"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cherish this devouring passion. An artist sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right; only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in the contract: so that, in reality, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... I thought it must be. Well, I never knew you could paint. It's beautiful—for an amateur." She said this firmly and yet endearingly, and met his eyes with her eyes. It was her tactful method of politely causing him to see that she had not accepted last night's yarn very seriously. His eyes ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... memories of old days. The walls were covered with pictures of Swayslands, the dear old place in Kent of Herbert's father—where I spent many happy hours of childhood, and where Mr. Burnand used often to come and coach us all in charades and amateur theatricals. There were also many pictures of Penshurst Place, and of the old village church, whose beautiful chime of bells I so well remember, and where I have 'assisted' at more than one pretty ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... most easily understood as the country of amateurs. It is especially the country of amateur soldiers (that is, of Volunteers), of amateur statesmen (that is, of aristocrats), and it is not unreasonable or out of keeping that it should be rather specially the country of a careless and lounging view of literature. ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... deed!" Farland put in. "Go ahead—tell it all. Let us see whether you were clever or merely an amateur ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... Who chatter and bleat and bore, Are sent to hear sermons From mystical Germans Who preach from ten to four: The amateur tenor, whose vocal villainies All desire to shirk, Shall, during off-hours, Exhibit his powers To Madame Tussaud's waxwork: The lady who dyes a chemical yellow, Or stains her grey hair puce, Or pinches her figger, Is blacked like a nigger With permanent walnut ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... of his face changed. "Now about this Chinese business," he said; "I can understand the motive that was behind spiriting you away, but when I come to the rather extraordinary means of your escape, Holbrook, I will admit that my abilities as an amateur Sherlock Holmes are too feeble. As I understand it from what you have told us, these two Chinese in this Greensboro place seem to have been strangely affected by the mark on your shoulder. Have you ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... it was again the case of the honest merchant, who finds that the genuine and unadulterated article is driven to the wall by the artistic counterfeit. Jurgis, as a beggar, was simply a blundering amateur in competition with organized and scientific professionalism. He was just out of the hospital—but the story was worn threadbare, and how could he prove it? He had his arm in a sling—and it was a device a regular beggar's little boy would have scorned. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... larger scale than another. I am reminded of an amusing incident in this connection. My son Paul, when a little fellow, was fond of boasting about his mother; I could not seem to break him of it. One day he got into an argument with another boy, who asserted that his father, an amateur pianist, could play better than Paul's mother, because he 'could play louder, anyway.' I don't know whether they fought it out or not; but my boy told me about the ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the evidence was, Butler did little to shake it in cross-examination. His questions were many of them skilful and pointed, but on more than one occasion the judge intervened to save him from the danger common to all amateur cross-examiners, of not knowing when to stop. He was most successful in dealing with the medical witnesses. Butler had explained the bloodstains on his clothes as smears that had come from scratches on his hands, caused by contact with bushes. This explanation ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... half-smile came and went on Bruce Carmyle's dark face. "My cousin has many excellent qualities, no doubt—he used to play football well, and I understand that he is a capable amateur pugilist—but I should not have supposed him entertaining. We ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... sitting on the doorstep licking his paw and howling. He was instantly surrounded by four amateur doctors all anxious to relieve his pain. Jock ran for water to wash his leg, the flesh of which had been cruelly torn open by the bullet. Jean ransacked the kist for bandages, and Alan held up the injured paw and tried to see if any bones were broken, while Sandy ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... his mental powers in the family business. Taught by his father to be a good man of business, he was in his private life a man of a thousand other energies and ideas. "On the whole," says his son, "I am glad he was never an artist. It might have stood in his way in becoming an amateur. It might have spoilt his career; his private career. He could never have made a vulgar success of all the thousand things be ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... been arranged so as to be strictly within amateur usages, Dick, Dave and the others found that they had a new cause for interest as they glanced through the bewildering display of ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... for half a dozen lines, and "loses itself in the sands," like the River Rhine, without coming to any particular point or conclusion. How much more lively is the Oxford couplet on the King, who, being bored by some amateur theatricals, twice or thrice made as if he would leave the hall, where men ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... I am an amateur philosopher and amuse myself detecting essence beneath semblance and tracing the same principle running through things the outward aspect of which is widely different. I have studied the Dhobie in this spirit and find him to be ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... evening in October, Frank Forester and Harry Archer were sitting at the open window of a neat country tavern, in a sequestered nook of Rockland County, looking out upon as beautiful a view as ever gladdened the eyes of wandering amateur ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... bound up when I saw him again, but it had been done by an amateur. I learnt afterwards that no antiseptic had been used. That was at lunch time, and Notts had made a hundred and sixty-eight for one wicket; Mallinson was not out, a hundred and three. I saw that the Notts Eleven were in ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... are ordered for ten-fifteen." Carriages were nearly always ordered for that hour, though with slow and long dinners no one ever actually left until the horses had exercised for at least an hour! But the chauffeur of to-day opens the door in silence—unless there is to be a concert or amateur theatricals, when he, like the coachman says, "Motors are ordered for twelve o'clock," or whatever hour he ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... wherein the very definitions are all wrong; if they have arrived at a law of conservation of energy without knowing what the word energy means, or how to define it; if they have to be set right by an amateur who has devoted a few weeks or months to the subject and acquired a rude smattering of some of its terms, 'what intolerable fools they must all be!'" Such is the result of asserting one's freedom by escaping the limitations of knowledge! We see what happens when a person sets out to deal with ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... position of the general principles of military strategy of Clausewitz, helped me by their writings to find a road. I then set to work with Spenser Wilkinson, whose leaders in the Manchester Guardian (which he has now quitted, except as an amateur) struck me as being perfect, to think out the whole question; and we succeeded, by means of a little book we wrote together—Imperial Defence, published in February, 1892—in afterwards procuring the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... time of the Tralee election, when I stood as a Conservative, a small clique of mob orators and amateur politicians tried to make political capital out of the history of the Harenc estate, and a priest, Father M. O'Connor, rode the jaded topic to death. The unkindest cut of all to him was the direct contradiction by the tenants themselves ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... [from amateur electronics and radio] A book of small code segments that the reader can use to do various {magic} things in programs. One current example is the "{{PostScript}} Language Tutorial and Cookbook" by Adobe Systems, Inc (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-10179-3), also known as the {Blue Book} which ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... indescribable elegance, an exceeding grace and beauty, which spoke of a knowledge of art and of refinement of taste far beyond those of a mere military amateur in the one ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... aviators gazed curiously, some of them resentfully, at the newcomers. They had all the professional's antipathy and jealousy of amateur performers. As the Arrangement Committee bustled off after telling our friends to make themselves perfectly at home, Pepita Le Roy came up to them. She was a handsome woman, in a foreign way, with large, dark eyes and an abundance of raven black hair. She was rather flashily dressed and ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... skillful violinists of America. This gentleman is a master of his favorite instrument, executing with ease the most difficult and critical composition. He is generally preferred in social and private parties, among the first families of the city, where the amateur and gentleman is more regarded than the mere services of the musician. Mr. Jackson is a teacher of music, and only requires a more favorable opportunity to vie with ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... amateur. He may know something of statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer when he sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; he may be able to observe carefully and accurately ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... been over the house. It appears—the lodge-keeper tells me— that I have been almost the only visitor to inspect it. That's queer, for I should have thought that to an amateur in crime— with a taste for discovery—it offered great possibilities. But never mind, child," said this strange man, and shook hands. "I have great hopes of finding the scoundrel, and of dealing with ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... are the two worst amateur detectives that ever tried their hands at the trade. The man in the grey suit has been thirty years in the chemist's service. He was sent to the bank to pay money to his master's account—and he knows no more of the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... to the priest's father did not testify to the fervent act. Six years later, according to Knox, "God had marvellously illuminated" Erskine, and the mildness of his nature is frequently applauded. He was, for Scotland, a man of learning, and our first amateur of Greek. Why did he kill a priest in ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... about ceased his wanderings. An order was issued yesterday from headquarters to arrest and put to work the swarms of amateur photographers who are to be found everywhere about the ruins. Those who will not work are to be taken uptown under guard. This order is issued to keep down the number of useless people and thus save the fast diminishing provisions ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... inns, which are usually more than half empty. Englishmen, Russians, Austrian officers sent down to keep careful watch upon the land, French and Prussian, Swiss and Belgian military attaches and couriers, journalists, artists, amateur army-followers, crowded the two long streets and exhausted the market. Next came a hungry and thirsty mob of refugees from Widdin—Jews, Greeks and gypsies—and these promenaded their variegated misery on the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... character of resort, and seem rural and countrylike, but yet with more life than the country; for on the benches beneath the trees, and along the sward, and up the malls, are living beings enough to interest the eye and divert the thoughts, if you are a guesser into character, and amateur of the human face,—fresh nursery-maid and playful children; and the old shabby-genteel, buttoned-up officer, musing on half-pay, as he sits alone in some alcove of Kenna, or leans pensive over the rail ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... diagrams and wonderful ideas these remarkable amateur experts publish they won't "go down" with the man who has humped his pack and ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... the Sussex amateur, has been invited to become a member of the M.C.C. team, which leaves for Australia on Saturday. A fine all-round cricketer, Jupp is a useful man to any team, but as he usually fields cover-point his inclusion would not necessarily ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... there were persons who did care to tweak the nobleman's nose! It is true that he first all but throttled one amateur who, having put but one ruble in the jug, tweaked his nose twice, and then made him sue for pardon; it is true also that he immediately distributed to other tatterdemalions a portion of the money thus secured ... ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... him of the fatal whine which stains the amateur, male or female, and had taught him climax, so that he articulated and sung with perfect purity, and rang out his final notes instead of slurring them. In short, in plain passages he was a reflection, on a small ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Edwin Abbey did not get along very well at school —instead of getting his lessons he drew pictures, and thirty years ago such conduct was proof of total depravity. Like the amateur blacksmith who started to make a horseshoe and finally contented himself with a fizzle, the Abbeys gave up theology and law, and decided that if Edwin became a good printer it would be enough. And then, how often printers became writers—then ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... voice, and music was the one talent she had cared to cultivate; she had had good lessons during her second winter abroad, and was an acquisition to the amateur company. Besides, what she cared for more, it was a real pleasure and rest to the curate to come in and listen to her or sing with her. She had learnt what kind of things offended good taste, and she ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... still nettled at my treatment of him last evening, or had no liking for amateur opinions and help; otherwise I see no reason for the disparagement with which he regarded me while I interpreted what I had overheard, piece by piece, except the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... to take the Journal many years ago, from which I tried my first experiments in psychology; and have practised magnetism for cure of diseases in an amateur way with as much success as any I ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... turned to face the man with the swollen ear; but young Sullivan, being a professional fighter, made no capital of amateur affairs, and declined the ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... "The amateur may have more success and less bother growing perennials from seed sown in the open ground than from any other way. Prepare a bed in a nice, warm, sheltered spot in the garden, preferably not very sunny. Let the surface of the ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... orderly surroundings, and to be let judiciously alone; those are the conditions which the amateur nurse must further, according to her own judgment and, her knowledge of the ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... work. But I said, if those rate-supported places are so comfortable, it won't interfere with your work. She turned the conversation. She talked about the Commission. The Commission was going to make a thorough scientific investigation. Nothing amateur about the Commission. The lady was sincere'—Mrs. Thomas vouched for it—'she had a comfortable faith in the Commission. But, I say'—the woman leaned forward in her earnestness—'I say that Commission will waste its time! I don't deny it will investigate and discuss the position ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Carlotta is becoming an occupation. Well, she is quite as profitable as collecting postage-stamps, or golf, or amateur photography. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... have called out some sharp strictures even among the Berlinese, whose penchant for noisy operatic effects was then as now a butt for the satire of the musical wits. Apropos of the long run of "Olympic" at Berlin, an amusing anecdote is told on the authority of Castel-Blaze. A wealthy amateur had become deaf, and suffered much from his deprivation of the enjoyment of his favorite art. After trying many physicians, he was treated in a novel fashion by his latest doctor. "Come with me to the ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... his whims. He was patiently waiting for his school-days to end, to live independently in the Latin Quarter, to study law, without being hurried, since his mother wished him to do so, and he did not wish to displease her. But he wished also to amuse himself with painting, at least as an amateur; for he was passionately fond of it. All this was said by the handsome, aristocratic young man with a happy smile, which expanded his sensual lips and nostrils; and Amedee admired him without one envious thought; feeling, with the generous warmth ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... acted tickets enough were sold for two performances, and people were planning to come from fifty miles around. The young teacher began to quake at the thought of her big audience and her poor little amateur players; and yet for children they were doing wonderfully well, and were growing quite Shakespearian in ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... grogs and the negus provided by thoughtful parents for a child's evening party. In some parts of the essay De Quincey sinks far lower. I do not believe that in any English author of reputation there is a more feeble piece of forced fun, than in the description of the fight of the amateur in murder with the baker at Munich. One knows by a process of reasoning that the man is joking; but one feels inclined to blush, through sympathy with a very clear man so exposing himself. A blemish of the same kind makes itself unpleasantly obvious at many points of his writings. He seems ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... purest blood, had inherited a moderate fortune, and had spent it like other young men of rank, lounging in theatres and amusing himself with dinner-parties. He was a poet, an artist, and a wit, but each and everything with the languor of an amateur. His favorite associates were actresses, and he had neither obtained nor aspired to any higher reputation than that of a cultivated man of fashion. His distinguished birth was not apparent in his person. He had red hair, hard blue eyes, and a complexion white and ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the police resented the intrusion of an amateur, or that they imagined themselves to be upon some hopeful line of investigation; but it is certain that we heard nothing from them for the next two days. During this time Holmes spent some of his time smoking and dreaming in the cottage; but ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... idle and disorderly, but not to be taken too literally by the over-exacting and methodical business man who is trying to make the radical change in his view of life necessary to free his mind from the incubus of worry. Nor must the amateur husbandman scan with too anxious eye the weather map and the clouds. If he mind these warnings he ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... elders to the beautifully-mown putting-tracks radiating from the central circle of "holes" for the putting competition, she informed him that she adored putting, so much so that she wanted lessons from him, the local amateur golf-champion. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... had been anxiously watching this amateur gymnast, approached him with lively interest, and learned that he had taken flight after an ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... sources of mental rest and physical strength are, tennis-court tournaments, basket ball, rowing and skating on the lake, bicycling, or five-mile tramps, studying birds, photographing scenery, or gathering wild flowers. The Vassar girl is also enthusiastic over the "Tree and Trig Ceremonies" and amateur ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... reserve, which could no longer be anything but childish sulkiness, and I replied, as I thought I should, that he was appreciating with too much indulgence a mere amateur's sketch; that I certainly had the greatest desire of saving these beautiful ruins, but that the most important part of my work threatened to remain quite insignificant, for want of historical information which I had vainly tried to find in ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... in the picture is so delightfully natural that we do not at first realize how difficult a problem is solved in the arrangement of the four figures. An amateur photographer places his sitters in a stiff row and directs them all to look towards a single point. The master artist conceives of some action which shall engage the attention of all, and form a natural connection between them. Thus, in our ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... an amateur at the oar, would on no account be dissuaded from rowing the small boat to the promontory; and, having helped Morgianna, who was lightest, into a seat in the bow (inexpressible happiness) he cheerfully took his seat at the oars with the old men in the stern facing each other. Then ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... shameful culminations; Scott sometimes dealt with ideas positively horrible—as in that grand Glenallan tragedy which is as appalling as the OEdipus or The Cenci. None of these great men would have tolerated for a moment being talked to (as the muddle-headed amateur censors talk to artists to-day) about "wholesome" topics and suggestions "that cannot elevate." They had to describe the great battle of good and evil and they described both; but they accepted a working Victorian compromise about what should happen behind the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... equipment was still incomplete, when Drake, who was now in constant dread of a countermand, was alarmed by Sir Philip Sydney's suddenly appearing at Plymouth and announcing his intention of accompanying the expedition. Determined to have no more to do with courtiers and amateur soldiers, he secretly sent off a courier to betray the truant's escapade to the Court. He must even be suspected, in his desperation, of having set men in wait to intercept and destroy any orders that were not to his liking. The precaution was unnecessary. Sydney ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... easy to see that he has been trained, while Conrad, though he pulls a strong oar, rows like a country amateur." ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... in completing the voyage. The Norfolk sped rapidly past Cape Grim and down the western coast of Van Diemen's Land. Amateur-built as she was, and very small for her work in these seas, she was proving a useful boat, and one can enjoy the sailors' pride in a snug craft in Flinders' remark concerning her, that "upon the whole she performed ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... burn and then cover three inches deep with one hundred big loads of manure to the acre and don't go near the patch till picking time next year. He gets a nice early crop, and if berries are a little small it pays better than any other way. Try it! I have known some fields carried to fourth crop, and amateur beds kept up for ten years. It takes lots of work to keep an old bed in good condition. J.M. Smith, of Green Bay, Wis., almost always took one crop and plowed under. If the first crop was injured by frost, he took ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... A distinguished amateur horticulturist once said to me, "I do not see why it is I have so much trouble with lettuce. My land is rich, and the lettuce grow well, but do not head. They have a tendency to run up to seed, and soon get tough ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... Lette-Haus, where students were being trained as expert embroiderers and dressmakers, we were shown pieces of flowered brocade into which patches had been so skilfully inserted that you could only find them by holding them up to the light. In the bookbinding department there were amateur and professional students. The professionals apprentice themselves for three years, and from the first receive a small weekly wage. The length of their apprenticeship is determined by the length of time prescribed ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... add, by way of conclusion: to render any man or woman competent to discharge the duties of the situation efficiently, the heart of the teacher must be in the school. If there be not the zeal of the amateur, the skill of the professor will be of little avail. The maxim will apply to every species of occupation, but it is peculiarly true as to that of an infant school teacher. To those who can feel no other interest than that which the profit gives to the employment, it will soon ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... once at a little musical party in New York, where several accomplished amateur singers were present, and with them the eminent professional, Miss Adelaide Phillipps. The amateurs were first called on. Each chose some difficult operatic passage, and sang her best. When it came to the great opera-singer's turn, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... wriggle affectionately. The priest in his garden smiled. Androvsky had not seen him and went on playing with the dog, who now made preparations to lie down on his curly back in the road in the hope of being tickled, a process he was an amateur of. Still smiling, and with a friendly look on his face, the priest came out of his garden and approached ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... different provinces and all the principal cities, living for long periods in each favorite resort where there was anything either in art or nature to please his fine critical taste. He studied both painting and music, and has always been a fine amateur in each. He wrote poetry from childhood, but published nothing until he was about twenty-three years old, when "Paracelsus," a dramatic poem, appeared. The genius of the writer was recognized at once, as well as those faults which have clung to him persistently through life. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... say that the murderer was evidently an amateur, and that he made no attempt to cover his crime. Inspector Thomas Drake of Scotland ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Maine coolly timed the mix-up with his stop-watch. But believe me, it added more than that time to my life. The second attack occurred next morning. Every living soul on the transports had been thrilled by the news of the night's events, and from early hours the decks were lined with amateur lookouts. The morning was fine, and a light breeze rippled up wavelets that twinkled in the sunlight. Suddenly about 10.30 o'clock there came a wild yell from one of the leading transports. Though the jackies affect to dispute it, I was assured that it was from a far-sighted youngster from Arizona, ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... met with in secluded and mountainous districts. You would wonder that they have not been extirpated long ago—being such large creatures, easily discovered and easily tracked; besides, it is always an ambition with the settlers and amateur-hunters to kill them. Moreover, but two cubs are produced at a litter, and that only happens once a-year. The fact is, that during winter, when the snow is on the ground and the bear might be easily tracked and destroyed, he does ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... pleasure it is to watch a good expert workman, be he carpenter, bricklayer, ploughman, blacksmith, or only an Irish navvy. In even the humblest of these callings the evidence of much training, practice or long apprenticeship is noticeable. To an amateur who has tried such work himself it will soon be apparent how crude his efforts are, how little he knows of the apparently simple operation. The navvy seems to work slowly; but he knows well, because his task is a day-long one, that his forces must be economised, that ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... those who had attacked Lessing, was Melchior Goetze, "pastor primarius" at the Hamburg Cathedral. Though his name is now remembered only because of his connection with Lessing, Goetze was not destitute of learning and ability. He was a collector of rare books, an amateur in numismatics, and an antiquarian of the narrow-minded sort. Lessing had known him while at Hamburg, and had visited him so constantly as to draw forth from his friends malicious insinuations as to the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... a little amateur doctoring. To part with the medicine-chest, she considered, would be a great sin, and she was already secretly longing to ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... of good ready made clothes and it is also an age of clever amateur dressmaking. With excellent patterns which may be easily handled there is no reason why the woman who can sew should not make her own clothes, and have smart clothes at a reasonable price—that is, provided she has the time to give ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... in a manner which was itself a reminiscence of amateur theatricals. "Their relations!" she murmured to Dr. Livingstone. "What ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... and finding that he was a friend of Lord Clare, soon became sociable with him. Mutual tastes quickened the intimacy, especially as they found means of serving each other. Goldsmith wrote an epilogue for the tragedy of Zobeide; and Cradock, who was an amateur musician, arranged the music for the Threnodia Augustalis, a lament on the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales, the political mistress and patron of Lord Clare, which Goldsmith had thrown off hastily to please ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the doors of the hotels, at intervals during our stay, with a depressed air of wanting employment and a poor semblance of finding it. He had once indeed in a half-hearted way proposed himself as an amateur cicerone for a tour through the colleges; and I now, as I looked at him, remembered with a pang that I had too curtly declined his ministrations. Since then his shyness, apparently, had grown less or his misery greater, for it was with a strange ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... rich. Your chateau has been destroyed. But you have money. You will give liberally to the Red Cross. You will volunteer to nurse in the hospitals. With your sad story of ill treatment by us, with your high birth, and your knowledge of nursing, which you acquired, of course, only as an amateur, you should not find it difficult to join the Ladies of France, or the American Ambulance. What you learn from the wounded English and French officers and the French doctors you will send us through ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... said the king in a low voice; "the portrait must reveal the inmost spirit; mine must show how warmly Philip loves art and his artists. Take the palette, I beg. It is for you, the great Master, not for me, the overworked, bungling amateur, to correct ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dislike or resentment. Amidst the many instances which might be adduced in support of this assertion, we shall notice one which is well-authenticated. Some years since, when bull-baiting was more common than in the present improved state of civilization, a juvenile amateur, at an entertainment of this kind in the north of England, confident in the courage and purity of blood in his bull-dog, laid a wager "that he would at four distinct intervals deprive the animal of one of his feet by amputation, and that after every individual deprivation he should still ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... "they are probably arranging some expedition in which I am to take part. I am forced, therefore, to my great regret, to bid you farewell. Only before I leave you let me look closer at your waistcoat and trousers, of which I have heard—curiosity of an amateur; I trust you will ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... next visit there is clamorous demand for "picter, picter." A famous French physician said that his dread of the world to come lay in his expectation that the souls he met would reproach him for not having cured a certain obstinate malady that he had much repute in dealing with; so the travelling amateur in photography sometimes feels his conscience heavy under a load of promised pictures that he has forgotten or has been unable to make. He feels that his native friends whom he shall meet in the world to come will assuredly ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... no use repining or repenting. Here was I, Hugo Gottfried, the son of the Red Axe, at the inner port of a treasonable society. It was certainly a curious position; but even thus early I had begun to consider myself a sort of amateur of strange situations, and I admit that I found a certain stimulus in the thought that in an hour I might have ceased to be heir to the office of Hereditary Justicer of the ducal province of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... but it is immodest to exhibit the upper part of the thigh. In swimming competitions, a minimum of clothing must be combined with the demands of modesty. In England, the regulations of the Swimming Clubs affiliated to the Amateur Swimming Association, require that the male swimmer's costume shall extend not less than eight inches from the bifurcation downward, and that the female swimmer's costume shall extend to within not more than three inches from the knee. (A prolonged discussion, we are told, arose as to whether ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... with the Balkanizing craze of the moment, was the work of a few wire-pullers in which the easy-going inhabitants had neither hand nor part. Indeed, they were hardly aware that the Republic of the Banat had been proclaimed. The amateur state-builders were obliging officers of the two armies, and behind them were speculators and concession-hunters. It was obvious that the new community, as it contained a very small population for an independent state, would require a protector. Its sponsors, who had ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Fred, indifferently; "something of the Indian style of warfare, hey? Well, we are somewhat used to that, and can follow a trail as well as any amateur hunters ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... amateur in understanding how to sway an audience. To be sure, he had transgressed parliamentary usage, but in those words he had driven home facts that all knew to be truths—truths which others had been afraid to voice, but which, once put into words in public, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... and the staff included several highly trained British staff officers. Nevertheless the commands were practically all in the hands of Canadians—lawyers, business men, real-estate agents, newspapermen and other amateur soldiers, who, in civilian life as militiamen, had spent more or less time in the study of the theory of warfare. This should always be kept in mind in view of subsequent events, as well as the fact that ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... CONCERTS! CONCERTS!—Amateur Comic Vocalist and impromptu "Vamper" (gentleman born) of several years' experience in best London Society, is anxious to meet with bold and speculative Manager who will offer him a first engagement. Can sing—omitting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... is about to prepare an article, based on experience, about keeping bees on a small suburban place, he will find that he may write his story in any one of three ways. The difficulties experienced by the amateur bee-keeper in trying to handle bees in a small garden could be treated humorously with no other purpose than to amuse. Or the keeping of bees under such circumstances might be described as an interesting example of enterprise on the part of a city man living ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... barbarian foes by arraying it in that wedge-like form. So we, if we are to advance, must gather ourselves together and put a point upon our lives by compaction and concentration of effort and energy on the one purpose. The conquering word is, 'This one thing I do.' The difference between the amateur and the artist is that the one pursues an art at intervals by spurts, as a parergon—a thing that is done in the intervals of other occupations—and that the other makes it his life's business. There are a great many amateur Christians amongst us, who pursue ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... students' performance of Cato within the walls of Glasgow College in 1745. Carlyle played the title role, and another divinity student, already mentioned as a college friend of Smith's, Dr. Maclaine of the Hague, played a minor part. But an amateur representation of an unexceptionable play under the eye of the professors was one thing, the erection of a public playhouse, catering like other public playhouses for the too licentious taste of the period, was another, and the project ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... with some reluctance, crossed the room, and with the seriousness known only to the enthusiastic amateur in house-furnishing, removed the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... barked tree which the Dunbar Expedition had called the lance tree because of its slender, straightly outthrust limbs. Its wood was as hard as hickory and as springy as cedar. Prentiss found two amateur archers who were sure they could make efficient bows and arrows out of the lance tree limbs. He gave them the job, together ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... let us say that the mere dilettante and the amateur ruralist may as well keep their hands off. The prize is not for them. He who would successfully strive for it must be himself what he sings,—part and parcel of the rural life of New England,—one who has grown strong ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the hotel were ready to go to bed. He was irregular even in playing, which was after all his chief pastime. Possibly he knew of reasons why it should be good to gamble on one day and not upon another. Then he had his fits of amateur seamanship, when he would insist upon taking the tiller from Ruggiero's hand. The latter, on such occasions, remained perched upon the stern in case of an emergency. San Miniato was a thorough landsman and never ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... work with as much pride as if it had been the result of their honest efforts of years. They were now pen and brush crooks of the first caliber, had reduced forgery to a fine art and demonstrated what an amateur might do. For, although they did not know it, nearly half the fifteen millions or so lost by forgeries every year was the work of amateurs ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... housekeeping, after we came out here, wasn’t so pleasant”—he looked at his hands ruefully—“but this joke of Mr. Glenarm’s making a will and then going to Egypt to see what would happen,—that was too good to miss. And when the heir arrived I found new opportunities of practising amateur theatricals; and Pickering’s efforts to enlist me in his scheme for finding the money and making me rich gave me still greater opportunities. There were times when I was strongly tempted to blurt the whole thing; I got tired of being suspected, ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... bristling with pianos, amateur singers, gramophones, and other grind boxes it saves ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... in the pockets of the coat like an amateur pickpocket, and found some letters. He gazed at them askance, turning them over and over, wondering if he ought to peep at their contents. Then he put them back, and went into the smoking-room, where, finding himself alone, he turned up his vest as if it had been worn by somebody else whom ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... "my future is decided for me. I thank you deeply, deeply for your brave friendship—your noble loyalty, but the fiat has gone forth. To-night I leave the World of Fashion for one better suited to my birth, for it seems I should be only an amateur gentleman, as it were, after all. My Lords, your most obedient, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... fifty, tall and distinguished-looking, with an iron-grey mustache, and the manners of a diplomat. He was not only a banker, he was also a man of culture; he had run away to sea in his youth, and he had travelled in every country of the world. He was also a bit of an author, in an amateur way, and if there was any book which he had not dipped into, it was not a book of which one would be apt to hear in Society. He could talk upon any subject, and a hostess who could secure Stanley Ryder for one ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... house when the British army was in Philadelphia in 1777 and 1778. When it evacuated the city, Andre carried off with him a portrait of the Doctor, which has never been heard of since. The British officers amused themselves with amateur theatricals at the South Street Theatre in Southwark, then the only one in Philadelphia, theatres being prohibited in the city. The tradition here is, that Andre painted the scenes. They were {645} destroyed with the theatre by fire about thirty-two ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... when applied to for payment of paving-rate, never fails to reply "Paveant illi, non paveam ego!" which, though peradventure repeated for the twentieth time, still serves to sweeten the adieu between his purse and its contents. He is also an amateur in etymologies and derivatives, and is sorry that the learned Selden's solution of the origin of the term "gentleman" seems to include in it something not altogether complimentary to religion. This is his only objection ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... pitiful tale a happy thought occurred to the charming daughter of the house. Mrs. Stacpoole is a clever amateur in photography. "Why not photograph this 'hale and hearty woman of fifty,' with her son of fifty-three?" Mrs. Stacpoole clapped her hands at the idea, and went off at once ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... attention first in him, and even to throw into comparative shade his other excellences as a poet. Here has been the mischief. These other excellences were his fundamental excellences as a poet; what distinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, says Goethe, is Architectonice in the highest sense; that power of execution, which creates, forms, and constitutes: not the profoundness of single thoughts, not the richness of imagery, not the abundance of illustration. But these attractive accessories of a poetical work ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the bustling ways of an amateur nurse. He fussed around the fire and stirred the sticks to brilliant exertions. He made his patient drink largely from the canteen that contained the coffee. It was to the youth a delicious draught. He tilted his head afar back and held the canteen long to his lips. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... books, most of these treating the subject in exhaustive style, being written primarily for students who desire to take up the work as a profession. It is the present author's purpose to set forth herein a series of practical methods suited to the needs of the sportsman-amateur who desires personally to preserve trophies and specimens taken on days spent afield with ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... "An amateur," answered Helen. "She studied in Paris. He met her there. She is a relative, I forget just how far or near, of Peter Calvin. She seems to me an icicle. Think of ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... you the truth, Mr Stoddart. You seem to me to have been hitherto only a dilettante or amateur in spiritual matters. Do not imagine I mean a hypocrite. Very far from it. The word amateur itself suggests a real interest, though it may be of a superficial nature. But in religion one must be all there. You ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... and the flowers of the lily family. These simple flowers are the best because they radiate from a central point, have strong forms and decided proportions, can be most fully expressed in a few stitches requiring the fewest shades of color, and are admirably adapted for amateur workers. ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... pictures by Cezanne. He had dozens of his canvases stacked away in the rear of his establishment—Cezanne often parted with a canvas for a few francs. When Tanguy was hard up he would go to some discerning amateur and sell for two hundred francs pictures that to-day bring twenty thousand francs. Tanguy hated to sell, especially his Cezannes. Artists came to see them. His shop was the scene of many a wordy critical ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... conception has been too much for him: he lacks the nice imagination of a WELLS to carry it off. Also he fails to deal with the humour of the position, whether in the madhouse, the court of justice, the manager's office or the palace, an elementary mistake which the most amateur conjurer will always avoid. It is rather the author's misfortune than his fault that his incidental picture of war, introduced only as a new field of operation for his prodigy, is rendered almost fatuous by the actual conditions ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur, though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on that amateur's hard-won information. There exists—unlike some other publication, it is not bound in lead boards—a work by one "M. de C.," based on ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... denomination, except on certain days when free admittance should be granted to sketch artists, camera fiends, elocutionists and young authors. All newspaper articles relating to his case should be carefully suppressed; no reading matter furnished him except dialect stories, and amateur photographs, taken by visitors, should be hung upon the wall. Between times the prisoner might be employed in washing dishes for a cooking school and testing the products of pupils. After two months ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... he came too late to the throne to indulge any propensities of this nature with so little discretion) was but a variety of the same species. He also was an amateur, and an enthusiastic amateur of murder. But as this taste, in the most ingenious hands, is limited and monotonous in its modes of manifestation, it would be tedious to run through the long Suetonian roll-call of his peccadilloes in this way. One only we shall cite, to illustrate ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... the day that Sabre entered the firm he had been put "on probation" in the position he now held, and on the day that Sabre's father retired he had been confirmed in the position. He regarded Sabre as an amateur and he was privately disturbed by the fact that a man who "did not know the ropes" and had not "been through the mill" should come to a position equal in standing to his own. Nevertheless he accepted ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Rockhill, in his Diary of a Journey through Mongolia, and Tibet, in 1891 and 1892 (Washington, D. C., 1894), informs us that the lads in every village give theatrical performances, the companies of young actors being known as Hsiao sheng huei, "young men's amateur theatrical ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... cast from it its mitts and jerkins and whale-oil, emerged from its subterranean burrows into the open, and in every wood a mushroom town of bivouacs has sprung up over-night. Here and there amateur gardeners have planted flower-beds before their tents; one of my corporals is nursing some radishes in an ammunition-box and talks crop prospects by the hour. My troop-sergeant found two palm-plants in the ruins of a chateau glass-house, and now has them standing sentry at his bivouac entrance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... He was a fierce looking, stout old gentleman with a very red face, all the redder for his huge white moustache and well-filled white uniform. He began by fuming and blustering as if about to order me to summary execution. He spoke so fast, it was not easy to follow him. Probably my amateur German was as puzzling to him. The PASSIERSCHEIN, which I produced, was not in my favour; unfortunately I had forgotten my Foreign Office passport. What further added to his suspicion was his inability to comprehend why I had not availed myself of the notice, duly given to all foreigners, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... period, President C. C. Moore turned aside from his other cares long enough to appoint J. B. Levison Chief of the Music Department. A better choice could hardly have been made. For more than two decades Mr. Levison, an able amateur in music, and a business man of high standing, had been identified with all of San Francisco's larger efforts in its musical life. But Mr. Levison's grasp of the importance of such a post was more comprehensive than President Moore's, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... ever presented in a theatre in Ireland—was also given during the third season. It was The Twisting of the Rope, by Dr. Douglas Hyde, and was played at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, on October 21, 1901, by a Gaelic Amateur Dramatic Society coached by W.G. Fay. The author filled ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... soon after appeared with half-a-crown, and the amateur coachman drove away. He said to himself, "Come, my mustache is a better disguise ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... friend, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, the subject of this brief memoir, though of an extremely artistic temperament, followed many masters other than art, being not merely a poet and a painter, an art-critic, an antiquarian, and a writer of prose, an amateur of beautiful things, and a dilettante of things delightful, but also a forger of no mean or ordinary capabilities, and as a subtle and secret poisoner almost without rival in ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... was to follow where Chick-chick led and try to go just as noiselessly, and to flit carefully from one screen of cover to the next in just as unobtrusive a way. It was an old sport with Chick-chick, but though Glen was an amateur at it he made a ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... he goes! Would an amateur Whaler, Like WILHELM, that fine blend of Statesman and Sailor, Incline to the chase and the capture Of such a huge, wandering, wallopping whale, To whom "Troubling the waters" with blow-holes and tail Seems a source of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... proper way to live. Old Hiram has an anvil and an amateur forge. He can tinker up almost anything, and that eliminates the blacksmith. Howard has a bench, saws, hammers, and other tools, and that eliminates the carpenter. The women eliminate the baker, the soap boiler, and a lot of other parasites. Now, when ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... moment the thought of Bilk had never once crossed the minds of the agitated amateur gipsies, but it flashed across them now as the doctor strode straight for the cross roads. What if the miserable Alexander Magnus should have swallowed the absurd bait laid for him, and be in the act of making his fortune on the very ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... knives, and in short their complete appointments for the prairie. R., who professed a taste for natural history, sat at a table stuffing a woodpecker; the brother of the captain, who was an Irishman, was splicing a trail-rope on the floor, as he had been an amateur sailor. The captain pointed out, with much complacency, the different articles of their outfit. "You see," said he, "that we are all old travelers. I am convinced that no party ever went upon the prairie better provided." The hunter ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the mystery which shrouded it, the case of The Yellow Room was certain to fascinate so theatrical a mind. It interested him enormously, and he threw himself into it, less as a magistrate eager to know the truth, than as an amateur of dramatic embroglios, tending wholly to mystery and intrigue, who dreads nothing so much as ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... his stateroom, in the pocket of the overcoat where he had deposited it when meaning to go out on deck, lacked any means of defense other than his two hands; but his one-time fame as an amateur pugilist had been second only to his fame as a connaisseur d'art; and to one whose youth had been passed in association with the Apaches of Paris, some mastery of la savate was ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... really but disappointing writers. It soon became evident enough that the devil was not to be raised by their prescriptions, that the philosopher's stone was beyond the reach of the amateur. Iamblichus is particularly obscure and tedious. To any young beginner I would recommend Petrus de Abano, as the most adequate and gruesome of the school, for "real deevilry and pleesure," while in the wilderness ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... meridional heredity was a little disquieting; but at least he was a serious worker, and it was with his work that she would associate herself. And Denis? After all, what WAS Denis? A dilettante, an amateur... ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... annoyance on his face. 'You see, I have a job. I did not tell you last night that a Mr. Allen, who lives across the river, four miles away, looked in one day when I was painting your ceiling, and liked it so much that he has engaged me to paint one for him. I told him I was only an amateur, but he said he'd rather have me than all the boss painters in Shannondale. He offered me three dollars a day and board, which means dinner and supper, or fifteen for the job; and I took the last offer, as I can make the most at it by beginning ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... brother, the young soldier, speaks volumes for her. They say she is going to marry a son of Keppell Craven's, Lord Craven's uncle. They met first, I believe, at the acting of Lord Leveson Gower's play of Hernani, at Bridgewater House, when Mr. Craven reaped much histrionic fame as an amateur. Of one thing we are quite sure, Miss Kemble will act well wherever she may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... limitation "at home." What private amateur parental enterprise cannot do may be done very effectively by organized professional enterprise in large institutions established for the purpose. And it is to such professional enterprise that parents hand over their children when they ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... lock too, when needed, with great neatness and dispatch. I rather think she could repair one also. I have still in my possession a small box of her making, which, for execution and durability, I will match against the performance of any rival amateur of the opposite sex. In spite, however, of such freaks, and as if to make amends for them, Miss Jess possessed one of the softest and most impressionable hearts which ever fell to the lot of a mature maiden of forty-five. She had suffered from no ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... a great actor? I say a great actor, because (I am sure) no amateur ever fancied himself a small one. Is it not always to have the best parts in the best plays; to be the central figure of every group; to feel that attention is arrested the moment you come on the stage; and (more exquisite satisfaction still) to be aware that it is relaxed ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... suggestion, and the creative possibilities of the subconscious mind, have opened up new fields of religious experiment and adventure. The art of controlling the mind, so as to make it immune against the depredations of evil thought, or fear, or worry, is pursued by crowds of amateur psychologists who delight in the happy results. They are learning to live in tune with the infinite or cultivating optimism with complete success. To the objection that they live in an artificial paradise they reply that thought is the essence of things, and that they are but carrying ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... earnings, and sometimes a good deal of money; but they have usually to work pretty hard for it. Of course, the most successful men are working miners, men who understand the business; for gold-mining is a business, like any other. The amateur men, who come in search of lucky finds and sudden fortunes, rarely do any good. Nearly all the young fellows, sons of gentlemen, who could do no good at home and came out here during the "rushes," are still in no better position than they were at starting. A few of them may ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... of "jaw-breaking" memory in Greek or Latin history. His earnings, according to Mr. Warton, averaged ten shillings a day; he was a well-known character in Essex, and was not missed for many a day from Braintree fair; and in the decline of life spent his days like an amateur. But Cheetre, for such was his real name, was haunted amidst his glory by a rival. Will Wimbars had a voice of as much flexibility as Dick. Dick was the most popular, for he sang every thing he could, but Will had a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... name) and my wife's moody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant: hence I was driven a good deal abroad, where, as play was the fashion at every club, tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged to resume my old habit, and to commence as an amateur those games at which I was once unrivalled in Europe. But whether a man's temper changes with prosperity, or his skill leaves him when, deprived of a confederate, and pursuing the game no longer professionally, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Baldwin and Madam Deschappells by Mrs. Fannie Baldwin, was well played and at once centered the attention of the audience. Colonel Dumas by I.C. Wilson was far in advance of his former attempts, and Beauseant by Thomas Beck added laurels to his already established reputation as a first-class amateur. Glavis by Master Asa Rawson was rendered in his usual facetious style, creating a universal twitter all around the hall. Mons. Deschappells by Albert Brown was laughable in the extreme, partly from the age of so young a father, as seen through the scarcity of his be-floured locks, and partly ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... only flower—herald of death. The fatal climax could be delayed if gardeners, in transplanting, would at least take the trouble to set them in their old accustomed exposure so far as the cardinal points are concerned. But your professional gardener knows everything; it is useless for an amateur to offer him advice; worse than useless, of course, to ask him for it. Indeed, the flowers, even the wild ones, might almost reconcile one to a life on the Riviera. Almost.... I recall a comely plant, for instance, seven feet high at the end ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... ago. You, gentle Reader, just entering upon the prime of life, that age by thoughtless youth called middle, I cannot, of course, expect to follow me—when there was in great demand a certain periodical ycleped The Amateur. Its aim was noble. It sought to teach the beautiful lesson of independence, to inculcate the fine doctrine of self-help. One chapter explained to a man how he might make flower-pots out of Australian ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... my schoolboy days that I failed as an actor. (Artemus made many attempts as an amateur actor, but never to his own satisfaction. He was very fond of the society of actors and actresses. Their weaknesses amused him as much as their talents excited his admiration. One of his favorite sayings was that the world was made up of "men, women, and the people on the stage.")—The play was ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... known to us have divined the racking anguish under which George had labored? For one, should not Elizabeth Sheridan, amateur spinster, have been all sympathy for one who was palpably more an alarmed bridegroom than a ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... time she was a third full of water, and the amateur whalers were invited to man the pumps—namely, two tin basins—and bale the St. Lawrence out as fast as it came in. The maddened animal soon carried us beyond the area of heavy seas, and preparations were made for taking in the slack. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... is not an account of what actually took place in Burke's preparation, but it will give to the student the method by which great speakers may have proceeded; we do know that many did follow such a scheme. No amateur who wants to make his speeches worth listening to should omit this helpful step of outline or brief making. Whether he first writes out his speeches in full, or composes them upon his feet, every speaker should prepare an outline or ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... received for service in South Africa, with the well-known blue and orange striped ribbon. This medal was given to the professional nurses who were in South Africa, but I think I was, with one other exception, the only amateur to receive it, and very unworthy I felt myself when I went to St. James's Palace with all the gallant and skilful sisterhood of army nurses to share with them the great honour of receiving the same ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... after me!" cried Roscoe Orlando, jealous of his standing as an enlightened and sympathetic amateur. "But we ought to deal—really, we ought to—with painters of standing and responsibility, and no others. We must keep in mind such things as position, reputation, clientele. My partner, for example, once contracted—or tried to—for a large landscape of his stock-farm out beyond Glenwood Park; and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... contest was as the wine of life to him. He was active in the literary and debating societies, and prominent in the Student's Christian Association, attending and taking part in the work of the local branch of the Church of Christ. His first newspaper work was done as an amateur on the college press. Then came assignments from the local dailies and ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... Marcia was immensely clever, charmingly cultivated, a woman of the world in the best sense, but Anne's native shrewdness told her that Marcia's knowledge was not equal to Hayden's. His culture was surer and deeper. He was more than a mere amateur; he knew. He stood apart, in her mind, and just a little higher than anybody else. She turned to him eagerly, and there was established between them, almost unconsciously, the most potent, perfect, and dangerous ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... I should have felt on that blessed Christmas night, if, instead of starting off as an amateur angel, feeling my wings growing every moment, I had been compelled to prepare for an entrance examination. I suppose I should have been put with the backward pupils whose early education had been neglected, and should have had to learn the A B C's of ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... smart dinner in the country houses of the younger and gayer families within driving distance of the borough was complete without their lively presence; Mrs. Maumbry was the blithest of the whirling figures at the county ball; and when followed that inevitable incident of garrison-town life, an amateur dramatic entertainment, it was just the same. The acting was for the benefit of such and such an excellent charity—nobody cared what, provided the play were played—and both Captain Maumbry and his wife were in the piece, ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... professedly "valet" to Le Destin, but really a country gentleman's son. Thus everybody is somebody else, again in the old way. Another, and to some tastes a more serious, blot may be found in the everlasting practical jokes of the knock-about kind, inflicted on the unfortunate Ragotin, a sort of amateur member of the troupe. But again these "low jinks" were an obvious reaction from (just as the ceremonies were followings of) the solemnity of the Heroics; and they continued to be popular for nearly two hundred years, as English readers full well do know. Nevertheless these ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... spend as her enemy and natural prey. And directly she had crossed the road at Holborn, her thoughts all came naturally and regularly to roost upon her work, and she forgot that she was, properly speaking, an amateur worker, whose services were unpaid, and could hardly be said to wind the world up for its daily task, since the world, so far, had shown very little desire to take the boons which Mary's society for woman's suffrage had ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... resort, frequented by well-to-do importers, musicians, and artists, people who have travelled, and whose affairs admit of considerable deliberation and repose. Barwood in former times had been in the habit of going there occasionally to air his amateur French, burn a spoonful of brandy in his coffee, and enjoy an economical foretaste of Paris. Returned to New York after a considerable absence, to spend his vacation at home, he was inclined to renew this with other ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... Mountains, to this work during the latter half of September. He was a most valued contributor to The South Polar Times, and his prose and poetry both had a bite which was never equalled by any other of our amateur journalists. When his pen was still, his tongue wagged, and the arguments he led were legion. The hut was a merrier place for his presence. When the weather was good he might be seen striding over the rocks with a complete disregard of the effect ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... more questions now brought out the whole mystery respecting Waverley's deliverance from the bondage in which he left Cairnvreckan. Never did music sound sweeter to an amateur, than the drowsy tautology, with which old Janet detailed every circumstance, thrilled upon the ears of Waverley. But my reader is not a lover, and I must spare his patience, by attempting to condense within reasonable compass the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... intended Mr. Lansing to be a leader of men, to fight for a great cause, or to engage in physical or intellectual combat. His life has been too soft for that, and he is naturally indolent. He is fond of, and has more than the amateur's appreciation for, music, painting, poetry, and the classics of literature. He has dabbled in verse, he sketches and he has written, but without brilliancy. Accident made him a lawyer, but he was really intended to be an artist; he would have produced no masterpiece, for genius ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... us,—Tom Rendel and me,—one morning soon after we reached Palermo, when, in the first bewilderment of architects in this paradise of art and color, we were working nobly at our sketches in that dream of delight, the Capella Palatina. He was himself an amateur archaeologist, he told us, and passionately devoted to his island; so he felt impelled to speak to any one whom he saw appreciating the almost—and in a way fortunately—unknown beauties of Palermo. In a little time we were fully acquainted, and talking like the oldest friends. Of course he knew ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram |
