"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extent the doctor. She had begun to realise that she would never shake off the vigilance which surrounded her until she had convinced folk that she had regained her normal spirits. Her capabilities as an actress, which had won for her leading parts in many amateur plays, had never been taxed so hardly. But then she had invariably been cast for comedy. Now she felt she was playing tragedy. For night and day she never forgot. Always there was one thought ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... my game to-day," Lutchester admitted. "With a little luck at the seventh," he continued earnestly, "I might have tied the amateur record. You see, my ball—but there, I mustn't bore you now. I must look after my opponent and stand him a drink. We ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Presidency. At about the same time he bought a yacht, and heavy bets were pending among his sporting friends whether he would manage to sink first his Review or his yacht. But he was an amiable and excellent fellow through all his eccentricities, and he brought to Mrs. Lee the simple outpourings of the amateur politician. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... question upon which amateur debating societies have exercised their talents would admit of no debate at all, if once the question were made definite. For the ground for debate lies in the difference in interpretation of the question and not in the facts themselves. For example: If a cannon ball were to be fired off ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... in our subsequent story. The system that preceded it need not be dwelt upon here, because, full of instruction as a technical study of it (such as has been made by Colonel Henderson) must be, no brief survey by an amateur could be useful. It is necessary, however, to understand the position in which Lincoln's Administration was placed, without much experience In America, or perhaps elsewhere in the world, to guide it. It must not be contended, for it cannot be known ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... amateur detective methods of the village constable ended in nothing. And as day after day passed without news, it began to be accepted as a settled fact that the culprits would never ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... personage must be either a patron or a friend of the court painter. He stood aside therefore upon the landing to allow the visitor to pass, scrutinizing him curiously the while. Perhaps he might hope to find the good nature of an artist or to receive the good offices of an amateur not unfriendly to the arts; but besides an almost diabolical expression in the face that met his gaze, there was that indescribable something which has ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... the railway between Mendoza and Buenos Aires there was a serious strike of railway employes. The railway had been attacked at many different points. Amateur engineers and attendants ran the trains. We were only two hours from Buenos Aires. The heat and dust were intense as we crossed the great pampas. The shaking of the train had tired me to such an extent that I placed ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... cocottes' upholsterer. The curiosities, the pictures, belong to old Schwalbach, who sends his customers there and makes them pay double price, because a man doesn't haggle when he thinks he is buying from a marquis, an amateur. As for the marchioness's dresses, the milliner and dress-maker furnish her with them for exhibition every season, make her wear the new styles, a little ridiculous sometimes, but instantly adopted by society, because Madame is still a very beautiful woman, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... number,—civil appointments, deaths, births and marriages, and army intelligence being deemed worthy of insertion. Among other things illustrative of social progress in 1823, we find notices of the first amateur concert given at Montreal in aid of a charitable object; of the establishment of the Quebec Historical Society, an event in the literary annals of Canada; of the foundation of the first circulating library in the City of ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... clumsy, brutal pursuit taken on the refinement of an art. Essentially modern, it has generally been pursued in the meanest spirit of gain. Deacon Brodie clung to it as to a diversion, but he was an amateur, without a clear understanding of his craft's possibilities. The sole monarch of housebreakers was Charles Peace. At a single stride he surpassed his predecessors; nor has the greatest of his imitators been worthy to hand on the candle which he left at the gallows. For the rest, there is small distinction ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... eyes. She was talking to several people who were gathered about her, and never smiled. It was impossible to imagine that she could ever smile. Her name was Lady Mildred Burnington, and she was an admirable amateur violinist, married to Admiral Sir Hilary Burnington, one of the Sea Lords. Max Elliot was in the distance, talking eagerly in the midst of a group of musicians. A tall singer, a woman from the Paris Opera Comique, stood by him with her right hand on his arm, as ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... command of a British general 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
... which is the same in both—the oracle of Delphi. From this the laws about all divine things are to be derived. The final selection of the Interpreters, the choice of an heir for a vacant lot, the punishment for removing a deposit, are also to be determined by it. Plato is not disposed to encourage amateur attempts to revive religion in states. For, as he says in the Laws, 'To institute religious rites is the ...
— Laws • Plato
... and finish the crop for the year—we can't fight that. Such a frost is to be reckoned with on an average of about once in five years. But on the other years we expect to make up. Don't you think we can get our prices for such berries as these? And will you tell me why brains, even amateur ones, can't solve such problems as we have to face? You lawyers tackle hard cases and win them, even while you're green—if you possess certain qualities to begin with. We may be conceited, but we have an idea we possess the qualities necessary to ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... the stairs and grabbed on to the chair that hung from the ceiling nearby. When you only weigh fifteen pounds, you can make Tarzan look like an amateur. ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... attempt was made to reduce theory to practise. Then an eccentric English country gentleman, Henry Winstanley, who dabbled in mechanical engineering upon unorthodox lines, came forward and offered to build a lighthouse upon the terrible rocks. Those who knew this ambitious amateur were dubious of his success, and wondered what manifestation his eccentricity would assume on this occasion. Nor was their scepticism entirely misplaced. Winstanley raised the most fantastic lighthouse which has ever been known, and which would have been more at home ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... presence, he was disquieted by no jealousy of the many conferences enjoyed by Mr Carker, and felt a secret satisfaction in having duties to discharge, which rarely exposed him to be singled out for such distinction. He was a great musical amateur in his way—after business; and had a paternal affection for his violoncello, which was once in every week transported from Islington, his place of abode, to a certain club-room hard by the Bank, where quartettes of the most tormenting ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of the world. Yet he all the time occupied a position in a Government office—the Home Office, I think it was—and often walked from Whitehall to Lavender Sweep when his day's work was done. He was an enthusiastic amateur actor, his favorite part being Adam in "As You Like It," perhaps because tradition says this was a part that Shakespeare played; at any rate, he was very good in it. Gilbert and Sullivan, in very far-off days, used to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... direct-current lighting circuit," he remarked, thoughtfully regarding his find. "I think I know what this is, all right. Any amateur could do it, with a little knowledge of electricity and a source of direct current. The thing is easily constructed, the materials are common, and a wonderfully complicated result can ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... country's needs in time of war, but none the less revolting. There is nothing of glamour in the Secret Service, nothing of romance, little even of excitement. It is a cold-blooded exercise of wits against wits, of spies against spies. The amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives him a fair run for his life, but the professional fisherman—to whom a salmon is a people's food—nets him coldly and expeditiously as he comes ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... My amateur Mathematical coach, who was now making his last spirt for a Fellowship, used to accompany me.—Ibid., ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... flock of 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
... he said again. 'I seen you rehearse, as I promised Miss Denison I would. You ain't bad for an amateur. You gotta lot to learn, but it's in you. What it comes to is that I can fix you up in the four-a-day, if you'll take thirty-five per. I can't do better than that, and I wouldn't have done that if the little lady hadn't ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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 be placed in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... more than mere laymen in philosophy. We are worthy of the name of amateur athletes, and are vexed by too much inconsistency and vacillation in our creed. We cannot preserve a good intellectual conscience so long as we keep mixing incompatibles from opposite sides of ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... and Beatrice exercised all the rights of proprietorship in Carnaby's extensive stables. Her interest in me was from the first undisguised. She found her way to my worksheds and developed rapidly, in spite of the sincere discouragement of Cothope, into a keen amateur of aeronautics. She would come sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes afoot with an Irish terrier, sometimes riding. She would come for three or four days every day, vanish for a fortnight ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... vivre of which Madame Campan was a very model. While Hortense was thus receiving instruction on the harp from the celebrated Alvimara, in painting from Isabey, dancing from Coulon, and singing from Lambert, and was playing on the stage of the amateur theatre at the boarding-school the parts of heroines and lady-loves; while she was participating in the balls and concerts that Madame Campan gave in order to show off the talent of her pupils to the friends she invited; while, in a word, Hortense was thus being trained up to the accomplishments ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... Ypres is given in a communication from the Record Officer now serving with the Canadian Division at the front and published in the British press on May 1, 1915. The division was commanded by a distinguished English General, but these "amateur soldiers of Canada," as the narrator describes them, were officered largely by lawyers, college professors, and business men who before the war were neither disciplined nor trained. Many striking deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice were performed in the course of their brilliant ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... told Oertel to report, was a minister of the Church of Scotland in Prague, a British subject with influential connections not only with English-speaking people but with Czech government officials.[3] Besides his ministerial work, the Reverend Smith led an amateur orchestra group giving free concerts for German emigres. On his clerical recommendation, he got German "emigre" women into England as house servants for British government officials ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... a brilliant intellect, who insisted that her husband should leave his studio and spend five hours a day in the drudgeries of the nursery and kitchen to relieve her, and that she should spend the five hours in her studio as an amateur,—that they thus might be on an equality! The husband died in a mad-house, after dying for a year with a broken heart and a crushed ambition. He was obliged to submit to his wife's demand, or fight from morning ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... such an account of the case, and such a description of my wife's person, as would inevitably summon to the next exhibition of her misery, as by special invitation and advertisement, the whole world of this vast metropolis—the idle, the curious, the brutal, the hardened amateur in spectacles of wo, and the benign philanthropist who frequents such scenes with the purpose of carrying alleviation to their afflictions. All alike, whatever might be their motives or the spirit of their actions, would rush (as to some grand festival of curiosity and ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... also, Manderson had allowed himself the advantage of wealth. An extraordinary number of these, treed and carefully kept, was ranged on two long low shelves against the wall. Trent, himself an amateur of good shoe-leather, now turned to them, and glanced over the collection with an appreciative eye. It was to be seen that Manderson had been inclined to pride himself on a rather small and well-formed foot. The shoes were of a distinctive shape, narrow and round-toed, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... When attacked, the otter is a fierce and terrible fighter, biting and snapping with most deadly energy and never yielding as long as life remains in the body. The bite of an angry otter is extremely severe, and for this reason we would caution the amateur trapper on handling the animal should one ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... care about the medals. (The Royal Society's medals.) Thank God! I am only an amateur (but a much interested ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... employed men to represent female characters, and absolutely required an artificial strengthening of the voice of the actor—was entirely dependent, in a scenic as well as acoustic point of view, on the use of facial and resonant masks. These were well known also in Rome; in amateur performances the players appeared without exception masked. But the actors who were to perform the Greek comedies in Rome were not supplied with the masks—beyond doubt much more artificial—that were necessary for them; ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... is of course planned especially with the amateur in view, and the author, in writing it, has had in mind his own fruitless search for information upon the subject of conducting when he was just beginning his career as a teacher; and he has tried to say to the amateur of today those things that he himself so sorely needed to know at that time, and ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... sights of Calcutta may be reckoned the garden of the chief judge, Mr. Lawrence Peel, which is equally interesting to the botanist and the amateur, and which, in rare flowers, plants, and trees, is much richer than the Botanical Garden itself. The noble park, laid out with consummate skill, the luxuriant lawns, interspersed and bordered with flowers and plants, the crystal ponds, the shady alleys, with their bosquets and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... to the rank of sergeant; but the fumes of absinthe clouded his brain, and he could only swagger and boast of old exploits as a soldier, crying from time to time "Vive l'entente cordiale," and assuring the Englishmen that they could trust him to the death. It was Stephen who, by virtue of his amateur soldiering experience, had to take the lead. He posted the Highlanders in opposite watch-towers, placing Nevill in one which commanded the two rear walls of the bordj. The next step was the building of bonfires, one at each corner ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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 ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... secretary himself had attempted two years before, with boyish ignorance of his own powers. Mr. Weed took charge of the press, and began, to the amused astonishment of the secretaries, by making what the Legation had learned to accept as the invariable mistake of every amateur diplomat; he wrote letters to the London Times. Mistake or not, Mr. Weed soon got into his hands the threads of management, and did quietly and smoothly all that was to be done. With his work the private secretary had no ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... continued as he held his cigar at arm's length and looked between his elevated feet at the landscape: "'Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.' Great old lover—Solomon. Rather out of the amateur class—with his thousand wives and concubines; perhaps a virtuous man withal, but hardly a fanatic on the subject; and when he said he was sick of love—probably somewhere in his fifties,—Solomon voiced ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... G. Piffard exhibited in New York to a society of amateur photographers a new method of taking instantaneous photographs by means of a brilliant light made by sprinkling ten or fifteen grains of magnesium powder on about six grains of gun-cotton. When this ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... career had Holmes helped him to attain success, his own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem. For this reason the affection and respect of the Scotchman for his amateur colleague were profound, and he showed them by the frankness with which he consulted Holmes in every difficulty. Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius, and MacDonald had talent enough for ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was now in store; the world was to behold at the opening of the twentieth century such a celestial spectacle as had not been on view since the times of Tycho and Kepler. Before daylight on the morning of February 22, 1901, the Rev. Doctor Anderson, of Edinburgh, an amateur astronomer, who had also been the first to see the new star in Auriga, beheld a strange object in the constellation Perseus not far from the celebrated variable star Algol. He recognized its character ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... his appearance the house was crowded to suffocation. The playbills had given out that "an amateur of fashion" would for that night only perform in the character of Romeo; besides, it was generally whispered that the rehearsals gave indication of comedy rather than tragedy, and that his readings were of a ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... a lusty entr'-acte excursion into Culmbacher and the cheese sandwich, served, as is the appealing custom, in the theatre promenade. And thus fortified against the night, I pass again into the thoroughfares still a-rattle with the musketry of wheels. I perceive that many amateur American Al-Raschids are abroad in the land, pockets echoing the tintinnabulation of manifold marks and eyes abulge at the prospect of midnight diableries. See that fellow yonder! At home, probably a family man, a wearer of mesh ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... not proper fields for the cultivation and display of Miss Gordon's amateur kid glove charity. I hope, at least, it was a species of exaggerated high-flown sentimentality, rather than mere feminine curiosity that tempted you to precincts revolting to the delicacy and refinement with which ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of the players that they are such important and indispensable personages. Nothing is more rare than a truly great player; but nothing is more common than the qualifications for filling characters in the manner we generally see them filled; of this we may be convinced in every amateur theatre among tolerably educated people. Finally, the relation which subsists with us between the managers of theatres and writers, is also as detrimental as possible. In France and England, the author of a piece has a certain share of the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... of them with ideas concerning the proper construction of a sword, and the balancing of it, so that it hung easily in the hand as though part of the fore-arm. Usually, the expert has small patience with the theories of an amateur; but this young fellow, whose ambition it was to invent a sword, possessed such intimate knowledge of the weapon as it was used, not only in Germany, but also in France and Italy, that the sword maker introduced him to fellow-craftsmen at ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... fiction—the Chronique de Charles IX—has been rather variously judged. That the present writer once translated the whole of it may, from different points of view, be regarded as a qualification and a disqualification for judging it afresh. For a mere amateur (and there are unfortunately[233] only too many amateur translators) it might be one or the other, according as the executant had been pleased or bored by his occupation. But to a person used to the manner, something of an expert in literary criticism, and brought by the writing of many ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... was excellent, but I found that my amateur lashing together with the strong current that was running made the whole plan quite impossible, so, after being nearly thrown into the river several times, and one of the floats coming adrift and washing ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... then, or good fortune, or the skilful playing off of Bungay against Bacon which Warrington performed (and which an amateur novelist is quite welcome to try upon any two publishers in the trade), Pen's novel was actually sold for a certain sum of money to one of the two eminent patrons of letters whom we have introduced to our readers. The ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... poised, scanned the woods with the palpitating curiosity of an amateur. Eyes and ears alert, she kept mechanically reassuring herself that the thing to do was to shoot straight and keep cool, and to keep on shooting whichever way the boar might take it into his porcine ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Clay could count the bars of the iron fence in front of the grounds. But the boards that backed them prevented his forming any idea of the strength or the distribution of Mendoza's forces. He drew his staff of amateur officers to one side and explained ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... 