"Playing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that would add the last needed glamour to the prestige of his return to Europe. So he affably humored his captors, and was rewarded with humiliation—his judges could hardly be more obscure. So as he was genuinely sick abed, he got himself excused from playing his part in the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... you!" I replied, drawing her closer, and playing with the small white hand on which the engagement-ring I had placed there sparkled so bravely. "All for my bride. A little hoard of bright treasures; red rubies, ay—as red as blood-diamonds as brilliant as the glittering of crossed ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... "But that's only playing at being mayoress!" Nellie protested. "Anyhow, I do think you might be youngest mayor. Who ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... *pharaon*. Faro, a game played by betting on the order in which certain playing-cards will appear when taken one by one from the top of the pack. The player sits at one side of the table, and the dealer at the other. The dealer represents the bank, and has in charge the paying and ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... and one day, as the Indian passed by, he threw a squash down upon the old fellow's head. Soon after he peeped out to see if it had struck him, when whiz went the arrow, just grazing his face and sticking tight and firm into the window beam above his head! This fright cured him of "playing tricks upon ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... he found her entertaining four or five other farmers' daughters and a couple of young men. She was playing the piano to them and talking and laughing louder and faster than ever he had heard her in his life. He sat moody a little while and watched her uneasily, but soon took his line, and exerting his excellent social powers became the life of the party. But as he warmed Susan froze, as much as to say, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... night, dress and wash him in the morning, walk out with him, and am not allowed either to read or write above three minutes at a time. He has learnt to say in English 'No more,' and I am bound to be obedient. Perhaps I may make out five minutes just to write this, for he is playing in the passage with a child of the house, but even so much is doubtful. He has made very good friends with a girl here, and Arabel has sent her maid ever so often to tempt him away for half an hour, so as to give me breathing time, but he won't be tempted: he has it in ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... playing, and the influence of the music was more and more filling her face, there came a shadow across the church door. The shadow lengthened and grew longer, and the young man, whose smile Judy had ignored, came softly across the church and up to ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... taken; the first-named for use as fuel and the others for food. We cleaned the wekas and put them in the pot, cooking the whole lot together, a proceeding which enabled us to forgo cooking a breakfast in the morning. The beach was swarming with young sea elephants and many could be seen playing about in a ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... playing poker in the El Chihuahense, and he had been at it for two solid hours. Those who knew The Kid better would have wondered at this. Ordinarily, Kid Wolf was not a gamester. He played cards rarely, never for any personal gain, and only when there seemed to be ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... minutes there would knock her into matchwood. Another ten minutes and we shall be fairly out; and I shan't be sorry; one feels as if one was playing football, only just at present the Seabird is the ball ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... the Puritan fathers, and which would have been made the text for one of Master Parris's most denunciatory sermons if he had known that it was in the village. Having finished "Macbeth" she laid the book down upon the table and began playing with her canary, holding it to her cheek, putting its bill to her lips, and otherwise fondling it. While she was thus engaged, she began to have the uncomfortable feeling which sensitive persons often have when some one is watching them; and turning involuntarily to the window which looked ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... other began to dance "La Gitana" to her playing. The spirit and feeling, the coquettish grace and seductive charm, which the dancer put into the movements of her lithe form, challenge description. If only a man could have seen her then! From sheer amazement Blanka found herself unable to control her fingers, ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... into the extremities of my right foot. My toe swelled and throbbed, and I was in a state of delicious ease, which the pain in my toe did not seem at all to interfere with. On Tuesday I was uncommonly well all the morning, and ate an excellent dinner; but playing too long and too rompingly with Hartley and Derwent, I was very unwell that evening. On Wednesday I was well, and after dinner wrapped myself up warm, and walked with Sarah Hutchinson, to Lodore. I never beheld anything more impressive than the wild ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... tomtom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in Heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a glorified cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it—that is how we obtained it; and any man who says it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and four ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... possession. She liked to believe that no one, not even the Man, could make him as comfortable as she could. Piling her golden hair upon her knees to make a pillow for him, she laid him naked on his back and commenced playing with his toes. If he had not given her his first smile, she would at least make ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... an excellent cabinet photograph of Raffaello Cellini, framed in antique silver; and I rose to examine it more closely, as being the face of a friend. While I looked at it, I heard the sound of an organ in the distance playing softly an old familiar church chant. I listened. Suddenly I bethought myself of the three dreams that had visited me, and a kind of nervous dread came upon me. This Heliobas,—was I right after all in coming to consult him? Was he not perhaps a mere charlatan? and might not his experiments upon ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... from being robbed by the Cavalier; that is if he really thought a man was poor and not "playing possum," to get off from paying the ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... no assurance to the friends of any candidate. After the adjournment of the Convention, and throughout the night that followed, calculation and speculation took every shape. The delegations from New York and Ohio absorbed the interest of the politicians and the public. The two delegations were playing at cross-purposes—each trying to defeat the designs of the other, and each finding its most available candidate in the State of the other. The tactics of New York had undoubtedly defeated Pendleton, and the same men were now planning to nominate Chief Justice Chase. The leading ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... display of pompous ignorance worth seeing once. There was a hideous bier with rude relics of barbarism in the shape of paltry adornments. A native driver, with a tall "chimney pot" hat, full of salaried mournfulness, drove the white team. The bier was headed by a band of music playing a lively march, and followed by a line of carriages containing the relations and friends of the deceased. The burial was almost invariably within twenty-four hours of the decease—sometimes ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Industrialist said, "You'll pardon me. I can't conceive your playing so elaborate a hoax. You really spoke ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... Party surveyed, examined, charted, photographed, and to some extent plodded over a mountainous, heavily glaciated land lying in an area of the entire acreage of Kent, Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, one gets a fair idea of what "Griff" and Co. were playing at. ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... though it might be, I thoroughly enjoyed it. But that facade caught me quite by my weak point. There is a central doorway, and one into each aisle, and round the archways into these lateral doors are sculptured angels playing upon musical instruments. As I have told the reader, ancient forms of musical instruments are my hobby, or rather one of my hobbies. I at once pulled out my sketch-book and drew them; there are angels with fiddles, angels with viols—no, not hurdy-gurdys!—but ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... telling how he had spoken in public of Halleck's good qualities and talents. "I spoke of your indomitable industry and called to mind how, when Ord, Loeser, Spotts, and I were shut up in our stateroom, trying to keep warm with lighted candles and playing cards on the old Lexington, off Cape Horn, you were lashed to your berth studying, boning harder than you ever did at West Point." [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 261.] This was on their voyage out to California during the Mexican War. In a cordial answer (February 16th), Halleck said ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... with some one infinitely stronger to take the responsibility for everything. They drove to a large and popular restaurant close at hand, where Arnold ordered the dinner, with frequent corrections from Ruth, who sat with a menu-card in her hand. A band was playing the music of the moment. It was all very commonplace, but to Ruth it was like a living chapter out of her book of dreams. Even there, though, the shadow pursued. She could bear the silence no longer. She dropped her voice a little. The place was crowded and there were ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are to be discussed the affairs of so great a nation. In the centre of the Place is an Egyptian column, which was with much difficulty brought from Egypt, and raised with considerable ingenuity where it now stands, without any accident; gorgeous fountains of bronze and gold are constantly playing, whilst colossal statues, being allegorical representations of the principal towns of France, are placed at regular distances, and appear as it were in solemn contemplation of the splendid scene by which they are surrounded. Two noble buildings, the Garde ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... that Billy was playing a game of his own. For Billy Durgin, though sixteen years old, had happy access to our world of fine fabling; and to this I knew he resorted at those times when his duties as porter at the City Hotel palled upon his ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the dining-room, and take an inventory of the furniture. In the dining-room she found Jack the footboy collecting shillings from beneath the candlesticks on the card-tables: the two little children were sitting on the floor, the girl playing with a pack of cards, the boy drinking the dregs of a decanter of white wine.—"Poor children! Poor creatures!" said Lucy; "is there nobody ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... a trance of happiness she found herself gliding round the room with Dermot's arm about her. The band was playing a dreamy waltz, and her partner danced perfectly. Neither of them spoke. Noreen could not; she felt that all she wanted was to float, on air it seemed, held close to Dermot's breast. She gave a sigh when the dance ended. In the interval she did ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... hard-living race, with a stubborn, combative disposition. Most of them had found scope for their energies in wresting a few more barren acres from the grasp of moss and moor; but several times an eccentric genius had scattered to the winds what the rest had won, and Geoffrey seemed bent on playing the traditional role of spendthrift. There were, however, excuses for him. He was an ambitious man, and had studied mechanical science under a famous engineer. Perhaps, because the surface of the earth yielded ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... stock of learning. He began to frequent social gatherings, his friend Dr. Gumpertz introducing him to people of culture, among others to some philosophers, members of the Berlin Academy. What smoothed the way for him more than his sterling character and his fine intellect was his good chess-playing. The Jews have always been celebrated as chess-players, and since the twelfth century a literature in Hebrew prose and verse has grown up about the game. Mendelssohn in this respect, too, was the heir of the peculiar gifts ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... great grief came to Orpheus, a grief that stopped his singing and his playing upon the lyre. His young wife Eurydice was taken from him. One day, walking in the garden, she was bitten on the heel by a serpent, and straightway she went down to the ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... surer game with the earl, which I thus devised. I did not doubt of being admitted into familiar conversation with him, as before, and hoped by some means to get the watch into my hand; then, on pretence of winding or playing with it, drop it on the floor, when, in all probability, the fall would disorder the work so as to stop its motion; this event would furnish me with an opportunity of insisting upon carrying it away in order to be repaired, and then I should be in no hurry to bring it back. ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... primitive nature of the child demanded change, and one kind of game after another was added for those of different ages. Swings, climbing ladders, and poles are always popular, and for the older boys opportunities for ball playing, skating, and coasting. All these activities must be under control. The characteristics of children on the playground are the same as those of their elders in society. Authority and instruction are as necessary as in school; indeed, playgrounds are a supplement ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... Cincinnati Clubs, each had one series tied; while the Baltimore Club had four unfinished series; the St. Louis and Cincinnati Clubs two each, and the Athletic, Baltimore, Louisville and Kansas City Clubs one each, The Brooklyn Club playing their ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... artificial hair; pigs, crocodiles, ducks, and pigeons on wheels, pottery boats, miniature sets of household furniture, skin balls filled with hay, marbles, and stone bowls. However, strange it may appear, we have to fancy the small boys of ancient Egypt as playing at bowls like ours, or impudently whipping their tops along the streets without respect for ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and take your decoy-duck with you, or I think its extremely likely you'll be tost in a blanket. Do you hear?—go for your broken-hearted Desdemona, and double-quick out of the yard. I'll teach a set of lawyers to come playing the Jew to my young men. They shall jilt every girl in England if they think proper, and serve them right too—and no pitiful green-bag rascal shall trouble them about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... a poor gambler; for it was a game between us. She was playing for a title, I for a fortune; well, she won the title and I won the fortune. Or rather you may call it purchase and sale. She bought a title and paid a fortune for it. For the moment the marriage ring encircled her finger she became the Viscountess Vincent and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... son, Ambrose Langley, became a noted footballer, in Horncastle and neighbourhood. He afterwards left the town and joined the Grimsby Town Football Club; subsequently he went to Middlesborough, Yorkshire, playing for the Ironopolis Football Club. He afterwards joined the Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, which team he was with eight years, being captain three years; playing in the final for the English Cup, for that team, when they beat Wolverhampton ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... heavy flannels? Not as a rule, as they usually live in the nursery and they sweat readily while playing. When they go out-of-doors, coats and ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... solitude of her own room. She was served; but her food returned untouched. Neither did she seem to sleep; for at all times of the night she could be heard pacing her room. Then she would sit for hours before her piano; and, although her playing and singing had been equally renowned, her uncle had never suspected the genius that had lain concealed in the touch of her hands and the sound of her voice. It was no longer the "fierce countess," whose dashing execution had distanced all gentler rivals; ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... therefore, of the facts of the catastrophe which was to overpower poor little Fly and injure Dr. Maybright, she rushed off to find Polly. Polly was feeling intensely happy, playing with and fondling her sweet little baby sister, when Flower, pale and excited, rushed into the room. Nurse, who had not yet forgiven Flower, turned her back upon the young lady, and hummed audibly. Flower, however, was far too ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... of Highland music, and the same air was to be played successively by all the competitors. In about half an hour a folding door opened at the bottom of the hall, and the Professor was surprised to see a Highlander advance playing on a bagpipe, and dressed in the ancient kilt and plaid of his country. "He walked up and down the vacant space in the middle of the hall with rapid steps and a martial air playing his noisy instrument, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... presented to them. It is somewhat heartrending to feel that "Jack and the Bean Stalk" and stories of that ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and wonder why Jack was not playing football on the school team instead of climbing trees ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... the illustrated papers about, turning from one to another, her movements expressing the unformed restless desire in her mind. She did not know whether to go or to stay, though Mrs. Flushing had commanded her to appear at tea. The hall was empty, save for Miss Willett who was playing scales with her fingers upon a sheet of sacred music, and the Carters, an opulent couple who disliked the girl, because her shoe laces were untied, and she did not look sufficiently cheery, which by some indirect process ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... wayfarers. Country districts demonstrate the fact of Java being a creedless land. This is Sunday, and the Feast of the Epiphany, but the only honour paid to the day consists in a gayer garb, and a band playing for an hour in the palm-shaded garden. Work goes on in rice-field and plantation, but no church bell rings from the closed chapel outside the gates, and no sign of religion is evident, whether from ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... the freaks of Fortune: friend and foe Alternate wear the crown. The world itself Is an ingenious juggler—every moment Playing some novel trick; exalting one In pomp and splendour, crushing down another, As if in sport,—and death the end ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... company as Nicholas Nickleby did in that of Mr. Crummles. Nicholas had to bring in the vulgar pony, the Phenomenon, the buckets, and so forth. So, in early years, the author of the plays (Bacon, by the theory) had to work over old pieces. All this is the work of the hack of a playing company; it is not work to which a man in Bacon's position could stoop. Why should he? What had he to gain by patching and vamping? Certainly not money, if the wealth of Shakespeare is a dark mystery to the Baconian theorists. We are ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... a signal with his hat, and one by one the sitters stole out into the square noiselessly, and went their ways, leaving the young man playing on, with the negro child at his knee, leaning there as if to spy out the living voice in ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... those whom it pleased should betake themselves to sleep. Accordingly some went thither, whilst others, overcome with the beauty of the place, willed not to leave it, but, abiding there, addressed themselves, some to reading romances and some to playing chess or tables, whilst the others slept. But presently, the hour of none being past and the sleepers having arisen and refreshed their faces with cold water, they came all, at the queen's commandment, to the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... was much amused by three chipmunks, who seemed to be engaged in some kind of game. It looked very much as if they were playing tag. Round and round they would go, first one taking the lead, then another, all good-natured and gleeful as schoolboys. There is one thing about a chipmunk that is peculiar: he is never more than one jump from home. Make a dive at him anywhere and in he goes. He knows where the ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... The sunlight of noon, as Lord Alfred ascended The steep garden paths, every odor had blended Of the ardent carnations, and faint heliotropes, With the balms floated down from the dark wooded slopes: A light breeze at the window was playing about, And the white curtains floated, now in, and now out. The house was all hush'd when he rang at the door, Which was open'd to him in a moment, or more, By an old nodding negress, whose sable head shined In the sun like a cocoa-nut polished in Ind, 'Neath the snowy foulard which ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... of life isn't worth playing. I've done with it, and the sooner I go to the devil the better. If only I could be sure Louise was safe I'd toss every care—and every honest thought—to the winds, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... Commander of the victorious Confederacy was sulking in his tent on the field of Manassas, playing this pitiful farce about the date of a commission, and allowing his army to go to pieces, George B. McClellan with tireless energy and matchless genius as an organizer was whipping into shape Lincoln's new levy of five hundred ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... surprising to find the same young man playing Harry Esmond (at due distance) to the same Lady Castlewood after years in India and a taste of two wars. But Catherine's room was Catherine's room, a very haunt of the higher sirens, charged with noble promptings and forgotten influences and impossible vows. And you will please bear ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... I'm not playing. I don't pretend I meant to let you know. I was frightened. I wanted to hold fast to you. But I've been sure ever since ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... paralyzed, cannot move his limbs, his mind becomes lost, and he presents a perfect picture of imbecility. He does all sorts of queer things. He sits in the corner with an idiotic smile on his face, playing with straws; he is forgetful, he cannot remember even the most ordinary events. He becomes disgustingly filthy and eats his own excrement. In fact, he ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... to the above-mentioned monkey house, I accidentally inflicted an injury to a capuchin monkey, "Tom" by name, who was a great friend of mine and who had been taken from his cage and given to me by the keeper. After playing with him for a time, I had placed him on the floor and had resumed my conversation with the keeper. Suddenly, "Tom" gave a loud squall and jumped into my lap, wringing one of his hands and ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... satisfied with the prospect. Whew! The afternoon darkens, and the night is delivered over to water-spouts and hurricanes, as it appears. Next day was raw, gusty, with chill heavy showers; drains had to be cut, roofs to be seen to; shorn sheep were shivering, washers all playing pitch-and-toss, shearers sulky; everybody but the young gentlemen wearing a most injured expression of countenance. "Looks as if it would rain for a month," says Long Jack. "If we hadn't been delayed might have had the shearing over by ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... son," he said, in a business-like way, "which you had better read, and so familiarize yourself with local names, and conditions. I have also drawn up, and had typed, a brief sketch of young Henley's life, which will aid you in playing the part. You will need a new outfit of clothes, ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... ducats to the spies employed in his service. Other charges equally preposterous followed; while some of the audience stared incredulous, others laughed, and the king himself, ashamed of the paltry part he was playing, dismissed the whole affair as a jest. The common saying of cuentas del Gran Capitan, at this day, attests at least the popular ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... round the cramped dining-room, listening for a moment to an altercation between Waring and Nares on the Dardanelles expedition. It was surely worth while to explore Agnes further and to see what part in her life this young Benyon was playing. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... and in a niche there is a bust of old Henry Mackenzie, by Joseph of Edinburgh. Returning towards the armoury, you have, on one side of a most religious looking corridor, a small greenhouse, with a fountain playing before it—the very fountain that in days of yore graced the cross of Edinburgh, and used to flow with claret at the coronation of the Stuarts—a pretty design, and a standing monument of the barbarity of modern innovation. From the small armoury you pass, as I said before, into ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... meeting, but the presence of officers particularly distasteful to Bolvar was prevented by Morillo. Each of these two men represented in its noblest aspect the cause which he defended. It is strange that neither of them seemed to have been prepared by circumstances of early life for the role he was playing. Morillo was born of humble parentage, and from the lowest rung of the ladder he climbed to the highest place in the army, always in defense of the monarchy, until he received the titles of Count of Cartagena and ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... then too often for my comfort. Memory holds a picture, more vivid than most, of a small boy reading the "Midsummer Night's Dream" by firelight, in a room where candles were lit, and some one touched the piano, and a young man and a girl were playing chess. The Shakespeare was a volume of Kenny Meadows' edition; there are fairies in it, and the fairies seemed to come out of Shakespeare's dream into the music and the firelight. At that moment I think that I was happy; ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... Two small boys were playing at conkers, two small boys with very earnest faces and grubby clothes which never figured in KATE GREENAWAY'S pictures, wasting precious material which five-and-thirty other scholars were diligently collecting and stuffing into sacks. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... are fixt, And planetary some; what gave them first Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light. Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants, each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp In playing tricks with nature, giving laws To distant worlds, and trifling in their own. Is't not a pity now, that tickling rheums Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight Of oracles like these? Great pity, too, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... for you," said Uncle Wiggily, taking the pail. "Perhaps Jack and Jill are off playing somewhere, and they have forgotten all about ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... "Been playing with me, have you, all the time, like a cat and mouse? Knew all the time what I wanted you for, but kept up the comedy. Is that it, eh?" He was cooling down. The red colour was ebbing out of his face. He eyed her ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... doesn't begin to express him. He's extraordinary. No doubt Vaughan did pay him well, but it would take something more than that to persuade such a man to spend six months in a place like that. And I think I can guess at the stake he's playing for." ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... only time for a few words by Giafar Pasha, who goes early to-morrow morning. My boat arrived all right and brought your tin box. The books and toys are very welcome. The latter threw little Darfour into ecstasies, and he got into disgrace for 'playing with the Sitt' instead of minding some business on hand. I fear I shall spoil him, he is so extremely engaging and such a baby. He is still changing his teeth, so cannot be more than eight; at first I did not like him, and feared he was sullen, but it was the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... "although I read but very little of it, I turned to this subject so important with us, and I must say I was a little surprised to find that she had so changed her opinions." The fact is, Miss Martineau appears to have been what the Kentuckians call, "playing 'possum." I have met with some of the Southern ladies whose conversations on slavery are said, or supposed, to have been those printed by Miss Martineau, and they deny that they are correct. That the Southern ladies are very apt to express great horror at ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... settlement was not more than seven years old, while this was only two. Chowbok pretended to expect his grog at once, though we both of us knew very well what the other was after, and that we were each playing against the other, the one for grog the ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... take lovely walks, and gather ferns, mosses, and lichens for hanging baskets. One morning we went to the barn to see them thresh, and Ally found eight baby mice, and Nora brought them home in her pocket. At the threshing place there are ten little puppies, and we have fine times playing ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... him?" interrupted the commandant. "I command you, madame, in the name of the King, to tell me of his whereabouts. If he has, without sufficient cause, absented himself from military duty, by my sword the rash youth shall be punished. Besides playing the fool with the people, the inviolable sanctity of the military constitutions has been violated. Madame, your lover, perhaps, has forgotten himself over his cups. If secreted within these walls, produce him, that he may ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... plastered them so as to keep out rain. Then he spoke of their employments when they had buried the hatchet; of the peace, and happiness, and tranquillity, they enjoyed when, gathered into companies, they rested from their labours, and passed their time in talking, and feasting, and bathing, and playing the game of bones, and making love. All the while the young beaver-maiden sat with her eyes fixed upon the son of the snail, at every pause moving a little nearer, till at length she was at his side with her fore-paw upon his arm; a minute more and she had placed it around his neck, and was rubbing ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... politeness of the government the members of the Congress have not only had the pleasure of seeing all the public works free, and without special ticket, but the palaces of Versailles and St. Cloud, together with their splendid grounds, have been thrown open, and the water-works set to playing in both places. This mark of respect for the Peace movement is commendable in the French; and were I not such a strenuous friend of free speech, this act would cause me to overlook the padlocks that the government put upon our lips ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... venture to say that each and every attempt to render the origin of the first individuals of the higher species conceivable, leads of necessity to the descent theory. We have either to reject, once for all, such an attempt, as an unscientific playing with impossibilities, or to accept the idea of descent. It is certainly the lasting merit of Darwin, even if his whole structure of proofs should in the course of time show itself weak, that he not only had the courage (as others had before him), but also inspired scientists with ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... as organised, equipped, and intended by Sir Thomas Elder, was a thing of such excellence and precision, it moved along apparently by mechanical action; and it seemed to me, as we conquered these frightful deserts by its power, like playing upon some new fine instrument, as we wandered, like rumour, "from the Orient to ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... yester-even fetch me two pound o' prunes from the spicer's, and gave him threepence in his hand to pay for 'em; and if the rascal went not and lost the money at cross and pile with Gregory White, and never a prune have I in the store-cupboard. He's at all evers playing me tricks o' that fashion. 'Tisn't a week since I sent him for a dozen o' Paris candles, and he left 'em in the water as he came o'er the bridge. Eh, Mistress Wilson, but lads be that pestiferous! You've but one, and that ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... that two of the assassins are there, waiting like them to be admitted. These women declare that they cannot deceive themselves, for one of them served the four travellers at Mongeron, and the other spoke to them at Lieursaint, and stayed an hour in the billiard-room while they were playing." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the Arabs, the Moslems, and made them drain the cup of death; which when Gharib saw he drew his sword Al-Mahik and crying out his war-cry, fell upon the Persians, with Kaylajan and Kurajan at either stirrup; nor did he leave playing upon them with blade till he hewed his way to the standard-bearer and smote him on the head with the flat of his sword, whereupon he fell down in a fainting-fit and the two Marids bore him off to their camp. When the Persians saw the standard fall, they turned and fled and for the city-gates ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... have seen the mother of this family carrying her infant in her arms, and followed by her other children, a girl and two boys, who would amuse themselves by dragging little wooden horses, playing at soldiers with mock muskets, running against the wind with little whirligig mills, or frolicking about with a thousand of the antics of children. Their father, known every where as Old Weasel, was of a most resolute ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... very near the alligator cove, just above which he could see the fish, which Mark had let drop down-stream, floating on the surface of the water. Then he lay down, and began to whine like a puppy in distress. As soon as Mark heard this he knew what his friend meant by playing dog, and he smiled at the capital imitation, which would have certainly deceived even him if he had not known who the puppy ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... against which their conclusions are secure; and no empiricist ought to claim exemption from this universal liability. But to admit one's liability to correction is one thing, and to embark upon a sea of wanton doubt is another. Of willfully playing into the hands of skepticism we cannot be accused. He who acknowledges the imperfectness of his instrument, and makes allowance {326} for it in discussing his observations, is in a much better position for gaining truth than if he claimed his ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... whereat they are placed. Their scintillation in the sun, in frequented paths, attracts Mosquitoes and Butterflies, like the lamps in our rooms and the fowler's looking-glass. Whoso comes to look at the bright thing too closely dies the victim of his curiosity. There is nothing better for playing upon the folly of the passer-by, but also nothing more dangerous to the safety ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... believe in the existence of human things, and not of human beings?...I wish, men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be always trying to get up an interruption. Did ever any man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses? or in flute-playing, and not in flute-players? No, my friend; I will answer to you and to the court, as you refuse to answer for yourself. There is no man who ever did. But now please to answer the next question: Can a man ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... better self. Her craving for excitement had been awakened, and her repugnance to mental exertion had been yielded to. The routine of lessons had become bondage, and she sought every occasion of variety, seeking to outshine and dazzle the ladies of Southminster, playing off Castle Blanch fascinations on curates and minor canons, and sometimes flying at higher game, even beguiling the Dean himself into turning over ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the procession, at the head of which, of course, was borne the May-pole. After it, came a band of young men, armed with the necessary implements for planting the shaft in the ground; and after them a troop of maidens, bearing bundles of rushes. Next came the minstrels, playing merrily on tabor, fife, sacbut, rebec, and tambourine. Then followed the Queen of the May, walking by herself,—a rustic beauty, hight Gillian Greenford,—fancifully and prettily arrayed for the occasion, and attended, at a little distance, by Robin Hood, Maid ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... enrolled himself and served for a few days as a volunteer in the Queen's army 'according to the compliment,' being attached to the English company of Captain Apsley: and in this capacity he 'received many civilities.' Even when thus playing at soldering, he did not like the roughness of a soldier's life, 'for the sun piercing the canvass of the tent, it was, during the day, unsufferable, and at night not seldom infested with mists and fogs, which ascended from the river.' However, during the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... stopping now and then to lie under the pines at the mouth of some stream, while Miss Trevor talked. She was almost a child in her eagerness to amuse me with the happenings since my departure. This was always her manner with me, in curious contrast to her habit of fencing and playing with words when in company. Presently ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the young fellow gravely. "But I wonder sometimes, Pollyanna, if you really understand yourself what that game is, and what it has done for those who are playing it." ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... the old dramatists and other publications contain allusions to barbers' music. It was the practice, as we have said, when a customer was waiting for his turn in a barber's shop to pass his time playing on the gittern. Dekker mentions a "barber's cittern for every serving-man to play upon." Writing in 1583, Stubbes alludes to music at the barber's shop. In the "Diary of Samuel Pepys" we read: "After supper my Lord called for ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the four corners within my view, and after talking earnestly with her for a few moments, saunter at her side down Broome Street, still talking. Reckless at this sight of the consequences which might follow his detection of the part I was playing, I hasted after them, when I was suddenly disconcerted by observing him hurriedly separate from the girl and turn towards me with intention as it were to regain the corner he had left. Weighing in an instant the probable good to be obtained by following ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... the same with money. I possess a magic, inexhaustible ruble; I cut off my coupons, and have retired from all the business of the world. Whom do I injure,—I, the most inoffensive and kindest of men? But this is nothing more than playing at loto or roulette, where I do not see the man who shoots himself, because of his losses, after procuring for me those coupons which I cut off from the bonds so accurately with a ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... went in; the floor was strewed, a couple sat facing each other, Fadir and Modir, with fingers playing. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... as the merchant did with his wife." "And what was that?" asked she. "Know," answered he, "that the merchant and his wife and children came out on the terrace, it being a moonlit night and the moon at its full. Now the terrace overlooked the byre; and presently, as he sat, with his children playing before him, the merchant heard the ass say to the ox, 'Tell me, O Father Stupid, what dost thou mean to do tomorrow?' 'What but that thou advisest me?' answered the ox. 'Thine advice was as good as could be and has gotten ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... in shadow, and the rest in the level rays of the May sunset; the chestnut-trees, with their young green leaves and their white blossoms lighting up each branch to the very summit of them; the hawthorn bushes here and there covered with snowy bloom; the children playing, and the swallows darting to and fro overhead; the distant shout of the cuckoo, and the deep low tone of the church clock just striking the hour—this was the threshold of home to him; the outer court, which was dearer to him and more completely ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... Church Sees before it at this day. The Anglicanism of the Reformation is upon the rocks, like some tall ship stranded upon the shore, and going to pieces, by its own weight and the steady action of the sea. We have no need of playing the wreckers. It would be inhumanity to do so. God knows that the desires and prayers of Catholics are ever ascending that all that remains of Christianity in England may be preserved, unfolded and perfected into the whole circle of revealed truths, and the ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... the sweetest of smiles, were addressed by a beautiful girl of sixteen to a young man who was sitting beside her, and taking a mischievous pleasure in disturbing her work; now catching hold of her hands; now removing out of her reach something that she wanted; now playing with her long and luxuriant hair, which floated negligently on her shoulders: affectionate interruptions, which left a doubt whether the name of brother or lover better suited them. But the light which flashed from, the eyes of the youth, and ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... blue fume from two cigarettes fast-smoked, rose towards the low ceiling. Then Noel got up from the divan, and went over to the piano. She was still in her hospital dress of lilac-coloured linen, and while she stood there touching the keys, playing a chord now, and then, Leila's heart felt hollow from compassion; she was so happy herself just now, and this child so ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to John's cottage the bairns were playing at ball against the end of it, just as they had done thirty years ago. One little urchin was making a squeaking noise with a wet finger on the window-pane, inside which were displayed a few crossed pipes ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... head just topped the window-sill; She even mounted on a stool, maybe; She pressed against the pane, as children will, And watched us playing, oh so wistfully! And then I missed her for a month or more, And idly thought: "She's gone away, no doubt," Until a hearse drew up beside the door . . . I saw a ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... was pleased with this suggestion, and early the next morning he came to the garden and hid himself behind a flowering bush. It was not long before he saw the girl playing about among the flowers, and she was so very beautiful the Rajah at once fell in love with her. He determined to make her his Ranee, but he did not speak to her or show himself to her then for fear of frightening ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... passed on the Red-hill. He observed that Roger seemed quite secure that no one could follow him, as he had carried off the basket. There he lay, near the fire, eating the meat he had broiled, and playing with his dog. It seemed to the hungry watchers as if he meant to lie there all day. After awhile, however, he rose, and sauntered towards the trees, among which he disappeared, as if going to the other side of the hill, to play, or to set his dog ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... lanes talking and laughing, or walked to the edge of the bluff to see the sun go down. We rubbed our eyes. Was this real, or were we looking into some showman's box? It seemed like the Petit Trianon adapted to an island in the Atlantic, with Louis XV. and his marquises playing at fishing instead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... in the hall," said the Squire, "and playing my fav'rite tune, I believe—"The flaxen-headed ploughboy"—he's for giving us a hint as we aren't enough in a hurry to hear him play. Bob," he called out to his third long-legged son, who was at the other end of the room, "open the door, and tell Solomon to come ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... takes up a book with restless greed for mental excitement, and then begs to be read to sleep after she has been required to put down her book and go to bed. She would be called a happy child by those who see her playing among her mates, yet it is easy to perceive that her happiness is limited to a single attitude and condition of body and mind. A happier child than she is one who can enjoy open-air play, and then quietly sit down at her mother's side ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... remembered the receipt of this letter, which was brought in as Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant were on the Green playing at Bowls, young Esmond looking ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... 1791, Mr. Jefferson thought that our affairs were proceeding in a train of unparalleled prosperity, owing to the real improvements of the Government, and the unbounded confidence reposed in it by the people. Soon a jealousy of Hamilton came upon him, and the displeasure of playing a second part: he began to look for relief in the ranks of the malcontents. He then perceived monarchical longings in the Administration party, and prophesied corruption, despotism, and a loss of liberty forever, if they were to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... room. "To me it seems, Senores," said Cambronero, a quiet smile playing on his shrewd features, "that things have happened for the best, and that the result of all this is not doubtful, provided only the king be not already dead. The Apostolicals have been active. Their creatures have worked their way even into the cabinet and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... a main issue, an entire building is often devoted to the comfort of the participants. We have in mind the commodious and exceptionally delightful arrangements made for the comfort and pleasure of those playing court tennis in a large and architecturally fine building erected for the purpose on the estate of the Neville Lyttons, Crabber ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... to Barnaby that he must leave the school, and then finding himself worn out with exhaustion, gave the boys a holiday, that they might reflect upon what had passed, and which they duly profited by in playing at marbles and peg in the ring. He then dismissed the school, took me by the hand, and led me into his study, where he gave vent to his strong and affectionate feelings towards me, until the matron came to tell us that ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... heard that retribution would follow silence, any one volunteering for such a purpose lacked discretion if not sincerity. "Who are these men who, in newspapers or elsewhere, are cracking their whips over me and playing schoolmaster to the party? They are of various sorts and conditions. Some of them are the man-milliners, the dilettante and carpet knights of politics, whose efforts have been expended in denouncing and ridiculing and accusing honest men.... Some of them are men who, when ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... night. A few large drops of rain fell, splashing upon roof and grass while he ate his supper, but it stopped, and the evening was marked by a deep stillness. He felt listless and disinclined to move; his guards, to judge by their voices, for they were playing ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... killed me to itself, "I through the law am dead to the law" (Gal 2:19). The law is another thing than I did think it was. I thought it would not have been so soul-destroying, so damning a law! I thought it would not have been so severe against me for my little sins, for my playing, for my jesting, for my dissembling, quarreling, and the like. I had some thoughts, indeed, that it would hew great sinners, but let me pass! and though it condemned great sinners, yet it would pass me ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a few hints to novices. Preserve a cool head and steady eye. Whilst you are playing your shot your captain will be dancing about in the circle at the other end of the ice. You will find it best to disregard his maniacal shoutings and gesticulations. You will probably not understand half of them and will not agree with the other ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... after breakfast, the Emperor was playing with the new King's oldest son, the little Napoleon, who was only three years and a half old, but was very bright for his age, and already knew by heart La Fontaine's fables. The Emperor made him recite the fable about the frogs ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... is swept away perfectly, no charge can succeed if many machine guns or rifles from the trenches are playing upon it. Then men simply rush into a spray of bullets. Therefore, all the teeth must be drawn from the trench itself. This is done by the concentration of high-explosive shells from guns of larger caliber, mostly howitzers, which burst in the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... camp were drawn up in line, in the mid-front of which two empty coffins lay on the ground. The unwonted sounds which she had noticed came from an advancing procession. It consisted of the band of the York Hussars playing a dead march; next two soldiers of that regiment in a mourning coach, guarded on each side, and accompanied by two priests. Behind came a crowd of rustics who had been attracted by the event. The melancholy procession marched along the front ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... the tennis court, playing with"—she paused and blushed prettily—"with a friend. The game finished, we—we went into the garden and sat upon the lawn in the shade of some foliage where it was cool. I did not know, Sire, nor did my companion, of the presence of royalty at ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... tone, as he concealed his hideous face behind his upturned coat-collar. The girl obeyed, and having conducted them up a flight of stairs, ushered them into an apartment where Josephine and her mother were seated, engaged there in playing ecarte. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... had been at theirs, playing whist till past midnight; yet is money, even when paid over in this egregious public manner by a nervous hand, such testimony to the sincerity of a man, that they shouted a simultaneous invitation for him to breakfast with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... indeed. The best one, in fact, we have had this season, which makes me regret all the more deeply your absence," returned the genial gentleman, with a suggestion of a smile playing about his lips. "Indeed," he added, "it was the finest one I've ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... quite slowly, looking all the time as if she would like to run. Joyce held her hand and sometimes glanced up at her face, so full of wonder and a sort of resentful doubt, as though circumstances were playing an unmannerly trick on her. At the gate ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... waterfall: he appeared to be eighty years of age at least. He was truly venerable to look at, and reminded me of Thor. He wore a sort of dalmatica embroidered with gold. Calmness and goodness were so plainly marked on the aspect of this worthy that I felt ashamed of playing the spy, and felt inclined to return humbly to the good counsel of Athanasius, when the latter, pushing my elbow behind the shelves, said, referring to the Ancient of the Mountain, "That's Fortnoye: I knew I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... in which phrase, she then adds, "John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons were always in earnest in what they were about; Miss O'Neil used to cry bitterly in all her tragic parts; whilst Garrick could be making faces and playing tricks in the middle of his finest points, and Kean would talk gibberish while the people were in an uproar of applause at his." Fanny Kemble further remarks: "In my own individual instance, I know ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... also, and recognized you as members of their own race. There were several thousand of us, altogether, and we were kept by the Martians to serve them as slaves, and particularly to delight their ears with music, for our people have always been especially skilful in the playing of musical instruments, and in songs, and while the Martians have but little musical skill themselves, they are ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... in such a costume, playing like a dryad over the stage, stayed with him when the dummy hand had been played and he had been recalled to the game by a thump on the shoulder. Edith in soft, pastel-coloured chiffons, dancing in bare feet to light string music. A forest ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... present century. I had good opportunities to secure an early education, as we had good schools in the West at that time. I had very little liking for books, and much less for school. When my parents thought me at school, I was playing "hookey" with other boys, running about the river, kicking foot-ball, playing "shinny on your own side," and having a fight nearly every day. I hardly ever went home that I did not have my face all scratched up from having been in a fight, which innocent amusement I loved much better than school. ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol |
