"Gamester" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... notion of him shows us a great, vivid, intellectual face, full of fiery energy and calm resource, the face of a thinker and a fighter in one. A scholar, an adventurer, perhaps a Cabalist, a busy stirrer in politics, a gamester, one 'born for the fairer sex,' as he tells us, and born also to be a vagabond; this man, who is remembered now for his written account of his own life, was that rarest kind of autobiographer, one who did not live to write, but wrote because he had lived, and when ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... not honest to receive anything from another without returning him an equivalent therefor. The gamester who wins the money of another is dishonest. There should be no such thing as bets and gaming among Masons: for no honest man should desire that for nothing which belongs to another. The merchant who sells an inferior ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... a shot, there lay a guard, And here beside him lie, man; Now let him feel a gamester's hand, Now in his bosom die, man; Then fill the port, and block the ice, We sit upon the tee, man; Now tak' this in-ring, sharp and neat, And mak' their ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... interest and pleasure, the poor who needed warmth and food, came together to that room, and met there the drunkard in his sober intervals, the gamester when he cared to play for mere pastime; yes, and others, the more evil, were made welcome there. It was not forgotten that Toyner had been a wicked man and that Ann's ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... an unworthy—reckless—unprincipled young man," exclaimed the count, fixing a stern, searching gaze upon Giulia's countenance, as if with the iron of his words he would probe the depths of her soul. "He is a confirmed gamester—overwhelmed with debts—and has tarnished, by his profligacy, the proud name that he bears. Even the friendship which existed for many, many years between his deceased father and myself, shall no longer induce ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... fiends!" the young gamester exclaimed, turning on him wrathfully. "Is there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns would not ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... d'Aubigne's saying was no less successful on that account, and his sister, who did not approve at all of this scandalous scene, had the good sense to condemn her most ridiculous gamester, and to make excuses for him to my ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... would'st forget The gamester's smile, the trader's vaunt, The statesman actor's face hard set, The kennel cry that cheers his taunt, Come where pure winds and rills combine To ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... told me that monsieur is reckless, that he has the temperament of the gamester, that he is bored; in a word, that he would, as the Americans say, 'take a chance.' Is he wrong in ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... sailor; the pawnbroker had taken his last resources. All the romance with which he had invested the idea of his suicide now vanished, leaving bare the stern and ignoble reality. He must kill himself, not like the gay gamester who voluntarily leaves upon the roulette table the remains of his fortune, but like the Greek, who surprised and hunted, knows that every door will be shut upon him. His death would not be voluntary; he could neither ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... him now he got to his feet and, with that look of the visionary in his eyes, which those only know who have watched the born gamester, said, "I'll back my hand till the last throw." Then it was, as his eyes gazed in front of him dreamily, he saw the card on his mirror bearing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... repays the gamester's nightly toil, Can hell itself more hideous woes impart? Can glitt'ring heaps of ill-begotten spoil, Appease the cravings of his callous heart? For this alone he severs every tie, For this he marks unmov'd the orphan's tear, E'en nature's charms, a smile from beauty's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... Howe for her Contempt of Mr. Hickman, and yet at the same time let the lively Strokes that fall from her Pen have their full force against the abused worthy Man. Yet Miss Howe herself owns, as early as the second Volume, that Mr. Hickman is humane, benevolent, generous,—No Fox-hunter—No Gamester—That he is sober, modest, and virtuous; and has Qualities that Mothers would be fond of in a Husband for their Daughters; and for which, perhaps, their Daughters would be the happier, could they judge as well for themselves as Experience may teach them to judge for their future Daughters. ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... His mind was jaded. He floundered, he made desperate efforts, but plunged deeper in the slough. Feeling that, to regain his ground, each card must tell, he acted on each as if it must win, and the consequences of this insanity (for a gamester at such a crisis is really insane) were, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... at the gamester. He did not seem to be enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril nearly shut, and the other much inflated. The black dog was on his back, as people say, in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard under ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... splendid physique, a man of blood and passion, he was not only a model of domestic virtue, but he avoided the lewd talk to which many prominent men are addicted. A fine sportsman and rider, a splendid shot, he was nothing of the racer or gamester. After all, he was more of a model than a warning." Among his faults, the one which exaggerated all the others, was his use of ardent liquors. This habit grew upon him, especially after the failure of the war. A proud, imperious nature, ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... insinuated himself into Sir Philip Gosling's favour, had a particular dislike to him, and had successfully bullied him upon one or two occasions. Archibald had that civil cowardice, which made him excessively afraid of the opinion of the world; and Major O'Shannon, a gamester, who was jealous of his influence over the rich dupe, Sir Philip, determined to entangle him in a quarrel. The major knocked at the door a third time before Archibald was dressed; and when he was told that he was dressing, and ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... used is that the reader cannot understand them. But when a young smatterer uses them to advertise his calling acquaintance with a language, he is but proclaiming his own lack of good taste. In his composition they are as ineffective to make it respectable as a large diamond on a gamester's finger to make him an honored gentleman. Use the English language when writing for English-speaking people. It has the fullest, richest vocabulary in the world. It will not be found unequal to the task of expressing ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... leader, who seemed to be proof against either fatigue or despair. His last bold move, on which he staked his empire, was a splendid effort, but it failed him. It was the daring play of a desperate gamester, and nearly checkmated his opponents. But when, instead of pursuing him, they marched on Paris, he left his army to follow as it could, and hastened to anticipate his enemies. When about fifteen miles from Paris, he received news of the battle of Montmartre and the capitulation of the city. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautode, are you not, monsieur le recteur, gamester on the side of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... thought the Audience wou'd not be displeas'd at it, I wou'd bring him on, and expose him; for he is a common Gamester, tho' he pretends to ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... of Mayfair, but one whose lessons, stern and grim enough, must ever be sorrowfully patent to such erring and passionate spirits. The third of Heathcliff's victims then, or rather the first, was Hindley Earnshaw. But if Hindley had not already been a gamester and a drunkard, a violent and soulless man, Heathcliff could have gained no power over him. Hindley welcomed Heathcliff, as Faustus the Devil, because he could gratify his evil desires; because, in his presence, there was no need ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... which he was about to play, it had left him in the lurch, allowing him to lose all his money; and when I thought of all the rubbish I had seen, and the purposes which it was applied to, in conjunction with the rage of the losing gamester at the deaf and dumb image, I could not help comparing the whole with what my poor brother used to tell me of the superstitious practices of the blacks on the high Barbary shore, and their occasional rage and fury at the things they worshipped; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... bragging what a mighty Gamester you were at Bowls. Come now, I have a Mind to try ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... cannot be meant as a parting blowis not of weight and importance sufficient; he will probably let us win this hand also, as sharpers manage a raw gamester.Sir Arthur, I hope you believe ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... (Kingston) and Niagara with their national flag flying from the prow of canoe and flatboat, chance bullets from the {222} English fort ricochet across the advancing prows, and soldiers on the galleries inside Fort Oswego take bets on whether they can hit the French flag. Prompt as a gamester, New France checkmates this move. Peter Schuyler has been settling English farmers round Lake Champlain. At Crown Point, long known as Scalp Point, where the lake narrows and portage runs across to Lake George and the Mohawk land, the French in 1731 erect a strong fort. As for the English traders ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, Beheld his best-of-life the easy prey Of quacks and scamps, and all the vile array That line the way, From thieving statesman down to petty knave; Yea, saw himself, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, He fled away into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... seated between Etheredge and Rochester, played in silence, with lips tight-set and brooding eyes. She had lost, it is true, some L1500 that night; yet, a prodigal gamester, and one who came easily by money, she had been known to lose ten times that sum and yet preserve her smile. The source of her ill-humour was not the game. She played recklessly, her attention wandering; those handsome, brooding eyes of hers were intent upon watching what went on at the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... I'll give you your revenge another time, when you are not so indifferent; you are thinking of something else now, and play too negligently: the coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I'd no more play with a man that slighted his ill fortune than I'd make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... apprehended was gradually involving his circumstances by bad management. JOHNSON. 'Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means. If it were a stream, they'd stop it. You must speak to him. It is really miserable. Were he a gamester, it could be said he had hopes of winning. Were he a bankrupt in trade, he might have grown rich; but he has neither spirit to spend nor resolution to spare. He does not spend fast enough to have pleasure from it. He has the crime ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Mr. Clark, "I do not see but you and I have something ahead of us. I am afraid we shall be of very little help, Sandy. Why, one ought to be an expert to catch such a gamester as a coyote!" ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... gambling at present carried on being apparently harmless. It is in reality even more insidious, being a stepping-stone to vice, a gradual initiation into desperate play. Just as addiction to absinthe is imbibed by potions quite innocuous in the beginning, so the new Casino at Nice schools the gamester from the outset, slowly and by infinitesimal degrees preparing him ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the Kadapau Indians, and always kept two or three trading Girls in his Cabin. Offering one of these to some of our Company, who refus'd his Kindness, his Majesty flew into a violent Passion, to be thus slighted, telling the Englishmen, they were good for nothing. Our old Gamester, particularly, hung his Ears at the Proposal, having too lately been a Loser by that sort of Merchandize. It was observable, that we did not see one Partridge from the Waterrees to this place, tho' my Spaniel-Bitch, which I had with me in this Voyage, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... while in his gardens, or a villa which he had near the city; another while in Campania, where he passed his time in the lowest society; by which means, besides his former character of a dull, heavy fellow, he acquired that of a drunkard and gamester. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... answered the gamester, at bay; "it must have been my manner of play. I think that, upon one run of luck, I ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... girl, an all-pervading Hyperion, with faultless ruffles, white hands, and voice softly modulated. That evening the soldier played piquet with the wiry old lady, losing four shillings to that antiquated gamester, and, when he had paid the stakes, the young girl was gone and the buoyant beau had sought diversion ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Devala, the son of Asita, who always instructeth us about all those acts that may lead to heaven, hell, or the other regions, hath said, that it is sinful to play deceitfully with a gamester. To obtain victory in battle without cunning or stratagem is the best sport. Gambling, however, as a sport, is not so. Those that are respectable never use the language of the Mlechchas, nor do they adopt deceitfulness in their behaviour. War carried on without crookedness ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... and folly Joy to see their quarry fly: There the gamester, light and jolly, There ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... very destructive to toys and clothes, tyrannical to brothers and sister, but very social, and a great favorite with other children. Imitation was a prevailing trait." The first play she ever saw was "Coriolanus," with Macready in the leading part; her second play was "The Gamester." She became noted in her school for her skill in reading aloud. Her competitors grumbled: "No wonder she can read; she goes to the theatre!" Until then she had been shy and reserved, not to say stupid, about ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... "I could maintain a wife, but not a gamester, though you had brought me L1500 a year; no estate is big enough ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... not,—you paltry critic gentleman, you that know what it is to play at primero or passage—you that have been student at post and pair, saint and loadam —you that have spent all your quarter's revenues in riding post one night in Christmas, bear with the weak memory of a gamester. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... easily perceived, but those of oneself are difficult to perceive; a man winnows his neighbour's faults like chaff, but his own fault he hides as a cheat hides the false dice from the gamester. ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... more remarkable is that the lady is not a gamester, has never played before, and is said to have declared that she shall never play again. It is certain that, with such a face, figure, and voice as hers, she need never seek for wealth at the gambling-table. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... is intolerable, and will not be forgotten. You may find, hot sir, that Where my friendship is despised, my resentment may be feared. I well know the latent motives for this insult. It is the language of a losing gamester, and is treated with deserved contempt ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... tumble the poppenoddles," cries the bullet-headed gentleman. And presently the rustic young gamester is tossing somersets for ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Valois, who prided himself on having lent him for assistance in leaving the country, twelve hundred pistoles. Pombreton returned this loan afterwards, almost beyond a question of doubt, but the fact of the case always remained unknown, for M. de Valois, an unusually successful gamester, was interested in spreading a report of the return of this loan, to shadow the resources that he derived from the gaming table; and so five years later, about 1821, Etienne Lousteau declared that the Pombreton succession and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... said, precocious. He had the cool eye and steady hand of an experienced gamester, and in a few days he won, of course, all Fred's little earnings. But then he was quite liberal and free with his money. He added to their prison fare such various improvements as his abundance of money enabled him to buy. He had brought ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... man who would confound sharp practises of the crafty; or "call the bluff" of financial gamester; or walk unconcerned where physical danger calls for nerve of steel and lion's heart; or fling at affected fop rapier sentences that cut deep through the very quick ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... savage tortures with a stillness of soul which in hours of happiness we could not have imagined. A calm, more dreadful in truth than the tempest, allayed the wild beatings of my heart—a calm like that of the gamester, the suicide, and the murderer, when the last die is on the point of being cast—while the poisoned cup is at the lips,—as the death-blow is ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the town an hour's walk lives the mother of Basilio and Crispin. The wife of a heartless man, she struggles to live for her sons, while her husband is a vagrant gamester with whom her interviews are rare but always painful. He has gradually stripped her of her few jewels to pay the cost of his vices, and when the suffering Sisa no longer had anything that he might take to satisfy his whims, he had begun ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... have no inkling, was the late Colonel Beauvais? For my part, I wish it was the late Beauvais in the sense in which we refer to the departed ones. But let us give him his true name—Prince Konrad, the last of the Walmodens, a cashiered gamester." ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... with no very marked success as yet. Gambling for stakes of moment is not a popular amusement in that country; where the soil demands his best from every man in return; for the scanty dollars it yields him, but the gamester had chosen his time well, and the men who had borne the dreary solitude of winter in outlying farms, and now only saw another adverse season opening before them, were for once in the mood to clutch at any excitement that would relieve the monotony ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... a gilder that hath his brains perished with quicksilver is not more cold in the liver. The great barriers moulted not more feathers, than he hath shed hairs, by the confession of his doctor. An Irish gamester that will play himself naked, and then wage all downward, at hazard, is not more venturous. So unable to please a woman, that, like a Dutch doublet, all his back is shrunk into his breaches. Shroud you within this closet, good my lord; Some trick ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... he would black-ball him. "Who, Sir? Mr. Garrick! Companion of your Youth! your acknowledged Friend!" "Why, Sir, I love my little David better than any, or all of his Flatterers love him; but surely we ought to sit in a Society like ours, 'unelbow'd by a Gamester, Pimp, or PLAYER." See Supplement to Dr. Johnson's Letters, published by Mrs. Piozzi. The blended hypocrisy and malice of this sally show the man. Johnson knew, at times, how to coax without sincerity as well as to abuse without justice. His ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... may praise a soldier for his skill at chess, because it is said to be a military game, and the emblem of drawing up an army; but this to a tr[easure]r would be no more a compliment, than if you called him a gamester or ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... circumstance of the author being himself one of the most inveterate gamblers; he wrote this work to convince himself of this folly. But in spite of all his solemn vows, the prayers of his friends, and his own book perpetually quoted before his face, he was a great gamester to his last hour! The same circumstance happened to Sir John Denham, who also published a tract against gaming, and to the last remained a gamester. They had not the good sense of old Montaigne, who gives the reason why he gave over gaming. "I used to like formerly games of chance with cards ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... out. "Do your princesses engage in shoemaking?" asked a third gamester as he pushed into the ring. "Sure it must be a rare land. Prithee, what doth the king in handicraft? Doth he take to ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... instinct of a gamester, was no more a match for McBane in self-control than in skill. When the young man had lost all his money, the captain expressed his entire willingness to accept notes of hand, for which he happened to have convenient ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the bivouac to the Tuileries. Just as the snipe-shooter prefers a marsh to a drawing-room, he was more at home under a tent than in a palace. To men who like the battle-field, war is the most intense of pleasures. They love it as the gamester loves play, with a real frenzy. They defeat the enemy, not merely without feeling, but with a fierce joy, as if it were their prey. They feel the same emotions as the Romans in a circus, or the Spaniards at a bull-fight. The rattle of drums, the blare of trumpets, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the army of Kamehameha, and made at a cost of many lives from one of the trees poisoned by that goddess. Its fragments were divided among his people after the king's death. Apropos of this figure, a gamester had lost everything except a pig, which he did not dare to stake, as it had been claimed for a sacrifice by a priest with a porkly appetite. At the command of a deity, however, who appeared in his dreams, he disregarded the taboo and wagered ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... resort, a luxurious establishment down town, was regarded as quite a la mode, and I have heard it said that he had able assistance from social ranks. I have often wondered why a man who indulged in this sport was called a gambler, as the term "gamester," used many years ago, seems decidedly more appropriate. I own two volumes of a very old book, published in the eighteenth century, entitled "The Gamesters," in which the heroes are professional gamblers. ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... roared all night. Allie got most of her sleep during the day. She tried to shut out what sound she could, and tried to be deaf to the rest. But she had to hear the angry brawls, pistol-shots, and shrill cries; yes, and the trample of heavy boots as men dragged a dead gamester out to ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... another letter of Mr. Chamberlaine thus refers to gaming at Court: "On the Twelfth-eve there was great golden play at Court. No Gamester admitted that brought not L300 at least. Montgomery played the King's money, and won him L750, which he had for his labour. The Lord Montegle lost the Queen L400. Sir Robert Cary, for the Prince, L300; and the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... eminent critics have dilated upon his fondness for drink and play. But it is a notable instance of the way in which preconceived attributes are gradually attached to certain characters, that there is in reality little or nothing to show that he was either sot or gamester. With one exception, when, in the joy of his heart at his benefactor's recovery, he takes too much wine (and it may be noted that on the same occasion the Catonic Thwackum drinks considerably more), there ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... his daughter's the promise of mercy from on high, was the mysterious parent who had never arrived—the Judge from Fauquier. In that old man's long waxed mustache, crimped hair, and threadbare finery the Congressman recognized old Beau, the outcast gamester and mendicant, and the father of Joyce and ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... especially music and writing. He first took me to the theatre on one of his return voyages, which was always a holiday time for me. My first play was "Coriolanus," with Macready, and my second "The Gamester," with Cooper and Mrs. Powell as Mr. and Mrs. Beverley. All the English actors and actresses of that time were of the Siddons and Kemble school, and I cannot but think these early impressions must have been powerful toward the formation ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... brook to see it, any tamely bear— If any, gamester, epicure, a wanton, he— Mamurra's own whatever all the curly Gauls Did else inherit, or the lonely Briton isle? Can you look on, look idly, filthy ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... all things, to have but one centre or period, without all distraction, he hasteth thither and ends there, as his true and natural element. He doth not contemn Fortune, but not confess her. He is no gamester of the world (which only complain and praise her), but being only sensible of the honesty of actions, contemns a particular profit as the excrement of scum. Unto the society of men he is a sun, whose clearness directs their steps ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... and that he Clay and Holcombe, although not regularly authorized by the Rebel government, still could speak for and influence the Southern people. While in reality the whole conference was nothing on the part of Sanders & Co., but the last act of a desperate political gamester, who ventured his all upon one last throw of dice, to win or lose it all. If Sanders, Holcombe, Clay and others, could have made the people of the North believe the South really desired peace, and that the only obstacle in the way was the obstinacy of the General Government, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... to be found playing at cards or throwing dice. They are accused even of frequently staking their wives and children on the hazard of a die. It may easily be conceived that where a man can sell his children into slavery, there can be little remorse, in the breast of a gamester reduced to his last stake, to risk the loss of what the law has sanctioned him to dispose of. Yet we are very gravely assured by some of the reverend missionaries, that "the Chinese are entirely ignorant of all games of chance;" that "they can enjoy no ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... of our party were touched and stirred to something of his own heartiness of enjoyment. One or two hints of these have been given, and I will only add to them his refusal of my wish that he should go and see some special performance of the Gamester. "Man of the House. Gamester! By the foot of Pharaoh, I will not see the Gamester. Man shall not force, nor horses drag, this poor gentleman-like carcass into the presence of the Gamester. I have said it. . . . The player Mac hath bidden me to eat and likewise drink with ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... men, to most men, life offers a problem to be solved by standards that are eternally right; to others life is a game, the object is to win, and the rules may be manipulated to one's own advantage. Bacon's moral philosophy was that of the gamester; his leading motive was self-interest; so when he wrote of love or friendship or any other noble sentiment he was dealing with matters of which he had no knowledge. The best he could offer was a "counsel of prudence," and many ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... bloody ouns in one stanza pent; Does Jack's utter ruin at picket prevent, For an answer in specie to yours must be sent; So this moment at crambo (not shuffling) is spent, And I lose by this crotchet quaterze, point, and quint, Which you know to a gamester is great bitterment; But whisk shall revenge me on you, Batt, and Brent. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... reflections made upon him by Greene, and called him in accordance with the amenities of the times, "a wilde head, ful of mad braine and a thousand crotchets; a scholler, a discourser, a courtier, a ruffian, a gamester, a lover, a souldier, a trauailer, a merchant, a broker, an artificer, a botcher, a pettifogger, a player, a coosener, a rayler, a beggar, an omnium-gatherum, a gay-nothing, a stoare-house of bald and baggage stuffe, unworth the answering or reading, a triuall and triobular autor for ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... believe you would. That restless little conscience of yours would be up on end. After all, I don't know that you are the worse for it, when it looks so prettily out of your brown eyes. I wonder what you expect to see? The ruined gamester shooting himself on every ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but there are moments of terrible doubt, when the soul is so borne away on the surge of the sceptical wave that rises from the depth of all human speculation, that it can only cling to the Divine by an effort of will, and with something of the gamester’s thought that this is the winning side! The thought may be shallow and poor in itself, but in such cases it comes not out of the shallows but out of the depths of a mind torn by distracting doubts in the face of the ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... wished that they were in some remote spot alone with pistols in their hands. Now he could watch the two together without anger, almost without bitterness. He had lost in the game, and he was so much the true gamester that he could take his defeat when he knew it was defeat quietly. Yet the new defeat was even harder on him than the old. All through the years since he had seen her there had been the vague conviction, under all his determination to forget, that they would meet again, and that all might ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... guarding the few remaining cards, while Farnham stood for a moment behind the chair, idly looking on. There was no noticeable interruption to the game, and when the final card came gliding forth from the silver box, the imperturbable gamester turned deliberately away from the table, heedless of the desperate struggle about him, the curses and uproar, and faced the younger man still leaning against ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... who had also risen, seemed to take in the situation at a glance. Like a well-bred gamester who knows how to lose with a good grace the old gentleman laughed drily to himself as he ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... more pernicious to the moral conduct of youth than that of this unconquerable passion of love. Any and all of our passions are unconquerable, whenever we shall be weak enough to think them so. Does not the gamester plead the unconquerableness of his passion? The drunkard, the man of anger, the revengeful, the envious, the covetous, the jealous, have they not all the same plea? With the selfish and the feeble passion succeeds to passion as different habits give birth ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... not otherwise be fair, shall be fair; but I maintain, that an individual of any society, who practises what is allowed, is not a dishonest man.' BOSWELL. 'So then, Sir, you do not think ill of a man who wins perhaps forty thousand pounds in a winter?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsocial man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good. Trade gives employment to numbers, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... and not point the pen, Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men, Dash the proud gamester from his gilded car, Bare the mean heart which ...
— The Group - A Farce • Mercy Warren
... who can brook it, save a whore-monger, a guzzler, and a gamester, that Mamurra should possess what long-haired Gaul and remotest Britain erstwhile had. Thou catamite Romulus, this thou'lt see and bear? Then thou'rt a whore-monger, a guzzler, and a gamester. And shall he ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... that gamblers are as happy as many people, being always excited. Women, wine, fame, the table,—even ambition, sate now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else. I was very fond of it when young, that is to say, of hazard, for I hate all card games,—even faro. When macco (or whatever they spell it) was introduced, I gave up the whole thing, for I loved and missed ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... be the favourite of the Latin nations, though it is also to be met with among other peoples. Its outline may, perhaps, best be given from the nursery tale of the Marquis of the Sun, as told at Seville. The Marquis of the Sun was a great gamester. A man played with him and lost all he had, and then staked his soul—and lost it. The Marquis instructed him, if he desired to recover it, to come to him when he had worn out a pair of iron shoes. In the course ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... to hold Lee in place with one of his wings while he thrust the other behind Lee's left, between the Confederate army and Richmond. But he had started a game at which two could play and had challenged a more deft and daring gamester than himself. Early divining his purpose, Lee, leaving a small part of his force to engage Hooker's left, with the rest vigorously assumed the counter-offensive, sending Jackson, as usual, around Hooker's extreme right. Both ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He had outlived Lord Lilburne's short liking; for since he had resolved no longer to keep watch on that noble gamester's method of play, he played but little himself; and Lord Lilburne saw that he had no chance of ruining him— there was, therefore, no longer any reason to like him. But this was not all; when Vaudemont had been at the house somewhat more than two weeks, Lilburne, petulant ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... prevailed during the reign of Henry VIII.; indeed, it seems that the king was himself a gamester of the most unscrupulous sort; and there is ample evidence that the practice flourished during the reign of Elizabeth, James I., and subsequently, especially in the times of Charles II. Writing on the day when ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... his friends; and he plays charmingly with his children. But, deprive him of the good genius of his life, and Captain Booth would very speedily have sunk into the ruin and despair of any other profligate young gamester about the Town; and for this his adoration the culprit wins our forgiveness, even as Amelia not only forgave but forgot, when by virtue of her own unconscious goodness the Captain retrieved himself, at last, from the folly of his ways. Undoubtedly the man whom Amelia loved, and who ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... will I stir this gamester: I hope, I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than him. Yet he's gentle; never school'd, and yet learn'd; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly beloved! and, indeed, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... I take the dice and cast them, not knowing how they shall fall. Not knowing how they shall fall, for good or ill I cast," and she made a wild motion as of some desperate gamester throwing his last throw. ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... "The character of a gamester," said Mr Monckton, "depends solely upon his luck; his disposition varies with every throw of the dice, and he is airy, gay and good humoured, or sour, morose and savage, neither from nature nor from principle, but wholly by the caprice ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... judge of the public, and it is just this inability to fool all of the people all of the time that accounts for the sudden disappearance from the public eye of some one who only fooled all of the people for a little while. That person was a sham, a bluff, a gamester. He, or she, as the case may ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... serious prosecution of my Argument, and to let the World see that it is not reading Histories or Plays or Gazettes, nor going on pilgrimage to Geneva, nor learning French and Italian, nor passing the Alps, nor being a cunning Gamester that can qualify a man to discourse of Conscience and Ecclesiastical Policy; in that it is not capping our Argument with a story that will answer it, nor clapping an apothegm upon an assertion that will prove it, nor stringing ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... many a ruined gamester, hearing these words, lifted his head, the fires of hope lighting anew in his burnt-out eyes? How many a fallen house looked longingly toward this promised land? New France! Was not the name itself Fortune's earnest, her pledge of treasures lightly to be ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the system under the baneful influence of which we live. But it is not the less necessary that I beseech you not to practise such gambling; that I beseech you, if you be engaged in it, to disentangle yourself from it as soon as you can. Your life, while you are thus engaged, is the life of the gamester; a life of constant anxiety; constant desire to over-reach; constant apprehension; general gloom, enlivened, now and then, by a gleam of hope or of success. Even that success is sure to lead to further adventures; and, at last, a thousand to one, that your fate is that of ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... very same," said the major-domo, "a man who as far exceeds all others in generosity as a gamester who has just won a fortune. But let me return to the expedition; about how many men ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... paradise; too many eggs in one basket. desperado, rashling[obs3], madcap, daredevil, Hotspur, fire eater, bully, bravo, Hector, scapegrace, enfant perdu[Fr]; Don Quixote, knight- errant, Icarus; adventurer; gambler, gamester; dynamitard[obs3]; boomer [obs3][U. S.]. V. be rash &c. adj.; stick at nothing, play a desperate game; run into danger &c. 665; play with fire, play with edge tools. carry too much sail, sail too near the wind, ride at single anchor, go out of one's depth. take a leap ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... reduced, in his old age, to earn a meagre pittance as a violin-player at the Paris Opera House. The old chteau of Boursault, which still exists contiguous to the stately edifice raised by Mme. Clicquot on the summit of the hill, was risked and lost on a single game at cards by this pertinacious gamester, whose pressing pecuniary difficulties compelled him to sell the remaining chteaux one by one. That of Ay was purchased by M. Froc de la Boulaye, and by him bequeathed to his cousin the Count de Mareuil, whose granddaughter became the wife of one ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... stage; And to an age less polish'd, more unskill'd, Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield. As with the greater dead he dares not strive, He would not match his verse with those who live: 20 Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast, The first of this, and hindmost of the last. A losing gamester, let him sneak away; He bears no ready money from the play. The fate which governs poets, thought it fit He should not raise his fortunes by his wit. The clergy thrive, and the litigious bar; Dull heroes fatten with the spoils of war: All southern vices, heaven ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... ever I saw any gaming house, to one, entering into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, at the end of Bell Yard, where strange the folly of men to lay and lose so much money, and very glad I was to see the manner of a gamester's life, which I see is very miserable, and poor, and unmanly. And thence he took me to a dancing school in Fleet Street, where we saw a company of pretty girls dance, but I do not in myself like to have young girls exposed to so much vanity. So to the Wardrobe, where I found my Lady had agreed ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... might enforce justice and deal out mercy? How came you to give it up into the hands of men whose search is gold, whose thirst is wealth, to whom men's souls and bodies are counters in a game? How came you to give up the folk that were given into your hands, into the hand of the speculator and the gamester; as though they were dumb beasts who might be ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner |