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 ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... the morning on the terrace. In a light cambric dress, and with her stockingless feet thrust into slippers, she kept moving about him—went and cleaned her canaries' cage, gave her gold-fishes some water, and with a fire-shovel did a little amateur gardening in the box filled with clay, from which arose a trellis of nasturtiums, giving an attractive look to the wall. Then, resting, with their elbows on the balcony, they stood side by side, gazing at the vehicles and the passers-by; and they warmed themselves ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... exposures. This can be determined only by the process of developing, which requires a dark room and other apparatus not always at hand; and so much depends upon the process that it might be well if it could always be left to some one who makes a specialty of it, as in the case of the real amateur photographer. Then one's faulty impressions might be so treated as to yield a pictorial result of interest, or frankly thrown away if they showed hopeless to the instructed eye. Otherwise, one must do one's own developing, and trust the result, whatever ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... a tale of woe; and though my father promptly discounted it, it was impossible to doubt, with the evidence of that flaming sky before our eyes, that something very terrible had happened. Whether old Dixon expected my father to act as an amateur fireman, or whether he hoped for services of a more spiritual kind, I do not know; but he resolutely refused to return to the scene of the disaster unless my father accompanied him. So by-and-by my brother and I found ourselves accompanying ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... make experiments which have brought out clear evidence that fortuitous variations are inherited. The cattle-breeders who profit by producing certain shapes and qualities; the keepers of pet animals who take pride in the perfections of those they have bred; the florists, professional and amateur, who obtain new varieties and take prizes; form a body of men who furnish naturalists with countless of the required proofs. But there is no such body of men, led either by pecuniary interest or the interest of a hobby, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... and Eleanor's adventures in New York are told. Their school experiences; the amateur theatricals at which Polly saved a girl from the fire, and thus found some splendid friends; and the new acquaintance, Ruth Ashby, who was the only child of the Ashbys. They also met Mr. Fabian in a most unusual manner, and ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the ——th, and the softest voice in the army, had better been at school, instead of undermining the virtue of the 'virtuous Marcia,' as he has so obviously done. Bulstrode did well enough; capitally well, for an amateur, and must be a first-rate fellow. By the way, Jane"—that was my aunt's name—"they tell me, he is likely to marry that exceedingly pretty daughter of Herman Mordaunt, and make her Lady Bulstrode, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Roman missionaries are amateur doctors and we find a stimulating rivalry in bodily and spiritual ministrations. At the Church of England Mission we are shown with triumph a piece of bone salved from the leg of an injured Indian. Afterward we learn that the peripatetic patient accepted ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... approve of penciled eyebrows. A professional in the "make-up" art can touch the eyebrows here and there and bring a marvelous change. But for the ordinary amateur it is better left undone. Besides, if coloring is applied, it is only a short time before the hair will fall out. And then won't ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... shows a painful lack of good breeding, and a disregard of others' rights to peaceful enjoyment. On a par with this is the incivility of a person who undertakes to accompany a soloist with his (or her) own little pipe, to the annoyance of those who prefer to listen to professional rather than amateur efforts. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... brilliant amateur sort of writer, orator and editor—came to visit Hawthorne one of the last Sundays while he remained in the Old Manse, and the two went together to spend the forenoon in Walden woods, calling on Emerson by the way to inquire what the best ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... said modestly. "Now, Mr. Skidmore had a compartment to himself. He was locked in the very last thing, and nobody joined the train afterward. Naturally a—well—an amateur detective like myself wanted to know who was in the adjoining compartments. Three of these could be dismissed at once. But in the fourth ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... majestic air by throwing the ball carelessly from hand to hand; and several other gentlemen dressed like them, in straw hats, flannel jackets, and white trousers—a costume in which they looked very much like amateur stone-masons—were sprinkled about the tents, towards one of which Mr. Wardle ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... little creature imaginable. She was very small and slender, with quantities of soft dark hair and beautiful great dark eyes that looked like a frightened fawn's. I have heard my father describe her many times, and I have seen the water-colour sketch he made of her—he was quite an amateur. Ahmed has it locked away somewhere. She nearly died when the baby was born, and she never recovered her strength. She made no complaint and never spoke of herself, and seemed quite content as long as the child was with her. She was a child herself in a great number of ways. It never ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... "No, I'm a lily-pure amateur," Rand told him. "Or was until I took this job. I have a collection of my own, and I'm supposed to be something of an authority. My business is ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... over-rehearse your play. The chief charm in Christmas plays lies in their naturalness and simplicity, a part of which is almost sure to be lost if they have rehearsed the play until they have lost their wonder and excitement and enjoyment in the make-believe game of amateur theatricals. ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... Marion Shields, of Penn State, with | |yards to spare. Pennsylvania, the third team | |entered, finished in that position. | | | |Yale sent an army of star timber-toppers down for | |the fifty-yard high hurdle event. John V. Farwell, | |captain of the Eli's track team, equaled the | |American amateur indoor record by covering the | |distance in seven seconds. | | | |Richards, of Cornell, won individual honors in the | |sixteen-pound shot-put with a throw of 42 feet, | |8-3/10 inches, while Cornell's ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... I walked. More than that, I kept step with you all the way from Chaudiere's to the levee. You'd be dead easy game for an amateur." ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... is given at these afternoon hours, usually it is in honor of some brilliant amateur, a pianist or singer, or, if the program is miscellaneous, a gifted elocutionist. Or, it is an occasion when some lion of the professional stage has been captured, either socially or professionally, and the hostess gives to ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... 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 to fear ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Manual, adapted to the Professional Man and the Amateur; being a Dictionary of Painters ... together with an alphabetical arrangement of the Scholars, Imitators, and Copyists of the various masters, and a Classification of Subjects. By James R. Hobbes. London, 1849. 2 ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... the observation of variable stars in a limited portion of the heavens. That, and 'hunting for comets' is about all the real astronomical work that an amateur can do nowadays in our climate, with a three-inch telescope. I am greatly indebted to the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who regularly sends me circulars of all astronomical discoveries, both in this and foreign countries. I will give an instance of the usefulness ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... beans are prepared and cooked like other green vegetables. Dry beans may be either boiled, stewed, or baked, but whatever the method employed, it must be very slow and prolonged. Beans to be baked should first be parboiled until tender. We mention this as a precautionary measure lest some amateur cook, misled by the term "bake," should repeat the experiment of the little English maid whom we employed as cook while living in London, a few years ago. In ordering our dinner, we had quite overlooked the fact that baked beans are almost wholly an American dish, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... you earlier that John was a good musician. He played the piano rarely well, for an amateur, and he had a grand singing voice. And one of his fellow-officers told me that, after the fight at Beaumont-Hamul, one of the phases of the great Battle of the Somme, John's company found itself, toward evening, near the ruins ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... grapes and figs steeped in wines; an ex-president of modern times was fond of fishing and spent much time in piscatorial pursuits. None of these struck me just right, so I thought I would be obliged to make a selection of my own. First I tried amateur photography, but this soon grew monotonous and I gave it up. Next I got a cornet, but I soon found that it required more wind than I could conveniently spare. I then tried homing pigeons, but before I had scarcely given ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... however, not be thought from this that the amateur was converted into a professional seaman in the space of a week or two. Three months of specialised training enabled them to take their place in the new fleet, but with some it required a much longer period to enable ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... For this problem the amateur sociologist had no solution at hand—whether for the abstract question, or ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... delivered, as in the case of his comments on gesture, they are almost painfully evident from the context. He cites for instance irony[95], anger[96], exhaustion [97], amazement [98], sympathy[99], pity[100]. He appears as the lineal ancestor of the modern "coach" of amateur theatricals in somewhat naively remarking[101] that upon leaving Thais for two days, Phaedria must pronounce "two days" as if "two ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... The amateur detective turned back toward the business section. On the way he dropped guiltily the telescope grip into a delivery wagon standing in front of a grocery. He had no use for it, and he had already come to feel it a white ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... sleepless nights, with a throbbing heart, in ecstasy and suppressed enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in young people is dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let me tell you that, as a literary amateur, I am awfully fond of such first essays, full of the heat of youth. There is a mistiness and a chord vibrating in the mist. Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there's a transparent sincerity, a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of despair in ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that Mademoiselle Violet employs no more amateur assassins to make clumsy attempts ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... time to-night to spend thief-catching, Officer," I told him. I had just recalled my dinner, now utterly ruined, and Dunny, probably at this instant cracking walnuts as fiercely as if each one were the kaiser's head. "But I'm an amateur in these affairs, and you are a master. Before I go, as man to man, what the dickens do you make ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... a small camera. All of us enjoy dabbling in amateur photography, and every amateur must take "action" pictures with his first camera. It is a natural desire to attain to the hardest before understanding how to reach it. The result is one of two things: ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... method of living since he first wore a silk hat and caught the eight-forty to the City one morning fifty years ago. I followed him home on a Saturday afternoon. The bookstall clerk at Liverpool Street handed him The Amateur Gardener, and the old boy read it in the train. Five minutes after he had reached his house he was out on the lawn with a daisy fork. No; the cashier didn't arrange ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... little easier on an amateur," admitted Tom. "If you'll come over to our house at any time I'll take you out in it, or I'll ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... been lost in passing through a bog, while their ammunition was reduced to sixty-five rounds. Too late did the Captain regret the permission given to his brother and Mr. Paine, both of whom were but amateur sportsmen, to fire at any game they might see. They had blazed away recklessly during the entire voyage, so far succeeding in killing but one duck. Evidently they could not be depended upon to replenish the depleted ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Willie T., between whom and myself there sprung up a mutual feeling of high regard. We were chums in the sense that we were almost constantly together, both at school and at home, and among the partnerships we formed was one of having amateur shadowgraph and panoramic shows in the basement of Willie's home. This much to show the mental and social relationship that existed between us. Some time during this association (I cannot recall the exact night now) I had a strange dream, in which my chum appeared to me with outstretched hand, ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... a revelation which was translated into a feeling that censorship could not stifle of the failure of the campaign to crush France. They called for the man who had won victories and the Kaiser gave them von Hindenburg, whom fortune favored when he sent armies inspirited by his leadership against amateur soldiers in veteran confidence, while the weather had stopped the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... amateur detectives took up the trail," Nan interrupted bitterly. "And you heard of ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... process 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 brief of his material. This is a series of ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... chance should I have? They say an amateur never can compete with a professed gardener, and ours is ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... taste for collecting objects of art is rapidly developing in America, it may be not without profit to point out some of the pitfalls which attend the amateur in this pursuit, especially in Italy, that exhaustless quarry of "originals" and "old masters"; though it should be remembered that a work of art may be both original and old and very bad too,—its intrinsic worth being a separate question from its age and authenticity. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... of the Yonne being over, I returned to Paris, where I took part in public affairs only as an amateur, while waiting for the opening of the session. I was deeply grieved to see the Government resort to measures of severity to punish faults which it would have been better policy to attribute only to the unfortunate circumstances of the times. No consideration ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... are spread out over great peaks and dizzy snow-fields thousands of feet above sea-level, chopping trenches in the ice and sparring for some vantage-point on a crag that in peace times might tax the strength and skill of the amateur mountain-climber. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... a skilled instructor or if he showed any skill devote himself to such sports as basketball, running, baseball or swimming. In addition to these advantages amusements were provided through the year in the form of lectures, amateur shows and music. In the summer, special opportunities were offered for out-door sports. Moreover the Association managed summer camps where for a nominal fee the boys could enjoy the life of the woods. A boy must be poor ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... for the public he writes; he is of no use to artists. I doubt whether any man in any branch of art could be found who would honestly say he had ever learned anything from the art critic, who, after all, is only an amateur. The criticism we value, and that which really helps, is that of our brother artists, often sharp and unsparing, but always salutary and useful. And if useless to the artist, art criticism is harmful to the public, who take their opinion from it at second hand. Were all art criticism made ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... how to charm," he replied. But, seeing her stiffen, he resumed, "With your voice. That is enough. It would be a mistake for you to be versatile. Versatility is for the amateur. The artist is ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... pick a 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 less than six different attachments ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... plowed. The apple-tree thrives on many kinds of land, but light sand, hard clay, and muck are equally to be avoided. "Good corn land" is commonly considered to be good apple land. Certain soils and regions are particularly adaptable to commercial apple-growing, but the amateur may plant quite independently of this fact. The observant man notes the many conditions under which the apple-tree ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... loss. It is a great point for a person like me to have three nieces, quite devoted to care of me and to make me happy: cheerful, animated, and intelligent, pretty also—one of them an excellent musician, and organist to our amateur choir for week days in the chapel. By the by we have a glorious organ. How I have gone on about my miserable self—quite egotistical. "If I may be allowed the language" (the late Capt. Balne). But I thought you would like it. Good-bye. Love to Malcolm Kenmore. When do your boys ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... they have been enthusiastically praised by folk who have eaten all around the world, and set above the best of French confections by a man ten years resident in Paris, whose wife is held to be the most skilled amateur cook ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... surprise he was taken up at once, and the picture became his. John thought himself dreaming. He examined his treasure over and over, and felt sure that it was the work of no amateur beginner, but of a trained hand and a true artist soul. So he found his way to the studio of the stranger, and apologized for having got such a gem for so much less than its worth. "It was all ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... this little book, has been to give information and hints which will prove useful to the amateur. Some of the plans and apparatus suggested would not be suitable for fish culture on a large scale, but my object has been to confine myself entirely to operations on a small scale. I have to thank the Editor of Land and Water for permission ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... said the skipper; "only don't get within shot. I don't want to have to turn amateur doctor again on your behalf. I am clever enough at cuts and bruises, and I dare say if I were hard put to it I could manage to mend a broken leg or arm, but I wouldn't undertake to be hunting you all over to find where a rifle-bullet had gone. Accidents are my line, not wounds received in war; ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... was bid. With trembling fingers she opened one of the envelopes. They both were typewritten as to address; but one seemed addressed by an amateur in the art of typewriting. Nancy opened ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... Zelter, will always be resorted to by readers who wish for intimate knowledge of the innermost processes of the great poet's mind. Zelter was himself an extraordinary man. By trade he was a stonemason, but he became a skilled musical amateur, and a most versatile and entertaining critic. To him fell the remarkable distinction of becoming the tutor of that musical genius, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, while he also acquired the glory of being ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... service on the coming Sunday night, at which there was to be a collection for funds to build another mission- house a hundred miles farther North, and she had been practising music she was to sing. Her mother had been an amateur singer of great power, and she was renewing her mother's gift in a voice behind which lay a hidden sorrow. As she cried herself to sleep the words of the song which had moved her kept ringing in her ears and echoing in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... touch shows a little stiffness, but the wonderful fire is there. He's an amateur, but a fine one. Practice will bring him to a finish in no time. But I never heard an Englishman play ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... cried Noah, angrily. "This man talks like a professional amateur yachtsman. He has no regard for facts, but simply goes ahead and makes statements with an utter disregard of the truth. The Ark was not stove in. We beached her very successfully. I say this in defence of my seamanship, which was ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs |
