they mingle incense of every kind upon the altars of the gods." [Footnote: Pindar, Thren. I.— ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Living Tinker! she's had him long enough for me!" exploded Bingo, who seemed larger and fussier than ever, if a thought less pink. "So'd you say if they tucked a napkin under your chin at meals, and cut your meat up into dice for you, and you'd ever tried to fold up your newspaper with one hand, or had to stop a perfect stranger in the street, as I did just now outside your door, and ask him to fish a cab-fare out of your right-hand trouser-pocket ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... slumber. She seldom scolded Betty. She who had been so lusty and so blooming saw in her mirror that she was pale and thin now; and the fine young gentlemen, seeing it too, paid more heed now to their wine and their dice than to her. And always, when she met him, the Duke smiled the same mocking smile. Duchess Meg was pining slowly and surely away... One morning, in Spring-time, she altogether vanished. Betty, bringing the ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... said to Desire that Goupil was right about the marriage. The eyes of all present turned towards the doctor, who did not rise to receive the young nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box, for he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The doctor's cold manner surprised ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... spot of rising ground not far from La Haye Sainte, had watched the advance of his Guard. His empire hung on its success. It was the last fling of the dice for him. His cavalry was wrecked, his infantry demoralised, half his artillery dismounted; the Prussian guns were thundering with ever louder roar upon his right. If the Guard succeeded, the electrifying thrill of victory would run through the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... corruption of the Fr. deux, two), a term applied to the "two" of any suit of cards, or of dice. It is also a term used in tennis when both sides have each scored three points in a game, or five games in a set; to win the game or set two points or games must then be won consecutively. The earliest instances in English of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... head and listens to the doctor) I have even brought this poison, which may act as an antidote to the other; but the princes of medical science should have been present to witness the experiment! No man ought to venture upon such a throw of the dice. ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... Lightning, standing as he had stood a few minutes before. Only a moment she hesitated, and her spurs clicked rapidly as she hurried down the sidewalk. The door of the saloon stood open and she walked boldly in. Vil Holland stood at the bar shaking dice with the bartender. The latter looked up surprised, and Vil followed his glance to the figure of the girl who had paused just inside the doorway. She beckoned to him and he followed her out onto the sidewalk, and stood, Stetson in hand, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... a white speck in the distance, Patricia and Betty came out upon the porch and sat them down, one on either side of the Governor, with whom they were great favorites. Colonel Ludlow and Captain Laramore were at dice at a table within the hall, and Colonel Verney had excused himself in order to hear the evening report from his overseers. Sir Charles Carew, very idle and purposeless-looking, lounged in a great chair, and studied the miniature upon his snuff-box. The Governor, whom the wine had ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... efforts were concentrated on winning from Juan the wages of his first week's work with the Pony Rider Boys. A blanket had been spread over the ground, and on this they were wagering small amounts on the throw of the dice, a flickering camp-fire near by dimly lighting up the blanket and making the reading of the dice a difficult matter for any but the keenest of eyes. The sing-song calls of the players added to the weirdness of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... Pu.^o volvera en algun tiempo como ha sido constumbre en ellos y dice el confesante que no que ya esta muy metido en terror que aunque estaban abilantados con lo que les habia susedido a los de el Pu.^o de Zia el ano pasado juzgaba que era un imposible que dejaran de dar la obediencia; por lo cual se concedieron ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... hand she held a cup of horn, narrower at the top than at the end; in it were dice made of the knee-joints of gazelles, and these she rattled ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... ever, or sleeping who would wake only at the knife's edge? These things I could not know, any more than I could picture how many boon-companions were parting at that instant, just risen from the dice, one to go blindly—the other watching him—to his death? I could not imagine, thank Heaven for it, these secrets, or a hundredth part of the treachery and cruelty and greed that lurked at my feet, ready to burst all bounds at a ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... after expatiating some time on that subject, he asked Mr. Wild if he ever saw so prodigious a run of luck (for so he chose to call his winning, though he knew Wild was well acquainted with his having loaded dice in his pocket). The other answered it was indeed prodigious, and almost sufficient to justify any person who did not know him better in suspecting his fair play. "No man, I believe, dares call that in question," replied he. "No, surely," says Wild; "you are well known to be a man of more honour; ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... some great deceit Had turned his better instinct to a vice: He strove to think the world was all a cheat, That power and fame were cheap at any price, 140 That the sure way of being shortly great Was even to play life's game with loaded dice, Since he had tried the honest play and found That vice and virtue differed but ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to compound her own dinners. She had a salver which Angelique placed before her on the bed; and the old child played in pastry or salads, or cut vegetable dice for her soup. The baking or boiling or roasting was done with rigor at her own fireplace by her blacks, the whiplash in her hand hovering over their bare spots. Silence was the law of the presence-chamber when she labored with her recipes, of which she had many, looking ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Sinclair returned thither and took up his quarters in the engineers' building. The passion for gambling was raging, and to pander thereto were collected as choice a lot of desperadoes as ever "stacked" cards or loaded dice. It came to be noticed that they were on excellent terms with a man called "Jeff" Johnson, who was lessee of the hotel; and to be suspected that said Johnson, in local parlance, "stood in with" them. With this man had ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... received slight wounds. This outbreak was of such magnitude that 150 police reserves were required to quell it. It has been reported that it was precipitated by a fight which resulted from a dispute over the amount of money wagered in a dice game conducted by men of both races.[118] There were riots during the summer of 1919, in Washington, D. C., Chicago, Illinois, and Omaha, Nebraska; but it is difficult to say to what extent the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... miss the lucky class. Many conclusions did I form, and many experiments did I try, to determine from which of those tickets I might most reasonably expect riches. At last, being unable to satisfy myself by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upon dice, and allotted five hours every day to the amusement of throwing them in a garret; and, examining the event by an exact register, found, on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers had been turned ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... near that cursed Naples, the common sewer of Europe? whose women, I believe, would be swallowed up by Vesuvius to-morrow, if it were not that Belphegor is afraid of their making the pit itself too hot to hold him. Well, sir, she had all of mine and more; and when all was gone in wine and dice, woodcocks' brains and ortolans' tongues, I met the witch walking with another man. I had a sword and a dagger; I gave him the first (though the dog fought well enough, to give him his due), and her the second; left them lying across each other, and fled for my life,—and here I am! ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... upon, the forces engaged shall be equal in number and similar in composition. The methods of handicapping are obvious. A slight inequality (chances of war) may be arranged between equal players by leaving out 12 men on each side and tossing with a pair of dice to see how many each player shall take of these. The best arrangement and proportion of the forces is in small bodies of about 20 to 25 infantry-men and 12 to 15 cavalry to a gun. Such a force can maneuver comfortably on a front ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... Lady Cardington's eyes as she listened, brimmed over and fell down upon her blanched cheeks. Each time the refrain recurred she moved her lips: "Dice: Tutto al mondo e vano: ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... is the sex of the embryon produced by accident? Certainly whatever is produced has a cause; but when this cause is too minute for our comprehension, the effect is said in common language to happen by chance, as in throwing a certain number on dice. Now what cause can occasionally produce the male or female character of the embryon, but the peculiar actions of those glands, which form the embryon? And what can influence or govern these actions of the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... jolly fellow, who cares as little for the life of a man as for that of a fly. There is not a man in the parish of Saint Andrew who does not tremble at the sight of him. In a by-street there is a tavern in a large cellar, where one can hear the rattling of dice all night long, and they play for piles of gold—where it comes from, the devil only knows. Late yesterday evening I was passing through this street, when the noise of the dice fell upon my ear. You must know, Bernardo, that this sound is as enchanting music attracting ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... had brought it about that, at one and the same time, Abalene, after a dazzling run of the dice, found the hauling business an actual danger to the preservation of his liberty. He won seventeen dollars and sixty cents, and within the hour found himself in trouble with an officer of the Humane Society on account of an altercation with Whitey. Abalene had been offered four dollars for Whitey ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... favourable, much better than a calm. Mr. Bassnett proposed as a wager, that he would throw doublets ones to sixes in succession in ten minutes, which he accomplished in seven; he also surprised us by taking up the dice by means only of the boxes. The wind continued favourable all day. Played another game with Mr. B. and lost it. Did not see a ship or fish throughout the day. Have great difficulty in preventing myself from thinking of meeting my late dear father ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... boil'd Turnip cut in dice, flour them and fry them brown; then pour off the Liquor the Beef was stew'd in, and having passed it through a Sieve, thicken it with burnt Butter, and mix your fry'd Turnips with it, and pour all together over your Beef; garnish with Lemon sliced, and ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... viol, and its strings they may try all, For the heart's dance, outvie all, the songs of the dairy! White and red are a-blending, on thy cheeks a-contending, And a smile is descending from thy lips of the cherry; Teeth their ivory disclosing, like dice, bright round rows in, An eye unreposing, with twinkle so merry; At summer-dawn straying, on my sight beams are raying, From the tresses[129] they 're playing of the maid of the dairy. My brown dairy, brown ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... state of freedom you got whatever you could in any way you could; you were not your neighbour's keeper, and except that it interfered with the enterprise of pickpockets, burglars and forgers, and kept the dice loaded in favour of landlords and lawyers, the State stood aside from the great drama of human getting. For industrialism and speculation the State's guiding ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... of these young servitors, pushing from him the dice with which himself and his companion had sought to beguile their leisure, "this is but dull work! and the best part of the day is gone. Our ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... add a miscellaneous kind, By pleasure, pride, and indolence confined; Those whom no calls, no warnings could divert, The unexperienced, and the inexpert; The builder, idler, schemer, gamester, sot, - The follies different, but the same their lot; Victims of horses, lasses, drinking, dice, Of every passion, humour, whim, and vice. See! that sad Merchant, who but yesterday Had a vast household in command and pay; He now entreats permission to employ A boy he needs, and then entreats the ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... distribution of the parti-colored political holdings in the Lesser Antilles. The small size of these islands, and their thalassic location commanding approaches to a large region of only partially developed resources and to the interoceanic passway across it, will pitch them into the dice-box on the occasion of every naval war ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... and earth, whate'er beyond the skies, Before the eyes of Varuna, the king, unfolded lies. The ceaseless winkings all he counts of every mortal's eyes, He wields this universal frame as gamester throws his dice. Those knotted nooses which thou fling'st, O God, the bad to snare, All liars let them overtake, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... a sexagenarian, liked no companion better than a minor. His Lordship was the most amiable man in the world, and the most lucky; but the first was his merit, and the second was not his fault. There was the juvenile Lord Dice, who boasted of having done his brothers out of their miserable 5,000L. patrimony, and all in one night. But the wrinkle that had already ruffled his once clear brow, his sunken eye, and his convulsive lip, had been thrown, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... cit. p. 75, says: 'Con li principi tiene modo affatto contrario al suo predecessore; perche mentre quello usava dire, il grado dei pontefici esser per mettersi sotto i piedi gl'imperatori e i re, questo dice che senza l'autorita dei principi non si puo conservare ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... a passing swear-word; and the girl was to find the fullest joy her nature was capable of in sacrificing herself. But there is no fundamental verity inherent in the idea: the Dutchman's salvation might as well depend on a throw of dice; and all this early nineteenth-century romantic sentimentalism, with one of its main notions—that a woman cannot be better occupied than in "saving" a man—this, grafted on to the stern, relentless old ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... communicative fellow-passenger of sporting cast: I should infallibly be legged, but I should hardly be plundered so ruthlessly or remorselessly. Still the Vatican, like all gentlemen who play with loaded dice or marked cards, may have a run of luck against it. Spiritual infallibility itself cannot determine whether a halfpenny tossed into the air will come down man or woman, and the law of chances cannot be regulated by a motu proprio. It is possible, though not probable, that on any one ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... kind and courteous benevolence." The servant-men abode on one side of the house, the women on another, and met at prayer-time, or on church festivals, when More would read and expound to them. He suffered no cards or dice, but gave each one his garden-plot for relaxation, or set them to sing or play music. He had an affection for all who truly served him, and his daughters' nurse is as affectionately remembered in his letters when from home as are they themselves. "Thomas More ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... judgment without a screen, without hope, and without God. John murdered in prison; Jesus nailed to the cross; the apostles and martyrs done to death on the scaffold and at the stake—and the ship drifting on the rocks, without a warning voice to arouse the thoughtless crowd of dice-throwers and dancers to the certainty and ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Clerc, the forty millions of Murat, and the thirty-six millions of Augereau; not to mention the hundred millions of Bonaparte. It is also true that Jourdan is a gambler and a debauchee, fond of cards, dice, and women; and that in Italy, except two hours in twenty-four allotted to business, he passed the remainder of his time either at the gaming-tables, or in the boudoirs of his seraglio—I say seraglio, because he kept, in the extensive house joining his palace as governor and commander, ten ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... men until the moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards? Would not such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate? Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice that a man's connections should degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power or he accepts a place? When people desert their connections, the desertion is a manifest fact, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... worn by the menials of the Cardinal. Some one also proposed that a symbol should be added to the livery, to show the universal contempt for Granvelle. By whom should it be designed? was the question. It was agreed that the matter should be decided by lot. Dice were called for. Count Egmont won. A few days afterwards his retainers appeared in doublet and hose of the coarsest grey, long hanging sleeves, such as were worn by the humblest classes, the only ornament being a monk's cowl, or a fool's cap and bells, embroidered on the sleeves. The other ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... No. 80, he wrote:—'It is scarcely possible to pass an hour in honest conversation, without being able, when we rise from it, to please ourselves with having given or received some advantages; but a man may shuffle cards, or rattle dice, from noon to midnight, without tracing any new idea in his mind, or being able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a confused remembrance of agitated passions, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... gay, Cast on the Court a dancing ray; Here to the harp did minstrels sing; There ladies touched a softer string; With long-eared cap and motley vest The licensed fool retailed his jest; His magic tricks the juggler plied; At dice and draughts the gallants vied; While some, in close recess apart, Courted the ladies of their heart, Nor courted them in vain; For often in the parting hour Victorious Love asserts his power O'er ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... crows on the cross."[16] There is a very striking phrase in St. Matthew: "And sitting down they watched him there" (Matt. 27:36). The soldiers nailed three men to crosses, and sat down beneath them to dice for their clothes. Our tolerances, like our utterances, come out of the abundance of the heart, and stamp us for ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... ship ere Ned Rackham casts the dice," said Jack. "But it means playing the hazard in the midst of this storm. How can it be done? A forlorn ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... with an enormous sense of relief and warmth, in the passage. The passage was behaving like a dice-box, its disposition was evidently to rattle him about and then throw him out again. He hung on with the convulsive clutch of instinct until the passage lurched down ahead. Then he would make a short run cabin-ward, and clutch again ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the dice and the box for casting lots. The captains have arranged—most wisely, as I think—that Chance shall decide among us who goes with the expedition and who stays behind in the huts. The officers and crew of the Wanderer will be here ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... afterwards Viscount and Earl of Crabs in the English peerage, who was playing high; and it was after hearing of the passion of this young English nobleman that my uncle, then at Prague, determined to visit Berlin and engage him. For there is a sort of chivalry among the knights of the dice-box: the fame of great players is known all over Europe. I have known the Chevalier de Casanova, for instance, to travel six hundred miles, from Paris to Turin, for the purpose of meeting Mr. Charles Fox, then only my ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dreams, and nothing of his surroundings was real to him. The room became another room, the tables and chairs grew indistinct, the face of a small Gaudama on the mantel-piece became a living face that menaced him, and the "chuck-chuck" of the lizards, the rattle of dice falling on to a board at some remote distance miles and miles away, and yet strangely audible to his dull ears. Still he sat there, and flashes of fancies came and went. Sometimes he stood in an English garden, with a far-away sunlit glimpse ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Collenuccio, a member of Cardinal Ippolito's suite in Rome, wrote to the Duke of Ferrara, December 25, 1498 (1497), as follows: El S. de Pesaro ha scripto qua de sua mano: non haverla mai cognosciuta ... et esser impotente, alias la sententia non se potea dare.... El prefato S. dice pero haver scripto cosi per obedire el Duca de Milano et Aschanio. The autographic letter is in the archives ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... castle in Normandy, at a place called L'Aigle. He was spending some time there, in the year 1076, with his court and family. One day William Rufus and Henry were in one of the upper apartments of the castle, playing with dice, and amusing themselves, in company with other young men of the court, in various ways. There was a window in the apartment leading out upon a balcony, from which one might look down upon the court-yard of the castle below. Robert was in this court-yard with some of his ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... skin-game," he was fond of repeating, and on this one note he rang the changes. "I never had half a chance," he complained. "I was faked in my birth and flim-flammed with my mother's milk. The dice were loaded when she tossed the box, and I was born to prove the loss. But that was no reason she should blame me for it, and look on me as a cold deck; but she did—ay, she did. Why didn't she give me a show? Why didn't the world? Why did ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... heaven toward this world; with thousand eyes they overlook this earth. King Varuna sees all this, what is between heaven and earth, and what is beyond. He has counted the twinklings of the eyes of men. As a player throws down the dice, he settles all things (irrevocably). May all thy fatal snares which stand spread out seven by seven and threefold, catch the man who tells a lie, may they pass by him ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... the centre of the camp, and saw with astonishment groups of retainers everywhere eating, drinking, talking, and even playing cards or dice, but not a single officer of any rank. At last, stopping by the embers of a fire, he asked timidly if he might have breakfast. The soldiers laughed and pointed to a cart behind them, telling him to help himself. The cart was ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... all the chances and changes of seven hundred years, the finest inhabited chateau in the Soissonnais, and as, by a curious throw of the dice of Destiny, it now belongs to a fair compatriot of mine, perhaps I may be allowed to tell this somewhat gruesome tale, which has a flavour rather ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... of life a man may venture many stakes; a woman's fate is determined by a single throw of the dice. Thus, ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... Slippery had taken dice from his pocket and was throwing them meditatively on the floor between his feet, snapping his ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... for the group to disperse can not be indicated by any word in the English language. They were there and then they were not there. As Pee-wee stood amid scattered coins and dice he was conscious of distant forms scaling fences, wriggling through holes, and of one pair of legs disappearing majestically over a dilapidated roof. As a disorderly retreat it ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... 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 their staking hundreds of pounds on a single throw of the dice, when they could not even restore the pawned tunics to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues, or amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ancestors, they turned night into day with long and foolish orgies, and exhausted land and sea with the demands ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... giving a certain sum for a very unlikely chance, and that in doing so he was conferring some benefit on government. But the joint-stock gambling was of a much more atrocious kind: it was gambling with false dice. The loss itself on the whole speculation was an evil, but the great and signal grievance was, that the holders of the shares, now worth nothing, were not the losers. The original swindlers worked up the market to the point which they had expected it to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and elsewhere I omit the "kala (dice Turpino)" of the original: Torrens preserves "Thus goes the tale" (which it only interrupts). This is simply ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the law of Christ and of direct service to His holy cause, he was not allowed to carry it on at all. He must either change his calling or leave the Church. In the Brethren's Church there were no dice makers, no actors, no painters, no professional musicians, no wizards or seers, no alchemists, no astrologers, no courtezans or panderers. The whole tone was stern and puritanic. For art, for music, for letters and for pleasure the Brethren had only contempt, and the fathers ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... (Section 148) a very pretty method to cheat children, as it were, into learning: but then he adds, "There may be dice and playthings, with the letters on them, to teach children the alphabet by playing." And (Section 151) "I know a person of great quality, who, by pasting on the six vowels (for in our language y is one) on the six sides of ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... a self-denying son? With how ill a grace must a man who will often be disguised in liquor, preach sobriety? a passionate man, patience? an irreligious man, piety? How will a parent, whose hands are seldom without cards, or dice in them, be observed in lessons against the pernicious vice of gaming? Can the profuse father, who is squandering away the fortunes of his children, expect to be regarded in a lesson of frugality? 'Tis impossible he should, except it were that the youth, seeing how pernicious ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Mowbray.—"And yet dice and cards are but bones and pasteboard, and the best horse ever started may slip a shoulder before he get to the winning-post—and so I wish Clara's venture had not been in such a bottom.—But, hang it, care killed a cat—I can hedge as well as any one, if the odds turn up against ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... threw away in wild spending or loaned to friends, of whom he had a vast number. All of which goes to explain the soft hands of Ronicky Doone and his nervous, swift-moving fingers, as he stood at the door of the hotel. For he who plays long with cards or dice begins to have a special sense developed in the tips of his fingers, so that they ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... satisfaction that hierarchical feudalism from which they are both derived. He is noble, and believes in nobility. He believes also in force, as if he had the blood of the god Thor. He believes in war, and does not hesitate to throw its "iron dice," insisting upon the rigors of the game. As the German question began to lower, his policy was most persistent. "Not by speeches and votes of the majority," he said in 1862, "are the great questions of the time decided,—that was the error of 1848 and 1849,—but by iron ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... twos and threes keeping step, to be sure, but with eyes anywhere but to the front; groups lying on the ground, chewing blades of bluegrass, watching pretty girls pass, and lounging lazily; groups to one side, but by no means out of sight, throwing dice or playing "craps"—the game dear to the darkey's heart. On the outskirts were guards to gently challenge the visitor, but not very stern sentinels were they. As Crittenden drove in, he saw one pacing a shady beat with a girl on his arm. And later, as he stood by his buggy, looking ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... the legal traditions and restraints of the settled East," said the report of the Public Land Commission of 1880, "in a pathless wilderness, under the feverish excitement of an industry as swift and full of chance as the throwing of dice, the adventurers of 1849 spontaneously instituted neighborhood or district codes of regulation, which were simply meant to define and protect a brief possessory ownership. The ravines and river bars which held the ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... and has still so much good Humour left as to join in Company with them.—Menalcas plays at Backgammon.—He calls for a Glass of Water; 'tis his Turn to throw; he has the Box in one Hand and the Glass in the other; and being extremely dry, and unwilling to lose Time, he swallows down both the Dice and almost the Box, and at the same Time throws the Glass of Water into the Tables.—If this is not to overstrain the Bow, to carry Things to an unnatural Excess and Extravagance, and to make no Distinction ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... everything happens by chance. No prudence in conduct, no wisdom or foresight can effect anything, for the most trivial circumstance will upset the deepest plan of the wisest mind. As Xenophon observed in old times, wisdom is like casting dice and determining your course by the number that appears. Virtue, humanity, the best and most beautiful conduct is wholly in vain. The history of thousands of years demonstrates it. In all these years there is no more moving instance on ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... table. Finally a basin is brought with ewer and towel for the guests to wash their hands, and as one o'clock strikes, dinner appears, and all sit down together, including the servants. After the meal a dice-box and board are produced; but one of the guests demurs, and it is put aside. In the conversation that ensues it is arranged that Sidonius shall go back to his master next morning after breakfast. The servant ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... round him: they will judge him to lose the match, by foul hitting. But your prize-merchant gains his match by foul selling, and no one cries out against that. You drive a gambler out of the gambling-room who loads dice, but you leave a tradesman in flourishing business, who loads scales! For observe, all dishonest dealing is loading scales. What does it matter whether I get short weight, adulterate substance, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and scandalous fashions, are the opening of the gaols—which meant no more than the discharge of the poorest debtors—and the burning of various instruments of luxury and amusement, whether innocent or not. Among these are dice, cards, games of all kinds, written incantations, masks, musical instruments, song- books, false hair, and so forth. All these would then be gracefully arranged on a scaffold ('talamo'), a figure of the devil fastened to the top, and then ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt |
