"Acting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they were rescued by their opponents from Mr. Roebuck's assault upon them. Then they arranged their attack for the same night in both Houses of Parliament, lest explanations in any high quarter in the one might damage a future discussion in the other; and lastly, though thus acting by simultaneous and concerted movements in both, they framed their motions differently in each place; and in the Commons, where they had some dream of better success, confined themselves to the religious question under the letter on the Somnauth gates, omitting the Simla proclamation of the 1st ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... uncompromising—always talking about the "golden rule"—always insisting upon a moral standard which nobody can live up to—always scenting poverty, murder, and suicide, in every glass of whiskey, though it were a mile off. The truth is, you are not fit to live in this world at all. Acting in conformity with your more than puritanical rules, would starve any man and his family ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... is scarcely worth while to send to inquire about the matter. So that charge may drop. There remains the question as to whether or no the prisoner uttered certain words this afternoon, which, if she did utter them, are undoubtedly worthy of the death that, under my authority as acting commandant of this town, I have power to inflict. This question I foresaw, and that is why I asked the Senora, to whom the woman is alleged to have spoken the words, to accompany me here to give evidence. She has done so, and her evidence on oath as against the statement ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... and looked at Mrs. Carter's autograph album. It contained some great names that were now no longer written. James Lick, David Broderick, Colonel E.D. Baker and the still lamented Ralston, of whom Maizie's mother never tired of talking. He, it seems, was wont to give her tips on mining stocks. Acting on them, she had once ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... Lance Dunning, standing with a cigar in his hand and one leg thrown over a corner of the table, was facing McCloud, who stood before him with his hand on a chair. Lance was speaking as Dicksie looked into the room, and in curt tones: "My men were acting under my orders." ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... to investigate whether Father Diego de Ayala was officiating as cura; the latter prevented the notary from doing so, and, when other people went to make the said investigation, he told them that they need not take that trouble—that he was acting as cura in virtue of the bull of St. Pius V and of his assignment [to that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... gates are unbarred, "on golden hinges turning." But, for the greater part, the musician who would tell so much speaks to unheeding ears. We comprehend him but infinitesimally. It is the Battle of Prague. Adrianus sits down to the piano, and Dion stands by his side, music-sheet in hand, acting as showman. "The cannon," says Dion, at the proper place, and you imagine you recognize reverberation. "Charge," continues Dion, and with a violent effort you fancy the ground trembles. "Groans of the wounded," and you are partly horror-struck and partly incredulous. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... enthusiast, than a grave ecclesiastic. Perhaps it may be true, that his pulpit gesticulations were too violent, yet they bore strong expressions of sincerity, and the side on which he erred, was the most favourable to the audience; as the extreme of over-acting any part, is not half so intolerable as a languid indifference, whether what the preacher is then uttering, is true or false, is worth attention or no. The Dr. being once in company with a person, whose profession was that of a player, took occasion to ask him, 'what was the reason that an ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... Instead, acting on his advice, I sent him to M. d'Agen's lodging, to beg that young gentleman to call upon me before evening. After searching the lodging and other places in vain, Simon found M. d'Agen in the tennis-court at the Castle, and, inventing a crafty excuse, brought him to my lodging a full hour ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Gardens the literary services were held. D. J. Staples, acting-president, delivered a stirring address, rehearsing the events of the past ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... say nothing more about it. Then I tried in vain to guess what was passing in her heart. We went to the theater every night in order to avoid embarrassing tete-a-tetes. There, we sometimes pressed each other's hands at some fine bit of acting or beautiful strain of music, or exchanged, perhaps, a friendly glance, but going and returning we were mute, absorbed ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... a fellow, a noisy blackguard, whom Briggs was asking after this very summer—a fellow who went off from Whitbury with some players. I know Briggs used to go to the theatre with him as a boy—what was his name? He tried acting, but did not succeed; and then became a scene-shifter, or something of the kind, at the Adelphi. He has some complaint, I forget what, which made him an out-patient at St. Mumpsimus's, some months every year. I know that he was ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... in country belonging to the Arabs, on the right bank of the Senegal river, and are consequently in the hands of the Moors, who carry the produce to the river. The various stations we have established along its course are intended for the protection of the traders or coloured agents, acting as intermediaries between the natives, and the white merchants, unable themselves to face the deadly climate, and also to close the road to the British markets on the Gambia river to the Moors. To the garrisons of these stations, regular charnel- ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... in the year 1800, in the vicinity of Peebles, where his father was a shepherd. Obtaining a classical education, he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh, to prosecute his studies for the Established Church. By acting as a tutor during the summer months, he was enabled to support himself at the university, and after the usual curriculum, he was licensed as a probationer. Though possessed of popular talents as a preacher, he was not successful in obtaining a living in the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... look crossed the features of Howard Van Burnam, which, if a part of his acting, showed him to have genius for his role. His head sank back on the cushions of the carriage, and for a moment he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the carriage had stopped, and Mr. Gryce, who had not noticed his emotion, ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... efforts pour dominer avec plus de tyrannie, et pour etouffer les maximes du Christianisme et le regne de Jesus-Christ, voiant qu'il s'approche.—GOIDEAU, Lettres, 423, 27th March 1667. There is, in fact, an unconquerable tendency in all power, save that of knowledge, acting by and through knowledge, to injure the mind of him by whom that power is exercised.—WORDSWORTH, 22nd June 1817; ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... occasions, they naturally came to me, when thus persecuted, as the author of their miseries and their ruin. From their supplications and wants it would have been ungenerous and ungrateful to have fled. These different circumstances, by acting together, had at length brought me into the situation just mentioned; and I was, therefore, obliged, though very reluctantly, to be borne out of the field where I had placed the great honor and ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... bounds to the wrench in his life caused by his unhappy marriage. At all events, henceforward throughout his career we shall see the continuous action of this now avowed Miltonism among others. We shall see him henceforward continually acting on the principle that, in addition to the real sins forbidden to man by an eternal law of right and wrong, revealed in his own conscience and authenticated by the Bible (for Milton did believe in such an eternal law, and, however it is to be reconciled with ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... matter, Arthur Symons sometimes suggests the Cavalier poets. He has often squandered his powers in acting on his theory that it is one of the provinces of verse to record any momentary mood, irrespective of its value. His deftness of touch and acute poetic sensibility are evident in such short poems as Rain on the Down, Credo, A Roundel of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... as like you as we could find. We were going to hypnotise him, to save him the difficulty of acting. It was imperative. The whole of this revolt depends on the idea that you are awake, alive, and with us. Even now a great multitude of people has gathered in the theatre clamouring to see you. They do not trust... You know, of course—something of ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... crest of serrated Olympus. Then he spoke and all the other gods gave ear. "Hear me," said he, "gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as I am minded. Let none of you neither goddess nor god try to cross me, but obey me every one of you that I may bring this matter to an end. If I see anyone acting apart and helping either Trojans or Danaans, he shall be beaten inordinately ere he come back again to Olympus; or I will hurl him down into dark Tartarus far into the deepest pit under the earth, where the gates are iron and the floor bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Cliffe had been disagreeably surprised to see him that afternoon. Perhaps it was the sudden sense of antagonism acting on the man's excitable nature that had made him fling himself into the wild nonsense he had talked ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ought to be. Let him therefore reflect, that if to bestow be in it self laudable, should not a Man take care to secure Ability to do things praiseworthy as long as he lives? Or could there be a more cruel Piece of Raillery upon a Man who should have reduc'd his Fortune below the Capacity of acting according to his natural Temper, than to say of him, That Gentleman was generous? My beloved Author therefore has, in the Sentence on the Top of my Paper, turned his Eye with a certain Satiety from beholding the Addresses ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... exchange glances. Then Mr. Wedron interposes: "Miss Wardour," he says, slowly, "we are acting for Clifford Heath, in this matter, therefore, I must ask, do you come as a friend of the accused, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the illusion, is not conscious of plaster surface and pigment; indeed, he hardly sees color and design as such at all; through them he looks into the immensity of heaven, peopled with gods and godlike men. Consummate acting is that which makes the spectator forget that it is acting. The part and the player become one. The actor, in himself and in the words he utters, is the unregarded vehicle of the dramatist's idea. In a play like Ibsen's "Ghosts," ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... disastrous to the former. It would be like flinging a porcelain vase, with already a crack in it, against a granite column. Never before had Hepzibah so adequately estimated the powerful character of her cousin Jaffrey,—powerful by intellect, energy of will, the long habit of acting among men, and, as she believed, by his unscrupulous pursuit of selfish ends through evil means. It did but increase the difficulty that Judge Pyncheon was under a delusion as to the secret which he supposed Clifford to ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... less severe with me. I do not even have any one to complain, and that is why I do not drive away Count Skorzewski. I detest his beauty, I despise his perverse mind, but I do not drive him away because he is a skilful actor, and because when I see his acting it awakens in me the echo of former days. (After a while.) How shall I fill my life? Study? Art? Even if I loved them, they would not love me for they are not living things. No, truly now! They showed me no duties, no aims, no foundations. ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... boy got the impression that his sister was immured in a kind of dungeon, surrounded by people who were unkind to her, and unable to get away or to call for help openly. He says he ought to have known better, for apparently she has been acting plays ever since she was short-coated; but this time he was really taken in, and came here last night, with his friend and cousin, meaning to rescue his sister and take her home to Cuba. Found her not desiring in the least to be rescued, but bent on hiding them both in the garret, ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... dark, and then he would sneak there and get it out and bury it in another place. Of course, people got to avoiding him and shaking their heads and whispering, because, the way he was looking and acting, they judged he had killed somebody or done something terrible, they didn't know what, and if he had been a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... these sketches only aspires to the position of a historian in a limited sense. It cannot be denied that the history of our good old State, modest in her pretensions, but filled with grand, patriotic associations, has never been fully written. Acting under this belief, he feels tempted to say, like Ruth following the reapers in the time of Boaz, he has "gleaned in the field until even," and having found a few "handfuls" of neglected grain, and beaten them out, here presents his ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... at the prospect of the negotiations for truce coming to nought, as to be ready to go into a treaty without a recognition of the independence of the States. This base faction was thought to be instigated by the English Government, intriguing secretly with President Richardot. The Advocate, acting in full sympathy with Jeannin, frustrated the effects of the manoeuvre by obtaining all the votes of Holland and Zeeland for this supreme resolution. The other five provinces dared to make no further effort in that direction against the two ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... which he wrote first, called The Baptist, was printed last, and next the Medea of Euripides. He wrote them in compliance with the custom of the school, which was to have a play written once a-year, that the acting of them might wean the French youth from allegories, to which they had taken a false taste, and bring them back, as much as possible, to a just imitation of the ancients. This affair succeeding even almost beyond his hopes, he took more pains in compiling the other ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Prussians see their country threatened, they will hasten to its assistance; the Russians, Swedes, and Austrians, will refuse to change and reorganize their plans of operations for the sake of Prussia, and discord will prevent them from acting. If Germany had been united, and acted with one will, I could not have taken from her a single village or fortress. Fortunately, however, the people do not act unanimously; wherever ten Germans are assembled, there are also ten separate interests at war among them, and this fact has delivered the ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... defection, and were strong chiefly in their just cause. It bears the date of that fatal hour when the king of Naples, after a brief show of liberality, recalled his troops from Bologna, where they had been acting against Austria with the confederated forces of the other Italian states, and when every man lost to Italy was as an ebbing drop of her ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Rome in 1825, when they rebuilt the prisons of the Inquisition. They were not idle in 1842, when they imprisoned Dr. Achilli for heresy, as he assures us; nor was the captain, or some other of the subalterns, who, acting in their name, took his watch from him as he came out. They were not idle in 1843, when they renewed the old edicts against the Jews. And all the world knows that the inquisitors on their stations throughout the pontifical states, and the inquisitorial agents in Italy, Germany, and Eastern Europe, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... writing to you from time to time, till I could give you an account of 'The Beggar's Opera.' It is acted at the playhouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields with such success that the playhouse has been crowded every night. To-night is the fifteenth time of acting, and it is thought it will run a fortnight longer. I have ordered Motte[18] to send the play to you the first opportunity. I have made no interest, neither for approbation or money: nor has anybody been pressed to take tickets for my benefit: notwithstanding which, I think ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... eyes, a Greek profile, and rounded majestic form, having that sort of beauty which carries a sweet matronliness even in youth, and her voice was a soft cooing. She had but lately come to Paris, and bore a virtuous reputation, her husband acting with her as the unfortunate lover. It was her acting which was "no better than it should be," but the public was satisfied. Lydgate's only relaxation now was to go and look at this woman, just as he might have thrown himself ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... gestures, when he is made to believe that he is exposed to a terrific storm, convey a very natural expression of terror. He regards the imaginary flashes of lightning with an aspect of dismay, which, if simulated, would be a very good specimen of acting. In many other experiments performed upon him, the effects seem to be such as are quite beyond the reach of any scepticism with regard to his sincerity. He cannot pronounce his own name—does not know, or at least cannot tell, the name of the town ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. All dramatic and acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved. Application for the right of performing should ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Tsang once said of himself: "On three points I examine myself daily, viz., whether, in looking after other people's interests, I have not been acting whole-heartedly; whether, in my intercourse with friends, I have not been true; and whether, after teaching, I have not myself been practising ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... neither, the reason of. So, it being late, after supper they away home. But it vexed me to understand no more from Reeves and his glasses touching the nature and reason of the several refractions of the several figured glasses, he understanding the acting part, but not one bit the theory, nor can make any body understand it, which is a strange dullness, methinks. I did not hear anything yesterday or at all to confirm either Sir Thos. Allen's news of the 10 or 12 ships taken, nor of the disorder at Amsterdam upon the news of the burning of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... our history. Many thousand years ago all the cities of our country were built by a great and powerful giant, who brought the materials from far and wide. The place was peopled partly by persons of his choice, and partly by a sort of self-acting magic rather difficult to explain. As soon as the cities were built and the inhabitants placed here the life of the city began, and it was, to those who lived it, as though it had always been. The artisans ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... Further, sin is an action, while diminution is a passion. Now no agent is passive by the very reason of its acting, although it is possible for it to act on one thing, and to be passive as regards another. Therefore he who sins, does not, by his sin, diminish the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Evelyn admitted. "I don't know if it was flattering or not." She paused and resumed with a touch of color: "For all that, I did not refuse because I was tactful; one sometimes gets tired of acting. Besides, it would be thrown away on Jim. He's not accomplished and critical like ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... curious to mark how timidly the Primate of the day dealt with such a danger as this. Sudbury was acting in virtue of a Papal injunction, but he acted as though the shadow of the terrible doom that was awaiting him had already fallen over him. He summoned the popular Bishop of London to his aid ere ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... is but one Shakespeare, and in the drama below him Manzoni holds a high place. The faults of his tragedies are those of most plays which are not acting plays, and their merits are much greater than the great number of such plays can boast. I have not meant to imply that you want sympathy with the persons of the drama, but only less sympathy than with the ideas embodied in them. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... and was warmly welcomed back. Jenny Lind sang for the first time in London at the Italian Opera House in the part of "Alice" in Roberto il Diavolo, and enchanted the audience with her unrivalled voice and fine acting. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... President Shimon PERES (since 15 July 2007) head of government: Prime Minister Ehud OLMERT (since May 2006); Deputy Prime Minister Tzipora "Tzipi" LIVNI; note - Prime Minister OLMERT resigned on 17 September 2008, but will serve as acting prime minister until a new government is formed cabinet: Cabinet selected by prime minister and approved by the Knesset elections: president is largely a ceremonial role and is elected by the Knesset for a seven-year term (one-term limit); election last held 13 June 2007 (next to be held ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Selvagio and other Flemings who had accompanied the youthful sovereign had obtained from him, before quitting Flanders, licenses to import slaves from Africa to the colonies; a measure which had recently in 1516 been prohibited by a decree of cardinal Ximenes while acting as regent. The chancellor, who was a humane man, reconciled it to his conscience by a popular opinion that one negro could perform, without detriment to his health, the labor of several Indians, and that therefore it was a great saving of human ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... delighted us. Then he took to long, greyhound leaps and we had to chase him. But he did not last long, with the inexorable R. C. bending back on that Murphy rod. After being cut free, this swordfish lay on the surface a few moments, acting as if he was out of breath. He weighed about one hundred and fifty, and was a particularly beautiful specimen. The hook showed in the corner of his mouth. He did not have a scratch on his graceful bronze and purple and silver body. I waved my hat at ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... infantry is acting as a support to artillery which is attacked, it should throw out sharpshooters to reply to the enemy's skirmishers that are firing at the gunners and horses, whilst it engages the compact mass by which it ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... be, yet they knew and dreaded our firearms; nothing would tempt them to take a gun in their hands. They begged for knives, calling them by the Spanish word "cuchilla." They explained also what they wanted, by acting as if they had a piece of blubber in their mouth, and then pretending to ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... course it was not all right; and after two days spent with this dismal secret between us, and Aoodya all the while play-acting at her old tricks of love for me and the babe—as if, God knows, I doubted they, and not the horror, were her real self—I could stand it no longer, but did what I ought to have done before; sought out my master and made a ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hole jewel be of the proper shape, the end-stone not too far from the hole jewel and too much oil is not applied at one time, the oil will not spread nor run down the staff, but a small portion will be retained at the acting surface of pivot and jewel, and this supply will be gradually fed to these parts from the reservoir between the jewel and end-stone, by ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... my friend, and in the rapidly rising flood of emotions that came with the acting members of my body, flushed and throbbing with excitement, and with a wild joy besides, I flung myself upon his neck and pressed him with arms that seemed once more those natural physical ties that have held upon my breast those ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... proud Rome hath boasted long, Lately revived to live another age, And here arrived to tell of Tarquin's wrong, Her chaste denial, and the tyrant's rage, {29} Acting her passions on our stately stage: She is remember'd, all forgetting me, Yet I as fair and chaste as ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... Philosophy Dissected, & set forth by a mad man. "The first Book divided into 3 Chapters. "Chap. I. The description of the World in man's heart with the Articles of the Christian Faith. "Chap. II. A description of one Spirit acting in all, which some affirme is God. "Chap. III. A description of the Scripture according to the history and ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... my hands. It was a superb piece of acting—Bish Ware sober playing Bish Ware drunk, and that's not an easy role for anybody to play. Then he picked up the chair ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... from their own Nature or Texture, not the Artificer. And indeed, the Fire is as well a Natural Agent as Seed: And the Chymist that imployes it, does but apply Natural Agents and Patients, who being thus brought together, and acting according to their respective Natures, performe the worke themselves; as Apples, Plums, or other fruit, are natural Productions, though the Gardiner bring and fasten together the Sciens of the Stock, ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... acting was ever seen on the stage than that of John Zwink, the Judas. In repose there is no honester face in Ober-Ammergau than his. Twenty years ago he appeared in the Passion Play as St. John; one would suppose that he would do best in a representation of geniality and mildness. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... The growing part therefore does not act like a nail when hammered into a board, but more like a wedge of wood, which whilst slowly driven into a crevice continually expands at the same time by the absorption of water; and a wedge thus acting will split even a ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... buried, so to speak, in gold-dust, which is a fate that no sensible man ought to court—a fate, let me add, that seems to await Ben Trench if he continues at this sort o' thing much longer. And, lastly, it's not fair that my Polly should spend her prime in acting the part of cook and mender of old clothes to a set of rough miners. For all of which reasons I vote that we now break up our partnership, pack up the gold-dust that we've got, ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... room. "Ah, sir," said he, despondently, "to think that I didn't draw out of this woman everything she knew, when I might have done so easily. But I thought you would be waiting for me, and made haste to bring her here. I thought I was acting for ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... fellows told me I was becoming religiously insane, but acting upon your advice, I did not stop to argue with those opposed; and I am glad to be able to tell you that those who expressed interest were more ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... revenge ourselves on the savages, and with their own hatchets put every one of them to death. We then returned to our troop, who had given us up for lost, and they made great rejoicings on our return. We now proceeded in our journey through this prodigious wilderness, Gog and Magog acting as pioneers, hewing down the trees, &c., at a great rate as we advanced. We passed over numberless swamps and lakes and rivers, until at length we discovered a habitation at some distance. It appeared a dark and gloomy castle, surrounded with strong ramparts, and a broad ditch. We called a council ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... mind, to have its free conceptions thus crampt and pressed down to the measure of a strait-lacing actuality, may be judged from that delightful sensation of freshness with which we turn to those plays of Shakespeare which have escaped being performed, and to those passages in the acting plays of the same writer which have happily been left out in performance. How far the very custom of hearing anything spouted, withers and blows upon a fine passage, may be seen in those speeches from Henry the Fifth, &c. which are current in the mouths of school-boys ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... preserved my life. These bodily labours, these continued inventions, and projected plans to obtain my freedom, preserved my health. Who would suppose that a man fettered as I was could find means of exercising himself? By swinging my arms, acting with the upper part of my body, and leaping upwards, I frequently put myself in a strong perspiration. After thus wearying myself I slept soundly, and often thought how many generals, obliged to support the inclemencies of weather, and all the dangers of the field—how many of those ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... bounds of its jurisdiction who may be charged with improper conduct. The accused may either defend himself, or select some person to plead for him, such residents of the section as choose to do so acting as jurors. The prisoner, if found guilty, is sentenced at the discretion of the court,—generally, to treat the company to some specified drink or dainty. These courts often give occasion for a great deal of fun, and sometimes call out real ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... opprobrious, or at least contemptuous terms of defiance, which provoked our hero to accept the proposal. After the other had disengaged himself from the old rooks, who were extremely mortified at the interruption, the two young champions sat down, and fortune acting with uncommon impartiality, Pickle, by the superiority of his talents, in two hours won to the amount of as many thousand pounds, for which he was obliged to take his antagonist's note, the sharpers having previously ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... tears at the thought of Ned's departure. During the seven long months the siege had lasted he had been as a brother to them — keeping up their spirits by his cheerfulness, looking after their safety, and as far as possible after their comfort, and acting as the adviser and almost as the head of the house. His aunt was almost equally affected, for she had come to lean entirely upon him and to ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... Acting upon my suggestions, Fitzhugh, Crosby, Lawrence Jerome, Livingston, Hecksher and Rogers, accompanied by myself as guide, rode through a convenient canon to a point beyond the buffaloes, so that we were to the windward of the animals. The rest of the party made a ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... woman! She ought to be ruling empires instead of searching thieves. Look at the balance of her, Mag. My best acting hadn't shaken her. She hadn't that fatal curiosity to understand motives that wrecks so many who deal with—we'll call them the temporarily un-straight. She was satisfied just not to let me get ahead of her in the least particular. But she wasn't mean, and she would ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... the several orders, they see that themselves are of no importance on any side, they wish to be leaders of a bad cause rather than of no cause whatever, of tumults, and of sedition. Of which state of things, if a tedium can at length enter your minds, and if ye are willing to resume the modes of acting practised by your forefathers, and formerly by yourselves, I submit to any punishment, if I do not rout and put to flight, and strip of their camp, those ravagers of our lands, and transfer from our gates and walls ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... to amend that, after the fashion of dear little Marjorie Fleming, and say "never—if you can help it." For, of course, there are exceptional occasions, and exceptional children; some latitude must be left for the decisions of good common sense acting on the issue of ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... other. Yet the same People will readily own that the fluttering of the Flame of a Candle is a certain token of Wind, which however is not discernible by their Feeling; because it lies within the Compass of their Understanding to discern that this Fluctuation of the Flame is caused by the Wind acting upon it, and therefore they are inclined to believe this, though it does not fall actually under the Cognizance of their Senses. But a Man of a larger Compass of Knowledge, who is acquainted with the Nature and Qualities of the Air, and knows what ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... therefore, of the Tertiaries in point of time, can only be determined by an appeal to fossils; and in such determination Sir Charles Lyell proposed to take as the basis of classification the proportion of living or existing species of Mollusca which occurs in each stratum or group of strata. Acting upon this principle, Sir Charles Lyell divides the Tertiary ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... Miss Lord. She told us to apply our knowledge of sociology to the problems of our daily lives, and when we do, she backs down. But anyway, we intend to maintain the strike, until she is ready to meet our just demands. It isn't through selfish motives that I am acting, Miss Sallie. I should a lot rather have something to eat and go horseback riding. I am fighting for the cause ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... muskets concealed in the stern-sheets, ready for use in case they were only acting treacherously, and should suddenly rush down upon us with clubs and spears. Still, as we got nearer, and waved our hands, they showed no inclination to attack us, and made every sign to let us understand that they ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... on the stage, in the first glow of passionate youth, I remember a woman loved me for my acting. She was beautiful, graceful as a poplar, young, innocent, pure, and radiant as a summer dawn. Her smile could charm away the darkest night. I remember, I stood before her once, as I am now standing before you. ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... are loved by them, and in time the woman grows to depend upon this love and to need it, and is not content without it, and so she consents to marry the man for no other reason than because he cares for her. For if a dog, even, runs up to you wagging his tail and acting as though he were glad to see you, you pat him on the head and say, "What a nice dog." You like him because he likes you, and not because he belongs to a fine breed of animal and could take blue ribbons ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... prayer for temptation use: "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation."[68] This goes with the other. It is the partner prayer. Be ever on the watch, and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. Guard prayerfully against acting independently of your Leader. Watch against the temptation. Watch yourself lest you be inclined to go off alone, to break away from His lead. For there will be only one result then, defeat. These two prayers together show the way to turn temptation into victory,—"lead not," "enter not." A ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... dust-heaps outside Madrid were the homes of packs of lean, hungry dogs, great brindled creatures of the breed to be seen in Velasquez pictures; these animals prowled about the streets of Madrid in the early morning, acting as scavengers. When they became too numerous, the civil guards laid poison about at night in the dust-heaps before the houses, and the very early riser might see four or five of these great creatures ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... five cavaliers appeared through the dust, riding in the direction of the huts. Two were in advance of the other three, who, following at a little distance, were acting ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... wife or daughter; on the contrary, he intended to make it quite clear to them that they had been at fault in the matter, but he would take his time about reopening the subject. By waiting a day or two before reproving them he would show that he was acting in a judicial spirit, and without any influence of temper. Still...it was provoking that there should be nothing to ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... expedition. Raffles' information was found to be so accurate, and his suggestions so valuable, that after the capitulation of General Jansens on September 18, 1811, Lord Minto entrusted the island to his charge. Up to the present, Raffles had been acting first as agent and afterwards as chief secretary to the Governor-General; he was now appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... then be taken for an enemy of my country? Must the patriots ruin, without any regard, a general who has not been entirely useless to the republic? Must the representatives place the government under the necessity of acting unjustly ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... from which vitreous electricity proceeds attracts oxygen and repels hydrogen; so that each of the elements of a particle of water, for instance, is subject to an attractive and a repulsive force, acting in contrary directions, the centres of action of which are reciprocally opposed. The action of each force in relation to a molecule of water situated in the course of the electric current is in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance at which it is exerted, thus ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... discrepancy between theory and observation. Some cause was evidently at work on this distant planet, causing it to disagree with its motion as calculated according to the law of gravitation. If the law of gravitation held exactly at so great a distance from the sun, there must be some perturbing force acting on it besides all the known forces that had been fully taken into account. Could it be an outer planet? The question occurred to several, and one or two tried to solve the problem, but were soon stopped by the tremendous difficulties ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the situations that make me sick unto death; it's your confounding acting. Even the Epidicus[E]—a comedy I love as well as my own self—well, there's not a one I so object to seeing, if Pellio's playing in it. But you really consider Bacchis a ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... help myself. It's for you to take it up now. She's in the restaurant. You'll easily know her, in a long ulster, with her maid and the child. You can't miss her. By the Lord, she is standing at the door! Get away with you, don't let her see you talking with me. She must not know we are acting in common, and I do hope she hasn't noticed. Be off, I tell you, only let me hear of you; wire to Lucerne what you're doing. Address telegraph-office. Send me a second message at Goeschenen. I shall get one or both. Say where I may answer and ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... United States government interferes on account of some one of its citizens in Cuba, and war is declared with Spain, there is no saying how long the present revolution may continue. For the Spaniards themselves are acting in a way which makes many people suspect that they are not making an effort to bring it to an end. The sincerity of the Spaniards in Spain is beyond question; the personal sacrifices they made in taking up the loans issued by the government are proof of their ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... most unwelcome leisure of severe indisposition in reading The Confessions of a Fair Saint in Mr. Carlyle's recent translation of the Wilhelm Meister, which might, I think, have been better rendered literally The Confessions of a Beautiful Soul. This, acting in conjunction with the concluding sentences of your letter, threw my thoughts inward on my own religious experience, and gave immediate occasion to the following Confessions of one who is neither fair nor saintly, but who, groaning under a deep sense of ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... career. Ab, of course, had his eyes open from the beginning, and if the babe of to-day were to stand upright as soon as Ab did, his mother would be the proudest creature going and his father, at the club, would be acting intolerable. It must be admitted, though, that neither One-Ear nor Red-Spot manifested an extraordinary degree of enthusiasm over the precociousness of their first-born. He was not, for the time, remarkable, and parents of the day were less prone than now to spoiling children. Ab's layette ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... no longer think of God we cannot think of him as outside the system of nature, and as possibly interfering with it to produce a result that would not otherwise take place. Why? Because God is the soul, the mind, the heart of nature. The forces of the universe, acting according to their changeless and eternal laws, are simply God at work. And, when I pray to God to interfere, I am praying him to interfere with himself, I am praying him to contradict his own wisely and eternally and changelessly established ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... in high places, brought Jim a mention in despatches, and, shortly afterwards, confirmation of his acting rank. It would be difficult to find fitting words to tell of the effect of this matter upon a certain grizzled gentleman and a very young lady who, when the information reached them were studying patent manures in a morning-room in a ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... was not instrumental in it. He appeared before her, as she had appeared before others, many others, including myself, and his subsequent commerce with her was achieved by his own personal force. You may say that she had been prepared to see him by belief and desire, by belief and desire acting upon a mind greatly distressed and probably overwrought. You may say that she saw what she ardently desired to see. It is quite true, I cannot deny it; but I point to his previous manifestations, and leave ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... you and I are acting wisely. I hope we shall be kind to each other: we have a great deal in common. You could not step up as high as I shall place you without my aid, and you are useful to me: it is ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... were raised by the justices. Actors and actresses were "rogues and vagabonds" when it suited prim puritans to call them so, and more than once Huddy and his company had to take a hurried departure from some town where play-acting was looked upon as ungodly and a device of ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Lucy in Town,"(591) in which Mrs. Clive (592) mimes the Muscovita admirably, and Beard, Amorevoli tolerably. But all the run is now after Garrick, a wine-merchant, who is turned player, at Goodman's-fields. He plays all parts, and is a very good mimic. His acting I have seen, and may say to you, who will not tell it again here, I see nothing wonderful in it.(593) but it is heresy to say so: the Duke of Argyll says, he is superior to Betterton. Now I talk of players, tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this morning. As she went ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... slumbers produced in the cave of Trophonius are justly ascribed to medicated beverages. Here, the votary if he escaped with life, had his health irreparably injured, and the whole class of artificial dreams and visions, the effect of some powerful narcotic acting upon the body after the mind had been predisposed for a certain train ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... disturbance suffices to upset the balance. Castlereagh's whole scheme therefore presupposed the continued and permanent existence of some five or six great Powers always preserving their independence in foreign policy and war, and automatically acting as a check upon the might and ambition ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... not," Vocco informed her. "I made careful inquiries on just that point and got my information from two different sources. Almo told Egnatius that he was a woman-hater and could not endure a woman about him. Egnatius humored him and he is acting villicus without any villica. The wife of the assistant overseer does whatever is necessary in the way of prayers and sacrifices and such duties of a villica. She and her husband occupy the overseer's house and Almo is living in the hut meant for ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... and the festivities are kept up late. Songs are sung which perhaps would not be heard in a quiet drawing-room; a little acting is done with them. Music is played, and von Francius, in a vagrant mood, sits down and improvises a fitful, stormy kind of fantasia, which in itself and in his playing puts me much in mind of the weird ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... "His music-dramas, shorn of the fetters of the actual spoken word, emancipated from the materialism of acting, painting, and furniture, must be considered the ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... a high-handed manner that the dealer never guessed she was acting on her own authority. As she had made a special visit to the farm, accompanied by her groom, he imagined she must have been entrusted by Major Fitzgerald with full powers to buy ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... be directly exposed. The native brethren are much more inclined to aggressive speech than the missionaries. They know their own countrymen well; they are familiar with their modes of thinking and of acting, they are well acquainted with the doings attributed to their gods, and they are ready to attack them with unsparing severity. On one occasion a catechist, more zealous than wise, began his address with the words, "Your religion is altogether false," which so provoked his hearers that ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... importance was lost sight of. Yet the great flanking movement of the Allies in France largely owed its success to this determined offensive movement on the part of the Belgians, who, as it afterwards proved, were acting in close co-operation with the French General Staff. This unexpected sally, which took the Germans completely by surprise, not only compelled them to concentrate all their available forces in Belgium, but, what was far more important, it necessitated the hasty recall of their Third and ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... earnest; that is, some cowboy, miner, prospector, teamster,—one of those twenty-mule-team kind, you know,—or any such chap. Why, even the real estate men that have been up to my hotel seem to be acting a part. One expects every minute to see one of them pull a gun and hold up a fellow. No ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... inclinations could be divided only between the emperor Honorius, with whom they had formed a recent alliance, and the degraded Attalus, whom they reserved in their camp for the occasional purpose of acting the part of a musician or a monarch. Yet in a moment of disgust, (for which it is not easy to assign a cause, or a date,) Adolphus connected himself with the usurper of Gaul; and imposed on Attalus the ignominious task of negotiating ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... the destroyer placed Stan in the hands of a British Intelligence Officer. Having had some experience with British methods of sending all reports through regulation channels before acting upon them, Stan merely requested that he be rushed to his headquarters ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... I was just telling mademoiselle," began Coursegol. "I explained to her that the Marquis, your father, was acting wisely in sending you to court. You will soon make a fortune there, and then you will return to us laden with laurels and with gold. Shall we not be ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... he's the kindest hearted fellow in the world when you know him. He's a little rough sometimes, as you can see, but he doesn't mean it. He thinks his way of talking and acting is what he calls 'up-to-date.'" Then he added with a sigh: "I wish I had a ring like that—one that I had earned. I tell you, Mr. Grayson, THAT'S ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Historically true portrayals of character and atmosphere. There are suggestions for costumes and other details of acting. ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... physical and spiritual horror, not only without disgust, but with an alluring beauty. But in "Christabel," in the first part especially, we find a quality which goes almost beyond these definable merits. There is in it a literal spell, not acting along any logical lines, not attacking the nerves, not terrifying, not intoxicating, but like a slow, enveloping mist, which blots out the real world, and leaves us unchilled by any "airs from heaven or blasts from hell," but in the native air of some middle region. ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... confidential friend had been living at Kaeside from 1817, and acting as steward on the estate. Mr. Laidlaw died in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... reflected in it, for the young girl's figure always came between. All he knew was that the face was that of a man, and this was quite enough to make him madly jealous. This was the doing of the fairies, and we must suppose that they had their reasons for acting as they did. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... of Cap'n Abernethy and the crew with the canvas, which he saw none too clearly through the increasing dusk from his post at the wheel, Cleggett judged that the wind was indeed strong enough for his purpose. Yards, sheets and sails seemed to be acting in the most singular manner. He could not remember reading of any parallel case in the treatises on navigation which he had perused. Every now and then the Cap'n or one of the crew would be jerked clean off his feet by some quick and unexpected ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... dread of coming upon that terrible well acting like a bar to further progress. Then there was the utter helplessness of his position. Which way was he ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn |
