"Player" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the city of Florence, where the lovers of Giorgione are lying, it is always the solstice of noon, of noon made so languorous by summer suns that hardly can the slim naked girl dip into the marble tank the round bubble of clear glass, and the long fingers of the lute-player rest idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... considered the third-best whist-player in Europe, and (though never betting more than five pounds) have for many years past added considerably to my yearly income by my skill in the game, until the commencement of the present season, when a French gentleman, Monsieur Lalouette, was admitted to the club where ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... words ending the lines of a sonnet or part of a poem,—and the person receiving the list must fill in the lines, bringing in the words given, in proper order, at the ends of the lines. In the following instance the words italicized are the ones which the player received from his neighbor; in this case the terminal words of Longfellow's beautiful description of a calm night by the sea will be recognized, although the word "ocean" ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... make it, if I had it to play," returned Sepia. "I wish I were the other player instead of you, but the man hates me. Some men do.—Come," she went on, "I will be open with you, Hesper; you don't hang for thoughts in England. I will tell you what I would do with a man I hated—that is, if I was compelled to marry him; ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... much distinguished as a player, was born in the year 1659, but of what family we have no account, farther than that they were of Staffordshire; the extraordinary circumstances of Mr. Mountford's death, have drawn more attention upon him, than he might otherwise have had; and though ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... spent most of their time in Europe, giving, however, as their reason the ill-health of Thatcher's son. Thatcher's income was large and he spent it in his own fashion. He made long journeys to witness prize fights; he had the reputation of being a poor poker player, but "a good loser"; he kept a racing-stable that lost money, and he was a patron of baseball and owned stock in the local club. He was "a good fellow" in a sense of the phrase that requires quotation marks. Mrs. Sally Owen, whose opinion in all matters pertaining to her fellow citizens ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... she came to this place. I must consult Ik at once. Things are bad enough now, heaven knows; but if Ida should do anything disgraceful, I'd have to throw up the game." (Mrs. Mayhew was an inveterate card-player, and her favorite amusement often colored her thoughts ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... straw mats, blue-green walls, and an orange-colored ceiling. Close to the door was the coffee niche. At the opposite end of the room five musicians were squatting, four in a semicircle facing the coffee niche, the fifth alone, almost facing them. This fifth was Said Hitani, the famous flute-player of Constantine—a man at this time sixty-three years old. In front of him was a flat board, on which lay two freshly rolled cigarettes and several cigarette ends. Now and then he took his flute from his lips, replaced it with a lighted cigarette, smoked ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... quarrelled, but who now, when she learnt his success, was obsequiously civil to him. I did not see that he manifested superior skill, but still he was successful; and in his last great stake with a young, but not inexpert player, he won the game, though the chances were three to two against him. "Surely," thought I, "fortune rules the destinies of man in the moon as well as on ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... effect is sometimes erroneously termed portamento (lit. carrying), but this term is more properly reserved for an entirely different effect, viz., when a singer, or player on a stringed instrument, passes from a high tone to a low one (or vice versa) touching lightly on some or all of the diatonic tones between ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Miss Mason, Meg followed her. Down the corridor, up three steps and into a round, light room they marched, the piano tinkling steadily. Meg saw now that it was on the platform, and, goodness! the player was a small girl who didn't look much ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... hiding a small stone under one of five pieces of cloth, placed in front of the players. One hides the stone, and the others have to guess where it is; and it generally happens that, however dexterously the hider may put his arm beneath the cloth, and dodge about from one piece to another, a clever player will be able to tell, by the movement of the muscles of the upper part of his arm, when his fingers relax their hold of the stone. Another game, called parua, is very like the Canadian sport of 'tobogging,' only that ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... see, are playing a game of chess. The stake they are playing for, is this young man's soul; he is one of the players, and this other player is the evil one. The arch-fiend thinks he has got a good move; the young man is very serious but perplexed; and there stands his guardian angel watching how the game ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the larger part of mankind in the light of actors, as personating characters no more their own, and to which in fact they have no better title, than the player hath to be in earnest thought the king or emperor whom he represents. Thus the hypocrite may be said to be a player; and indeed the Greeks called them both by one and ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... cardes, first winnes the game." The coincidence between Mr. Strutt's description of the former and the passage in the text, shews that there could be little or no difference between the value of the cards in these games, or in the manner of playing them. "Each player has four cards dealt to him, one by one, the seven was the highest card, in point of number, that he could avail himself of, which counted for twenty-one, the six counted for sixteen, the five for fifteen, and the ace for the same," &c. (Sports ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... often as any other given series of a thousand numbers; that with perfectly fair dice, sixes will be thrown twice, thrice, or any number of times in succession, quite as often in a thousand or a million throws, as any other succession of numbers fixed upon beforehand; and that no judicious player would give greater odds against the one series than against the other. Notwithstanding this, there is a general disposition to regard the one as much more improbable than the other, and as requiring much ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... "Life is a game of hazard, is it not? And you were always a daring player. But, Juliette, you cannot always win. This time ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... notes have startled her from her attitude of abstraction. Her eyes wander from one to the other, from the instrument to the player, with looks ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... the evening the poet returned home. He had been at a concert, had heard a celebrated violin player, and was quite enchanted with his wonderful performance. It had been a complete gush of melody that he had drawn from the instrument. Sometimes it seemed like the gentle murmur of a rippling stream, sometimes like the singing of birds, sometimes like the tempest ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... for the last try with fortune, the last card to be played, the last die to be thrown. What would be the end of it? What would be the result of that final desperate game? The Emperor was a master player—could even his finesse and skill and talent and genius make up for the poor hand that had been dealt him because the pack had been so drawn upon that the good cards had been ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... ages they would have burned him at a stake. All night long I could not go to sleep. And the next evening, when I gave another performance, and the candidate was again present, I felt fairly overflowing with humour. I once heard from a player that when he acted a lover he always thought of one particular lady among the audience; he only played for her, and forgot all the rest of the house; and now the Polytechnic candidate was my 'she,' my only auditor, for whom alone I played. And when the performance ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Nevertheless I will get my own back. Let him play me at doubles, and we shall soon see what sort of a player he is! Friend Chichikov, at first we had a glorious time, for the fair was a tremendous success. Indeed, the tradesmen said that never yet had there been such a gathering. I myself managed to sell everything from my estate at a good price. In fact, we had a magnificent time. I can't help ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... grew up without knowing his real parentage, learned all that a knight was expected to know, and became especially expert as a hunter and as a harp player. One day he strolled on board of a Norwegian vessel which had anchored in the harbor near his ancestral home, and accepted the challenge of the Norsemen to play a game of chess ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... was a fine player. Since breaking his arm he had turned to games with the feverish eagerness of one who looks for something absorbing to fill an unrestful mind. It was Seaver's skill in chess that had at first attracted Bertram to the man long ago; ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... later, magnificent chords sounded through the house. The piano was old, but tuned to the middle of the note, and the keys were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered; they were touched knowingly as by the player's own fingers, and so they sang—and from out among the chords there stole an errant melody. This was not "piano-playing" and not a pianist's triumphant nimbleness—it was music. Art is the language of a heart that knows how to speak, and a heart ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... angry flush. The young man is too courteous to plague you with unwelcome civilities. I saw him in London at the tennis court, and was friendly to him for his father's memory, knowing nothing of his desire to be my son-in-law. He is a fine player at that royal game, and a fine man. He comes here this evening as my friend; and if you please to treat him disdainfully, I cannot help it. But, indeed, I wonder as much as your sister why you should not reciprocate ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... and fixing her eyes on him through her mask; "the other will throw you back into noise and light—will make you one of the actors in the game which is playing in the world, and, whether you gain or lose, will leave you at least the renown of a great player." ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... passes—clearly some of the family have just returned. On ringing, the callers are shown through a spacious hall with a bronze or two on the marble table, into a drawing-room, elegantly furnished. There is a short iron grand open with a score carelessly left by the last player, a harp in the corner, half hidden by the curtains, some pieces of Nankin ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... of dice, called "sa'-ro," is universal. Instead of the familiar dots the marks on the small wooden cubes are incised lines made with a knife. These lines follow no set pattern. One pair of dice which I observed were marked as shown in fig. 2. The player has five chances, and if he can pair the dice one time out of five he wins, otherwise he loses. Only small objects, such as camotes, rough-made cigars, or tobacco leaves, are so wagered. A peculiar feature of the game is the manner in which the dice are ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... the navy of the Padishah, and those who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time "to stop the rot" by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be found within the confines of orthodox Islam, and ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... now to me so tender. And as children make pretence to be in this humour or that for sport, and will affect to be frighted till they really fear and weep, so Elliot scarce knew how deep her own humour went, and whether she was acting like a player in a Mystery, or was in good earnest. And if she knew not rightly what her humour was, far less could I know, so that she was ever a puzzle to me, and kept me in a hundred pretty doubts and dreads every day. Alas! how sorely, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... about saving faith? I tell you nay; therefore burn them altogether, and break the idols in pieces, and tear away the paintings, and demolish the Jewish instruments that send forth sounds of levity when the player upon them is disposed to provoke his hearers to wanton dances and vain mirth. So let us purify the place with fire, that the slumbering watchman may be awakened to a consideration of his offences and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Ruler. But there was another Frederic, the Frederic of Rheinsberg, the fiddler and flute-player, the poetaster and metaphysician. Amidst the cares of State the King had retained his passion for music, for reading, for writing, for literary society. To these amusements he devoted all the time that he could snatch from the business of war and government; and perhaps more light is thrown ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... To hold the flood a local scare; To argue, though the stolid stare, That everything had happened ere The prophets to its happening sware; That David was no giant-slayer, Nor one to call a God-obeyer In certain details we could spare, But rather was a debonair Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player: That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair, And gave the Church no thought whate'er; That Esther with her royal wear, And Mordecai, the son of Jair, And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair, And Balaam's ass's bitter blare; Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare, And ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... thoroughly inured, by the nature of their lives, to hardship and vigorous action in every possible position of body that their muscles were always in the condition of those of a well-trained athlete. Even Ippegoo, with all his natural defects of mind and body, was by no means contemptible as a player, in those games, especially, which required agility ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... domestic production. The government provides for all medical services and subsidizes rice and housing. Brunei's leaders are concerned that steadily increased integration in the world economy will undermine internal social cohesion, although it became a more prominent player by serving as chairman for the 2000 APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum. Plans for the future include upgrading the labor force, reducing unemployment, strengthening the banking and tourist sectors, and, in general, ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... skull. He came back scowling. A moment later Jack Vance ran into him, and took the ball from between his feet. Noaks charged viciously, and in a blind fit of temper deliberately raised his fist and struck the other player in the face. ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... week salary and to find her own "tights," was ever ready to accept motor drives, dinners, or a smart hat, or frock, from any of her "boys." Cossie, the stay-at-home, was round-faced and plump; a tireless talker and tennis player. She managed the house, held the slender purse, accepted her sister's cast-offs, and always had a "case" on with somebody. Cossie was exceedingly anxious (being the eldest of the family) to secure a home of her own, and made this ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... times a week. When I entered, two of them were sitting by the fire playing draughts, or, as they called it, "the dam-brod." The dam-brod is the Scottish labourer's billiards; and he often attains to a remarkable proficiency at the game. Wylie, the champion draught-player, was once a herd-boy; and wonderful stories are current in all bothies of the times when his master called him into the farm-parlour to show his skill. A third man, who seemed the elder by quite twenty years, was at the window reading a newspaper; and I got no shock when I saw that ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... five minutes their mouths were agape with scandalised astonishment; in ten, the heavens were rent with their protesting cries. Accustomed to see football played with the feet, and to demand with one voice the instant execution of any player (on the other side) who laid so much as a finger upon the ball or the man who was playing it, the exhibition of savage and promiscuous brutality to which their superior officers now treated them shocked ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... in his empire). In this, as in most sayings of Chopin regarding Liszt, irritation against the latter is distinctly noticeable. The cause of this irritation may be manifold, but Liszt's great success as a concert-player and his own failure in this respect [FOOTNOTE: I speak here only of his inability to impress large audiences, to move great masses.] have certainly something to do with it. Liszt, who thought so likewise, says somewhere ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the acquaintance of many peddlers. One of these attracted my attention by his popularity among the other men and by his peculiar talks of women. His name was Max Margolis. We used to speak of him as Big Max to distinguish him from a Little Max, till one day a peddler who was a good chess-player and was then studying algebra changed the two names to "Maximum Max" and "Minimum Max," which the other peddlers pronounced "Maxie ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... then, without having altered his reluctant expression, drew from his breast-pocket a number of old letters. Holding them displayed in his fingers like a difficult hand of cards, and with something of the air of a dispirited player, he began:— ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... listen to, and love. We read together and went to concerts together; and it was during this winter that I attended my first theatrical performance. The star was Mary Anderson, in "Pygmalion and Galatea," and play and player charmed me so utterly that I saw them every night that week, sitting high in the gallery and enjoying to the utmost the unfolding of this new delight. It was so glowing a pleasure that I longed to make ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... now said does not make this clear, we will explain it still further: if there should be any one, a very excellent player on the flute, but very deficient in family and beauty, though each of them are more valuable endowments than a skill in music, and excel this art in a higher degree than that player excels others, yet the best flutes ought to be ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... eulogy on the great social statesman affected Harold March as if somebody had defined Napoleon as a distinguished player of nap. But he had another half-formed impression struggling in this flood of unfamiliar things, and he brought it to the surface before it ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... the tale I thought of when I found that bit of the Black Watch tartan. And I remembered, too, that it was with the Black Watch that John Poe, the famous American football player from Princeton, met his death in a charge. He had been offered a commission, but he preferred to stay with the boys ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... unanswerable logic of figures and facts, there are every day fresh victims who are infatuated enough to believe that it is possible to counterbalance the advantages which the bank possesses, by a judicious management of the power the player has of altering his stake! The revenue formerly paid to the government for licenses, has recently been transferred to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... either cheek. Behind his hair is longer and reaches down to his shoulders, covering the neck whose sheen one may detect between the tresses. The neck is plump, the jaws full, the cheeks fine, and there is a dimple in the middle of his chin. His pose is that of a player on the lyre. He is looking at the goddess, and has the appearance of one that sings, while his embroidered tunic streams to his very feet. He is girt in the Greek style, and a cloak covers either arm down to the wrists. The rest of the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... glory of the Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer artistic love of the physically beautiful, prompts his eloquence upon the game of fives—in which he praises the great player Cavanagh as warmly, and describes his last moments as pathetically, as if he were talking of Rousseau—and still more his immortal essay on the fight between the Gasman and Bill Neate. Prize-fighting is fortunately fallen into hopeless decay, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... possesses hands. It would be more reasonable to say that he possesses hands because he is the wisest. For the hands are an instrument; and Nature always assigns an instrument to the one fitted to use it, just as a sensible man would. For it is more reasonable to give a flute to a flute-player than to confer on a man who has some flutes the art of playing them. To that which is the greater and higher she adds what is less important, and not vice versa. Therefore to the creature fitted to acquire the largest number of skills ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... at the bell, and arrivals too numerous to particularise: papas and mammas, and aunts and uncles, the owners and guardians of the different pupils; the singing-master, Signor Lobskini, in a black wig; the piano-forte player and the violins; the harp, in a state of intoxication; and some twenty young men, who stood near the door, and talked to one another, occasionally bursting into a giggle. A general hum of conversation. Coffee handed round, and plentifully ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... aims to be a practical guide for the player of games, whether child or adult, and for the teacher or leader of games. A wide variety of conditions have been considered, including schools, playgrounds, gymnasiums, boys' and girls' summer camps, adult ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... back on his bed and pushed a button that turned on the radio to a semiclassical program. Soothing music came into the room and slow waves of colored light moved across the ceiling. He tuned to a book player, and chose a heavy economics study from the current seller list of titles which appeared on the ceiling. The daily moon ship was scheduled to blast off at five thirty, its optimum at this week's position of the Moon. By this ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... relating to the Pianola and its influence in popularizing music and stimulating musical taste. I confess that before I started that paragraph I was puzzled to know what term to use in designating the instrument I had in mind. "Mechanical piano-player" is a designation which not only does not appeal to me, but, furthermore, fails to do justice to the instrument, which, although mechanical in its working, is far from being ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... of success are as uncertain as the winds, and as ungovernable. If dexterous playing could have availed, Douglas would have carried off the stakes, for he had an audacious and a mathematical mind; while the winning man in 1856 was a heavy player, devoid of skill, whose decisive advantage was that he had been out of the game for four years. Mr. Seward, too, was within an ace of winning, when an old quarrel between two New York editors swept his cards ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... loved to play on the side of Victory. Victory of what and over what—that is more than the words of daily life can tell us. But that some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can gainsay; yet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and Lucy had decided that ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... 'we heard pleasant music here; but when we knocked, it ceased; and we would fain know whether the player was a slave-girl, white of black, or a lady.' 'It was this my wife,' answered he and told them all that had befallen him, adding, 'My father-in-law hath bound me to pay a dowry of ten thousand dinars for her and they have given me ten ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... are very rich. There are a large number for piano, quite a number for organ, several for two and three pianos, with orchestra, and various other combinations of instruments, such as two violins and 'cellos, and so on. In these each solo player has an equal chance with the other, and solos and accompaniment work together understandingly for mutual ends. The most noticeable feature of his elaborate works is the rhythm, which is vigorous, highly organized and extremely effective. In the department of harmony, it is believed ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... before. What a good game it is; but how difficult it is to see the shuttle-cock in the half light as it crosses the lamp's rays—A.1. practice for grouse driving, and a good middle-aged man's game; for reach and quick eye and hand come in, and the player doesn't require to be so nimble on his pins as at tennis. To-night the little station band of little native men played outside the club under the trees, with two or three hurricane lamps lighting their music and serious dark faces, and the flying foxes ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... come round in the establishment of Mr. Matthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present bassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The celebration of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... direction of Anton Seidl. He won on this occasion, recorded Mr. Finck in the Evening Post, "a success, both as pianist and composer, such as no American musician has ever won before a metropolitan concert audience. A Philharmonic audience can be cold when it does not like a piece or a player; but Mr. MacDowell ... had an ovation such as is accorded only to a popular prima donna at the opera. Again and again he had to get up and bow after every movement of his concerto; again and again was he recalled ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... a member of the Weymar Grand Ducal Royal Orchestra (trombone and double-bass player), who has for a number of years looked after the copying of my works and the arranging of the orchestral and voice parts of them in the library of the Altenburg, I bequeath a present of one hundred thalers for the faithful, devoted service he has ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... started this war. Last March, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a mastermind of September the 11th, awoke to find himself in the custody of U.S. and Pakistani authorities. Last August the 11th brought the capture of the terrorist Hambali, who was a key player in the attack in Indonesia that killed over 200 people. We're tracking al Qaeda around the world, and nearly two-thirds of their known leaders have now been captured or killed. Thousands of very skilled and determined military personnel are on the manhunt, going after the remaining killers ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... for the entertainment of herself than of the half-dozen ladies who yawned over their worsted-work. As she brought her piece to an end with a bang, a pretty, sentimental miss with a novel in her hand, who may not have seen Mr. King looking in at the door, ran over to the player and gave her a hug. "That's beautiful! that's perfectly lovely, Mamie!"—"This," said the player, taking up another sheet, "has not been played much in New York." Probably not, in that style, thought Mr. King, as the girl ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the prominence which in all his school stories he properly gave to out-of-door sports and athletic exercises, to have it, on the authority of his old school-fellow, that he excelled in all manly exercises. He was a first-rate football- player, and a good all-round cricketer; he was an excellent oar, and a fairly good swimmer; and until the last few months of his life no man could enjoy with more zest a game of quoits, or tennis, or a day devoted ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... The player uses a cue that is like a broom-handle with a quarter-moon of wood fastened to the end of it. With this he shoves wooden disks the size of a saucer—he gives the disk a vigorous shove and sends it fifteen or twenty feet along the deck and lands it in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wailing at time and space. The idea of a baby may be all right, but in its outer form, at first, at least, a baby is a failure, and always has been. The same is true of our other musical instruments. A horn caricatures music. A flute is a man rubbing a black stick with his lips. A trombone player is a monster. We listen solemnly to the violin—the voice of an archangel with a board tucked under his chin—and to Girardi's 'cello—a whole human race laughing and crying and singing to us between ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... doubt that Spennie ought at this suggestion to have corrected the novice's notion that ten shillings a hundred was fairly moderate. He knew that it was possible for a poor player to lose four hundred points in a twenty-minute game, and usual for him to lose two hundred. But he ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... a game called cricket which they play in the summer, and this also I learned. Rudd, the head gardener, was a famous player of cricket, and so was Lord Rufton himself. Before the house was a lawn, and here it was that Rudd taught me the game. It is a brave pastime, a game for soldiers, for each tries to strike the other ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "The young piano player,—I thought I'd surprise him and his mother. Mrs. Hollister speaks highly of the mother and I need just such a young man with me in Columbus. I think I can find an opening for him in my office; if not, in the office of some of ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... industrial life must of necessity remain routine. In consequence, during their leisure hours alone, can men find free scope for some form of aesthetic interest and activity. The second requisite is training. Even the poor player of an instrument can derive some pleasure from his performance. And, under the accidents of economic and social circumstance, many a flower may really be born to blush unseen through the fact that its talents receive no opportunity. The occasional "discovery" by a wealthy man of a genius in ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... and plays golf and tennis." Mr. North cast wildly about in his mind for an inspiration. What did the young beggar do, anyway, that would meet with the approval of this socialistic Amazon? "Cards, too. He's an inveterate—I mean, enthusiastic, card-player." ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... the brains dominating the affair. It was impossible to believe that either Celeste La Rue or Ned Beaton—chorus girl or gunman—could have ever figured out such a scheme. They were nothing but pawns, moved by the hand of the chief player. Aye! ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... lived with the best society of the place, consisting of several distinguished young noblemen and gentlemen. He spent the morning playing at fives and smoking cigars; the evening smoking cigars and dining comfortably. Cards came after dinner; and, as the Captain was an experienced player, and near a score of years older than most of his friends, he was generally pretty successful: indeed, if he had received all the money that was owed to him, he might have come out of prison and ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Marjorie to find her play noticed. Golden visions of winning goals for her hostel swam before her dazzled eyes. She dreamt one night that she was captain of the team. She almost quarrelled with Chrissie because the latter, who was a slack player, did not ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... love to you and Saul, being in good health, and hoping to hear the same from you; and that you and Saul will take my poor kitten to bed with you this cold weather. We have been all in, a sad taking here at Glostar — Miss Liddy had like to have run away with a player-man, and young master and he would adone themselves a mischief; but the, squire applied to the mare, and they were, bound over. — Mistress bid me not speak a word of the matter to any Christian soul — no more I shall; for, we servints should see all and say nothing — But what was ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... other shining things, in order that they should come to the ship, coaxing them with motions of the body and signs. They approached somewhat, and afterwards became terrified by the ship; and as they would not approach, the Admiral ordered a tambourine player to come up to the poop deck of the ship and that the young boys of the ship should dance, thinking to please them. But they did not understand it thus, but rather, as they saw dancing and playing, taking it for a signal of war, they distrusted them. They left ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... be so easy," declared another student. "They have some great skaters and hockey players at the military academy this season. They've got one player who ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... little pack of cards; a bad record of his misfortunes. Profound silence reigned; pallor was on the faces of the punters, anxiety on that of the banker, and the hostess, sitting near the unpitying banker, noticed with lynx-eyes all the doubled and other increased stakes, as each player dog's-eared his cards; she made them turn down the edges again with severe, but polite attention; she showed no vexation for fear of losing her customers. The lady insisted upon being called the Marchioness of Parolignac. Her daughter, ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... of Paris, but a few years ago a play was written which set the French Revolution in a different light from the now consecrated commonplace in regard to it. It was found impossible to produce it. A marionette player and his wife made fun of Pere Duchesne on the boulevard during the Revolution. Both were guillotined.[2038] These facts limit very much the high moral function sometimes ascribed to satire. It never gets into action ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... requires a clear head and undisturbed. The persons playing, if they would play well, ought not much to regard the consequences of the game; for that diverts and withdraws the mind from the game itself, and makes the player liable to make many false, open moves. I will venture to lay it down for an infallible rule that if two persons equal in judgment, play for a considerable sum, he that loves money most, shall lose. His anxiety for the success of the game confounds him. Courage is almost as requisite for the good ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... is found helping a young cricket player out of the toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... iii. 227. It was followed by a letter, nominally by a young mechanic, offering to construct an automaton sovereign, like Kempel's chess-player, who would answer all ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... overcoat protecting her against the freshness of the evening air over her ballet-dancer's dress, played at the same time the cymbals and the big bass-drum a desperate accompaniment to three measures of a polka, always the same, which were murdered by a blind clarionet player; and the ringmaster, a sort of Hercules with the face of a galley-slave, a Silenus in scarlet drawers, roared out his furious appeal in a loud voice. Mixed with the crowd of loafers, soldiers, and women, I regarded ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player, that he ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... them to her, saying, "Take them and may Allah not bless them to thee!" So the Caliph ordered him fresh clothes and said, "O Tawaddud, there is one thing left of that for which thou didst engage, namely, chess." And he sent for experts of chess and cards[FN448] and trictrac. The chess-player sat down before her, and they set the pieces, and he moved and she moved; but, every move he made she speedily countered,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... usual. I saw neither the girl nor Mrs Fyne then. We had our two games and on parting I warned Fyne that I was called to town on business and might be away for some time. He regretted it very much. His brother-in-law was expected next day but he didn't know whether he was a chess-player. Captain Anthony ("the son of the poet—you know") was of a retiring disposition, shy with strangers, unused to society and very much devoted to his calling, Fyne explained. All the time they had been married he could be induced only ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... a moment and then rose. "I am a very indifferent player," she said; "but since no better is to be had, I will venture—if Mr. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... an hour, I dare say," replied Wang Chih. But as he spoke, the axe crumbled to dust beneath his fingers, and the second chess-player laughed, and pointed to the little ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... orderlies and batmen each in his own place in the spacious rooms melted into a tender hearing that feared to move lest the spell be broken and the artist leave the instrument. Men who did not know how lonesome they had been and who had missed the refinements of home more than they knew, blessed the player with their pensive listening, thanked fortune they were still alive and had chances of fighting through to get home again. And after playing ceased the British officer talked quietly of his home and the home folks and Americans thought and ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... even that it might be childlike, but could form no guess of its intelligence. In his own eyes Garibaldi might be a Napoleon or a Spartacus; in the hands of Cavour he might become a Condottiere; in the eyes of history he might, like the rest of the world, be only the vigorous player in the game he did not understand. The student was ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... considering this army of talent. But even more strange that this contradiction to the law of averages is also applicable to the field of sports—to a field so practical, tangible and therefore measurable. Every healthy-minded youngster born, has two early ambitions: one to be a great baseball player, another to become President. And yet the scouts and managers for the Big Leagues have difficulty in discovering talent above ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1922 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... that almost at the same time as an American player was winning the British Amateur Golf Championship, an American polo team was putting All England on her mettle at Hurlingham, and it was not with any wider margin than was necessary for comfort that Great Britain retained the honours in lawn tennis, which she has ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... part so effective in representation as those afforded by the great characters of Sophocles. In the first play the hypocrisy and power of Clytemnestra would, it is true, have partially required and elicited the talents of the player; but Agamemnon himself is but a thing of pageant, and the splendid bursts of Cassandra might have been effectively uttered by a very inferior histrionic artist. In the second play, in the scene between Orestes and his mother, and in the gathering madness of Orestes, the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and more intense, according to the procedure of his Marche Funebre. And among the audience, too, there was a bowing and uplifting of heads, just as among the figures of the mourners evoked. Yet the head of the player himself was all the while erect, and his face glad and serene. Nobly sensitive as was his playing of the mournful passages, he smiled ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... accomplished. Bertha was glad. Richard made jokes about the people who were sitting in the garden, also about the fat bandmaster who was always skipping about while he was conducting, and then about the trumpet-player whose cheeks bulged out and who seemed to be shedding tears when he blew into his instrument. Bertha could not help laughing very heartily. Jests were bandied about her high spirits and Doctor Friedrich remarked that she must surely be going to some ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... made the Court such a dissipated place, but, also, because he could ride better than they at tournaments, and was used, in his impudence, to cut very bad jokes on them; calling one, the old hog; another, the stage-player; another, the Jew; another, the black dog of Ardenne. This was as poor wit as need be, but it made those Lords very wroth; and the surly Earl of Warwick, who was the black dog, swore that the time should come when Piers Gaveston should feel the ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... will publicly state that they substitute nuts for meat in part at least. We must put this thing into the popular imagination of the plain people if it is to be of full importance. When some fellow with a new brand of cigarettes wants to develop a trade among young men, he gets some noted ball player to write a letter stating his love for that brand. I think we should follow that plan somewhat in putting our nut campaign before the people. Two years ago the Oregon Agricultural College sent a football team East. The college was almost unknown here, but I asked ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the Goldwing to the east. As he had predicted, the wind was increasing, and the schooner carried quite a bone in her teeth. It looked a little like a game of chess, where each player has to wait a long time for the other to make his move. The captain and his passenger appeared to be still engaged in the discussion in the bow of the boat. Dory thought he could quicken their movements; and, hauling in his sheets, ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... bring the mother badger to the lair once more. So, huddled close, they were for a time satisfied with a strangely deliberate game of "King of the Castle," the castle being an imaginary place in the middle of their bed. Towards that spot each player pushed quietly, but vigorously, one or other gaining a slight advantage now and again by grunting an unexpected threat into the ear of a near companion, or by bestowing an unexpected nip on the flank of the cub that held for the moment the coveted position of king. Withal ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... most atrocious means of gratifying their implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppaea, and a favorite player of the race of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people. [40] In their room it was necessary to offer some other victims, and it might easily be suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were innocent of the fire of Rome, there had ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon |
