"Performing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forty-seven thousand. His book may be recommended as scandalmongering—hardly as an aid to virtue. Here we have the servants' evidence of Roman history, the plots and the secret vices. Suetonius, fortunately, has the grace not to write as though in narrating his story of vice he were performing a virtuous act. If we are to have stories of fashionable sinners, let us at least have them naked and not dressed up in the language of outraged virtue. Scandal is sufficiently entertaining by itself. There is no need to lace ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... to tell me that the piece is prohibited in Paris," exclaimed Napoleon, smiling. "But Paris is a Vesuvius—what is inflammatory in France is perfectly harmless in phlegmatic Germany. Let the actors prepare for performing the 'Death of Caesar;' I will order it to be played in a few days. Tell them so.—Well, Constant, what ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... cathedral-schools of that kingdom in the twelfth century, among whom we meet with many of the most illustrious names for learning of that age.... The sciences that were taught in these cathedral schools were such as were most necessary to qualify their pupils for performing the duties of the sacerdotal office, as Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Theology, and Church-Music." ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Queen of Spain, on alighting at the governmental palace, found awaiting them the grand marshal, the Duke de Frioul, who escorted them to their apartments, and presented to them General Count Reille, the Emperor's aide-de-camp, performing the duties of governor of the palace; M. d'Audenarde, equerry, with M. Dumanoir and M. de Baral, chamberlains charged with the service of honor near ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... they ran, and tried to get ahead; but the more they shouted the more Solomon kicked up his heels and ran, performing a series of capers that suggested youth ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... clerks of the parliament of Paris, under a mock king, with the privilege of performing religious ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... but known to be performing a post perilous and vital service, was a squadron of Dutch vessels of all sizes, lining both the inner and outer edges of the sandbanks off the Flemish coasts, and swarming in all the estuaries and inlets of that intricate and dangerous cruising-ground ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... now here is that of Psalm cxxiii. 2-4. I feel that God can perform for, by, or rather use me as His instrument in performing, if He has a mind to; so I am looking for His hand, gazing about among the people that come to my stand to see the ones God has sent. I feel as helpless as a Chinese farmer in a drought; but when God opens the heavens, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... theological studies. Very few of these prophets seem to have been favored with especial gifts or messages from God, in the sense that Samuel and Elijah were. They were teachers and preachers rather than prophets, performing duties not dissimilar to those of Franciscan friars in the Middle Ages. They were ascetics like the monks, abstaining from wine and luxuries, as Samson and the Nazarites and Rechabites did. Religious asceticism goes back to a period that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... always felt these transports of joy in performing acts of charity, but at the beginning of my religious life Jesus wished to make me feel how sweet to Him is charity, when found in the hearts of his Spouses. Thus when I led Sister St. Peter, it was with so much love that I could ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... bridegroom so hard with bumpers, that in less than an hour he made divers efforts to sing, and soon after was carried to bed, deprived of all manner of sensation, to the utter disappointment of the bridemen and maids, who, by this accident, were prevented from throwing the stocking, and performing certain other ceremonies practised on such occasions. As for the bride, she bore this misfortune with great good humour, and indeed, on all occasions, behaved like a discreet woman, perfectly well acquainted with the nature of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... out of gear at the start, overwhelmed with political functions, as incapable of performing their proper duties as their supplementary duties, and, from the very beginning, either powerless or mischievous.[2308] Changes repeatedly marred by arbitrariness from above or from below, set aside or perverted now ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... could appreciate brains respected him, and those whose ideas of a man related to his muscles were devoted to him. It was while he was performing the work of the store that he acquired the sobriquet of "Honest Abe"—a characterization he never dishonored, and an ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... smile, the sickness of a favourite monkey, or the formidable "impossibility" of matching a set of old china. Such are the calamities of having nothing to do. We see in those pages instances of high-born men contented to linger round the court for life, performing some petty office which, however, required constant attendance on the court circle, and submitting, with many a groan, it must be confessed, to the miserable routine of trivial duties and meagre ceremonial, much fitter for their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... not a fairy, my good child!" said Annie. "I'm a poor, exhausted girl, who thought she was performing a very heroic ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... a circus, is neither here nor there. For one thing, I assure you it was not for the bright eyes of Mlle Renee Saint-Maur or her lesser sister luminaries. Ben Flint, the English clown, classically styled "Auguste" in the arena, and his performing pig, Billy, somehow held the secret of my fascination. Ben Flint mystified me. He was a man of remarkable cultivation; save for a lapse here and there into North Country idiom, and for a trace now and then of North Country burr, his English was pure and refined. In ordinary life, too, he spoke ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... see how one nurse gets time to take care of a whole city—mercy!" Gloria's personal experience with nurses had been two to one girl. She remembered them now—the gentle day-nurse and the gentle night-nurse, who had moved soft-footedly about her bed, performing soothing little offices. Uncle Em ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Green talk of the morality of an action being dependent upon our choice between right and wrong, what they probably have in their minds is the perception of right and wrong. For we may perceive the possibility of one course while we are performing another. But the power of choice is clearly limited. A man cannot choose to be a mathematician, however much he may see the desirability of becoming one. And many a man may in the moral sphere see the advisability of his being different in character from what he is, but may altogether ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... Great Exceptions. Poets are for ever performing the impossible. "No man putteth new wine into old bottles ... new wine must be put into new bottles." But putting new wine into old bottles has been the steady professional occupation of John Masefield. While many of our contemporary vers librists and other experimentalists have been on the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... were pretty, and showed the delicacy of their ear. The girls excelled in the dance; the married women were forbidden to take part in it, and the men never did. The dancers executed a species of ballet, and, according to the judgment of travellers, they might with little trouble become capable of performing on our theatres. The English dances they soon learnt, and in the well-known hornpipe, especially, displayed ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... captain of the guard, Rene de Veaux had done duty with the few old men and invalids who were pressed into service as sentinels, and he had manfully shouldered his cross-bow, and paced the walls through many long hours of storm, rain, and darkness. Although, in his pride at thus performing the duties of a real soldier, the boy allowed no word of complaint to escape him, he felt what the others expressed openly—that this guard duty, now that the Spaniards and savages had departed, and in the midst of a storm so terrible that it did not seem possible for mortals to face it, was ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... and woods. The old game laws of France, like the old game laws, and indeed like many other old laws, of England and of other countries, were not over-mild. Was not a woman first strangled and then burned in England for 'coining' in the year 1789, while the States-General were performing at Paris their fantastic overture to the ghastly drama of the Terror? Yet England in 1789 knew a great deal more of personal liberty than France knows now in 1889. The tradition of the seignorial right of hanging boys for killing rabbits originated, it is probable, with Enguerrand IV., Sire ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... excavate ruins that have already long been known, to visit out-of-the-way towns that date from colonial days, to traverse old, even if uncomfortable, routes of travel, or to ascend or descend highway rivers like the Amazon, the Paraguay, and the lower Orinoco—all of these exploits are well worth performing, but they in no sense represent exploration or adventure, and they do not entitle the performer, no matter how well he writes and no matter how much of real value he contributes to human knowledge, to compare himself in anyway with the real wilderness wanderer, or to criticise the ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... beyond the paper directions and delved in my book and hammered away until, when Rufus, with stately coldness, announced some time after noon that dinner was served, we both declared that it was impossible, though Matthew was at that moment performing the last chore commanded by dusting the medicated ashes under the last wing of the last Lady Leghorn, held tenderly in my arms. The mash had been concocted and heated in the cleansed whitewash bucket over a fire improvised by Matthew between two stones beside the barn, because ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... performing the duties of a host, George. See, Doll's trencher is empty, and the grace-cup is standing by your elbow unheeded. Are you ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... received your letters yesterday.... How I wish that I had joined that merry dance on Christmas Day at Dunmore, and seen B. and R. performing their reel steps, and F.[2] snapping his fingers! You knew now how differently my New Year was passed—traversing that vast city of the dead—meditating over that 28th December which Herod had already hallowed.... These letters are my conscience and memory, the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... they have devoted their lives to the performance of this duty, with the usual mixture, it is true, of ambition and selfishness, but still, after all, with as much conscientiousness and honesty as the mass of men in the humbler walks of life evince in performing theirs. William of Normandy appears to have been one of this latter class; and in obeying the dictates of his ambition in seeking to gain possession of the English crown, he no doubt considered himself as fulfilling the obligations of ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the wand, on which he seated himself in an upright posture, looking round on the spectators, and saluting them, after his own fashion. Then he waited the orders of his master, which he executed with the utmost precision, running from one end of the rod to the other counterfeiting death, and performing a multitude of astonishing feats, as he was bidden by his master. After these performances were finished, the pupil received a reward for his good behavior, and for his proficiency in study. The master invited him to come and kiss ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... joyful frenzy, and ran about the room grasping at everything that happened to be in his way. He seized one of the bed-posts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar. He pulled aside a window-curtain in order to admit a clear spectacle of the wonders which he was performing, and the tassel grew heavy in his hand— a mass of gold. He took up a book from the table. At his first touch it assumed the appearance of such a splendidly bound and gilt-edged volume as one often meets with nowadays, but on running his fingers through the leaves, behold! it was a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... clothes; presently she drew a chair to the table, and began to work with needle and thread, darning, tightening buttons, performing the many jobs which only a wife would find. As she sewed she glanced again and again at her husband; he had sunk deep into his chair in an abandonment of rest, his legs stretched before him, his pipe between his teeth, his shining ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... by a happy shifting of lights with which practice had familiarized Miss Bart, the cause shrank to a pin-point in the general brightness of the effect. But brilliant young ladies, a little blinded by their own effulgence, are apt to forget that the modest satellite drowned in their light is still performing its own revolutions and generating heat at its own rate. If Lily's poetic enjoyment of the moment was undisturbed by the base thought that her gown and opera cloak had been indirectly paid for by Gus Trenor, the latter had not sufficient poetry in his composition ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... floated away down the current of the Tana ended the incident of our attack on the Masai camp. The spears and shields and other arms we took up to the Mission, where they filled an outhouse. One incident, however, I must not forget to mention. As we were returning from performing the obsequies of our Masai friends we passed the hollow tree where Alphonse had secreted himself in the morning. It so happened that the little man himself was with us assisting in our unpleasant task with a far better will than he had shown where live Masai were concerned. Indeed, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... thus happily ridiculed by Person:—'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the Microcosm, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's middling style.... But what can you expect, as Lord Kames justly observes, from a school where boys are taught to rob on the highway?' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... orchestra struck up, and Christie found herself marching and counter-marching at word of command. At first, a most uncomfortable sense of the absurdity of her position oppressed and confused her; then the ludicrous contrast between the solemn anxiety of the troop and the fantastic evolutions they were performing amused her till the novelty wore off; the martial music excited her; the desire to please sharpened her wits; and natural grace made it easy for her to catch and copy the steps and poses given her to imitate. Soon she forgot herself, entered into the spirit of the thing, and exerted ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... it is so. It is doing work, even then, good work, which gentle breezes are unable to do. It is carrying away dangers which gentler currents of air would not have the power to carry away. And even when they cause destruction in their course, they are still performing friendly offices to man. They are inspiring him with a livelier consciousness of his absolute dependence upon God, and of the folly of resisting His will. They are exercising his intellectual powers, by leading him to devise means for his protection from their fury, and obliging him also to ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... could have contented himself with performing the one duty required of him and then gracefully effacing himself, his success would have been assured. But that was not Quin's nature. Having identified himself with the family, he promptly assumed full responsibility for its welfare. By the end of the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... with the electricity of the torpedo, and of the anguille temblante of Surinam, especially since that most curious discovery of Mr. Walsh's, that the former of these wonderful fishes has the power of giving a proper electrical shock; the electrical matter which proceeds from it performing a real circuit from one part of the animal to the other; while both the fish which performs this experiment and all its apparatus are plunged in water, which is known ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... cab and was soon bowling along toward the busy waterway. Directly he sat bolt upright, rigid and startled to find himself more awakened to the realization of his absurd action. Again it entered his infatuated head that he was performing the veriest schoolboy trick in rushing to a steamship pier in the hope of catching a final, and at best, unsatisfactory glimpse of a young woman who had appealed to his sensitive admiration. A love-sick boy could be excused for such a display of imbecility, ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Telegraph with a resolve to walk to the theatre for rehearsal: a resolve which had also come to Jill and Nelly Bryant, eating stewed prunes in their boarding-house in the Forties. On the summit of his sky-scraper, Wally Mason, performing Swedish exercises to the delectation of various clerks and stenographers in the upper windows of neighboring buildings, felt young and vigorous and optimistic; and went in to his shower-bath thinking of Jill. And it was of Jill, too, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... having so industrious and thrifty a son-in-law as Fidelio promises to be to comfort his old age. The action now begins in the courtyard of the prison, where, before the jailer's lodge, Marcellina is performing her household duties—ironing the linen, to be specific. Jaquino, who has been watching for an opportunity to speak to her alone (no doubt alarmed at the new posture which his love affair is assuming), resolves to ask her to marry him. The duet, quite in the Mozartian vein, breathes simplicity ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... late in the night, and I had been performing some little sick-room offices, when suddenly he looked up to me, and exclaimed, "This will never do! You are killing yourself for me, and I will not permit it You must have some one to relieve you. If I had not been made selfish by ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... take part in every conflict, had raised a regiment of volunteers principally composed of men from the Pacific coast. It was known as the California Regiment, and was encamped near Washington.**** On the 1st of August, while performing the double and somewhat anomalous duty of commanding his regiment and representing Oregon in the Senate, Mr. Baker entered the chamber in the full uniform of a Colonel in the United-States army. He laid his sword upon his desk and sat for some time listening ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the play at the Duke of York's Theatre "in the Chinese manner," and even more genuinely in the Chinese manner than its producers openly profess. This significance lies in the fact that the Chinese manner of performing plays, like the Chinese manner of making pots, is the ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... reasonings, and no mystery beyond the reach of his illuminating torch. He lamented the absence of progress in the understanding of that evidence which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact. But this difficulty did not impede him from an attempted solution. He thought himself performing a great service when he addressed himself to the "destruction of that implicit faith and credulity which is the bane of all reasoning and free inquiry."[136] He refused to acknowledge a Supreme Being, in the following ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... together,' I said. 'A grand swim, my old lad'; and I clapped his back as I spoke, and encouraged him, as I was in the habit of doing, to express his feelings without reserve. But, rather to my surprise, instead of wagging his tail, and wrinkling his nose, and performing any of his usual antics, the creature only lifted up his face and began to whine. He had lain, for the quarter of an hour while I had been resting, at the edge of the little cliff, with his head dropped over it; but whether he had been taking a sleep in that position, or had ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... authorities and worked for hours under very trying conditions {354} helping frightened natives into places of safety, removing valuables and other articles from houses that apparently were in the path of the flames, and performing cheerfully and efficiently all the tasks given to them by the firemen and scout master. They were complimented in the public press, and in a ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... puggris from Mewar; tulwars and khandas from Bhundi. In some of the little shops, bamboo structures that thrust an underlip out into the street, there was Mhowa liquor, and julabis, and kabobs of goat meat. Open spaces held tiny circuses—abnormal animals and performing goats, and a moon-bear on a ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... glance was a professional tribute to the strength of a frame capable of performing such a feat. He turned his attention to Sisily, bending over her and feeling her pulse. With a sharp exclamation he dropped her wrist and tore open the front of her dress, placing his hand on her heart. With his other hand he took up his stethoscope from ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... in this case is a public thing. It is rightly called by some of our writers national credit. The word denominates its original. It is produced by the nation's probity, the honor and exact performing national engagements.' ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of this question is at once apparent. In the case of a criminal prosecution, it asks whether the accused had sufficient motive for performing the deed. In connection with political and economic propositions that advocate a change in existing conditions, this test asks whether the new method proposed is sufficiently virile and far-reaching ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... to the college attends on the gymnastic ground to observe the efforts each boy is obliged to make in performing his exercises. When the exercises are ended, the doctor examines the boy's pulse, and, with the aid of an instrument invented for the purpose, tests the heat of his brain. The boy with whom the exercises agree will show a healthy heat and a strong, full pulse; ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... Statute-book bearing upon the subject," which "authorize the President, after he shall have ascertained that the Marshal, with his posse comitatus, is unable to execute civil or criminal process in any particular case, to call out the Militia and employ the Army and Navy to aid him in performing this service, having first, by Proclamation, commanded the insurgents to 'disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes, within a limited time'"—and thereupon held that "This duty cannot, by possibility, be performed in a ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... endeavoured to enter public life, when, in 1832, he stood unsuccessfully for the borough of Finsbury. During the later years of his life he resided in London, devoting himself to the construction of machines capable of performing arithmetical and even algebraical calculations. He died at London on the 18th of October 1871. He gives a few biographical details in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), a work ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... not seek to bring reproach home to you; let that, ladies, lie between yourselves and conscience. I only draw your attention to the facts; which have been sufficiently patent to the world, whatever Lord Hartledon may think. And now I have said my say, and leave you; but I declare that were I performing this burlesque of a marriage, as that young clergyman is about to do, I should feel my prayers for the divine blessing to attend it were but ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... as they were not performing their functions as peace officers they were dealing faro; and when the imminence of a less interesting era was made apparent in the dwindling of the trail herds and the increase of dry farmers, they left the good old cow-town along with many ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... to hear bitter truths about her husband; Mr. Shrimplin's denunciations were especially fierce and scathing, for here he felt that righteousness was all on his side and that in abusing the absconding Joe he was performing ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... with the old. In yielding to external circumstances, they appear to have different tempers. This appearance of contention is often observed in plants of the same species; they seem to hesitate and deliberate, ere they adopt the mode of performing the functions of life. At length when the decision is made, apparently not without pain and effort, we are at a loss to discover an adequate cause. An oak, for instance, which loses its leaves in a St. Helena ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... part of the affair is that every man among them fears to tell us anything. I have secretly questioned most of them as to Kouaga's motive, and all I can glean is that the fetish-man at Tomboura gathered them together and, after performing some of the usual rites and sacrificing to our Crocodile-god Zomara, told them if a word were spoken to us regarding our route or destination the dread god will meet us in the forest path and devour all of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... against one another, and variously allied—that Bayard made his name forever an emblem of chivalry. In those days "king" stood for "country" in the mind of the loyal knight; and in following his king on whatever fantastic campaign, Bayard believed that he was only performing his sacred ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... dogs. It sort of made my heart crinkle up to see those magnificent animals, detailed for fatal duty without doubt, pushing on so joyously. Straining in the traces and really smiling with their great tongues hanging out, they were performing their work, proud as Punch, and eager to ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... one."—"The true light," says the eloquent Robert Hall, "in which the French Revolution ought to be contemplated is that of a grand experiment on human nature." "God permitted the trial to be made. In one country, and that the centre of Christendom, Revelation underwent a total eclipse, while Atheism, performing on a darkened theatre its strange and fearful tragedy, confounded the first elements of society, blended every age, rank, and sex, in indiscriminate proscription and massacre, and convulsed all Europe to its centre, that the imperishable memorial of these events might teach the ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... himself close to the wattle fence of Polly's little yard. Hearing voices, he peeped through the fence, and his eyes were soon fixed upon little Dave, who, with the fat baby and Emma Jane for spectators, is performing various tricks with infinite delight to himself. He stands upon his head, he turns somersaults, he dances, he pats, and finally he swings himself into a tree, where he skips about with the agility of a monkey. A thought comes into the organ-grinder's head; he glances ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... Sanviano's large features. Lavinia agreed with her father that Gheta was a fool. She must be thirty, the younger suddenly realized. Bembo was growing hysterical from the tea and his own shrill anecdotes. He resembled a grotesque performing bird with a large beak. Lavinia's mind returned to the silent dark man who had passed in a cab. She wished, now, that she had been sitting at the front of the window—the object of his unsparing intense gaze. She ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... trial were rudely denied the counsel for the defence. The principles of law, recognised in England as sacred, were scouted from the bench, and the farce of trial proceeded through its different stages to the final denouement with perfect regularity, every one performing the part assigned him with ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... had great fun in "stumping" each other; which consisted in one performing a certain feat and challenging the others to do it, and if matched in that, then daring them to some ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... ill-fame. And parading the side-walks, numerous Levantine damsels, who seek by their finery to imitate their fellows of the Paris boulevards, but who by mistake, as we must suppose, have placed their orders with some costumier for performing dogs. ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... swallows in a garden for the first time at Ghadames. They darted over the heads and through the foliage of the graceful palms, performing sweet eccentric circles. To me, they were winged messengers from the fair bowers ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... joined, she throws the rice over all those who are present at the banquet. Then the old woman gives a loud shout, and all answer her with a similar shout; and the marriage contract or ceremony is completed. Up to this time, her parents do not allow the young couple to eat or sleep together; but by performing this ceremony they deliver her up as his wife. But if, after the marriage contract has been negotiated by a third party, the man who seeks marriage should repent of the bargain and seek to marry another ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... labors of the two brothers, who are employed in the invention of the designs of their several works, in drawing the plans, in preparing the models, and then in overseeing the younger artists at their tasks, themselves performing all the higher and more difficult parts of the labor. Demetrius was working alone at his statue; the room in which he was, being filled either with antiquities in brass, ivory, silver, or gold, or with finished specimens of ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... work at once, and until midnight I attended on them, preparing the lint, washing the blood-stained instruments, changing the water in the pails, and performing other necessary but more gruesome tasks which I need not particularise. At midnight the young cavalry surgeon, who had been freely dosed with brandy, professed himself ready to take over the minor casualties. The two hospital surgeons, by this time worn out, accepted the offer and withdrew. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Reform Bill, that the Irish people are perfectly capable of exercising for the advantage of the Empire the highest rights and privileges of citizenship; and by the proposal to renew the Crimes Act they simultaneously declare, on the other hand, that the Irish people are perfectly incapable of performing for the advantage of society the lowest and most ordinary duties of citizenship.... All I can say is that, if such an incoherent, such a ridiculous, such a dangerously ridiculous combination of acts can be called a policy, then, thank God, the ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... best-trained dogs, he had employed the usual course of training—how the conviction had been impressed on his mind, that by gentle usage, and steady perseverance in inducing the animal to repeat again and again what was required, not only would the dog be capable of performing that specific act, but that part of the brain which was brought into activity by the mental effort would become more largely developed, and hence a permanent increase of mental power ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... on specialization of practice between surgeons and physicians soon tended to disappear, a superior education often being the only attribute or function of a physician not shared by the surgeon. Barbers held a unique position, but in performing phlebotomies, a minor operation, they retained associations with health and disease. Both barber and surgeon shared a certain expertness with tools, ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... had never yet been trod by the foot of man, looking out on the solitary ocean, whose waters were untracked save, on an occasional moonlight night, by some pirate caravel or government vessel sent from Europe in pursuit of it, the Moorish woman proceeded to make her toilet, performing her ablutions in the stream, and the Moor unfolded the manuscript and read it again, manifesting no less emotion than he had shown ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... infraction of the rules was punished with the lash, but this did not deter the criminals from making trouble. Constantly the boatswain and his assistants were kept busy in performing the floggings that were ordered, and sometimes the cat-o'-nine-tails was in steady use from sunrise to sunset. The more severe his discipline, the more highly an officer was regarded by his superiors, and if he occasionally ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... that was what he was working for. He was sorry enough that he could go with her only in her evening diversions. During the day he entrusted her to his faithful Cotoner who attended her like an old family servant, carrying her bundles when she went shopping, performing the duties of butler and ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... made a body thrill all over, but there was considerable many tunes going on at once, and that was a drawback to the harmony, you understand; and then there was a lot of Injun tribes, and they kept up such another war-whooping that they kind of took the tuck out of the music. By and by I quit performing, and judged I'd take a rest. There was quite a nice mild old gentleman sitting next me, and I noticed he didn't take a hand; I encouraged him, but he said he was naturally bashful, and was afraid to try before so many people. By and by the old gentleman said he never could seem to enjoy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... another place—such was the explanation of her new activities Janet gave to Hannah, who received it passively. And the question dreaded about Ditmar was never asked. Hannah had become as a child, performing her tasks by the momentum of habituation, occasionally talking simply of trivial, every-day affairs, as though the old life were going on continuously. At times, indeed, she betrayed concern about Edward, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... has a right to do an act, and has imposed upon it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and treated me very well, giving me sweet things to eat till I grew fat and my skin shone. Then in the evening I was taken away, and we marched all night to the mouth of a great cave. In this cave sat a horrible old man about whom danced robed people, performing the rites of the ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... know that they will be subject to the fine of twenty pounds of gold. As for defensors and heads of the various cities and the provincial officials, a penalty of ten pounds is to compel them to do their duty, unless performing those things which have been laid down by the judges in this matter, they give the most intelligent care and the most ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... three or four such attempts it moved away, after which it appeared to recognize my kind intention and stood perfectly still while I pressed on the leg. It may be unnecessary to add that I failed in performing ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... dangerous and would break your will. A man should know how to sacrifice something to the duty he is performing. ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... necke of her sorowfull louer. And because she alone was not able to do that greuous and waightie charge, hee ordayned that like as the olde woman had bin a faithfull minister of his wiue's loue, so shee should put her hand in performing the vttermost of that worke. And so these two wretched women, were by that meanes forced to suche extremitie, as with their owne handes, they strangled the infortunate Gentleman: with whose death the Lord not yet ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... simplicity suited, the peculiar ideas of the Puritans, who, in their zeal to escape from the elaborate ornaments and pompous ceremonial employed by the Papists, had rushed into the opposite extreme, and desired that both their place of worship, and their mode of performing it, should be divested of every external decoration and every prescribed form. The more their place of meeting for prayer resembled an ordinary habitation, the better they considered it suited to the sacred purpose; and they were, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... current among the protectionists of the United States that was not current in France at the time Bastiat wrote the Sophismes Economiques. Nor was there one current in his time that is not performing its bad office among us. Hence his demonstrations of their absurdity and falsity are equally applicable to our time and country as to his. They may have even greater force among us if they thoroughly dispel the notion that Protection is an "American system." Surely ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... paid out, Trompe-la-Mort," said Contenson, suddenly emerging from behind a stack of chimneys. "You may explain to Monsieur Camusot what mass you were performing on the roof, Monsieur l'Abbe, and, above all, why you ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... was partial to the drama; and, when young, often strutted his hour at an amateur theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Upon one occasion, whilst performing the ghost in Hamlet, Mr. Hoole wandered incautiously from off the trap-door through which he had emerged from the nether world, and by which it was his duty to descend. In this dilemma he groped about, hoping to distinguish the aperture, ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... I cannot say; but a high fever coming on, he used to rave about the savages, and the way he had blown them up. At the moment he committed the deed I daresay he had persuaded himself that he was only performing a justifiable act of vengeance. The day before we entered the harbour to which we were bound he died, and poor Green did not long survive him, so that I alone was left of all the crew ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... Enchantment, is noble and pure, because it acquires strength in proportion to the purity and beauty of the soul or will which inspires it. It is as real and has as much power, and can be exercised by any honest person whatever with wonderful effect, even to the performing what are popularly called "miracles," which only means wonderful works beyond our power of explanation. But this kind of fascination is little understood as yet, simply because it is based on purity, morality and light, and hitherto the seekers for occult mysteries ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... at this moment deeply engaged in watching Vixen and the dogs. Nip, the liver-coloured pointer, was performing his celebrated statue feat. With his forelegs stiffly extended, and his head proudly poised, he simulated a dog of marble; and if it had not been for the occasional bumping of his tail upon the Persian carpet, in an irresistible wag of self-approbation, ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... made a round of the minor cafes in the neighbourhood of the Cirque d'Hiver. After much casual questioning, he elicited the information that a well-known circus, of which Mlle. Beaucaire was at one time a shining light, was performing at that moment at Marseilles. He ascertained that during the winter season this class of entertainment perambulated the South of ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... annoyance that he hung his iron casque at his saddle-bow, and substituted the light riding-cap, termed in the language of the time a MORTIER, from its resemblance in shape to an ordinary mortar. They rode together for some time in silence, the Saracen performing the part of director and guide of the journey, which he did by observing minute marks and bearings of the distant rocks, to a ridge of which they were gradually approaching. For a little time he seemed absorbed in the task, as a pilot when navigating a vessel through a difficult channel; ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... difficult person to entertain!" he accused softly. "Here Hunch has strained a sinuous spine performing our beautiful native dances, the tango and the hesitation, and I've fluted up all the wind in the room and ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... agreed Leslie, as a somewhat fresher puff took the brig and caused the spars to buckle still more ominously. "Royal halliards, let go! Clew up and furl!" he shouted to the men who were lounging on the forecastle over some tasks that they were performing in the leisurely manner usual with ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... reference to this institution. I say, if you help this institution you will be helping the wagoner who has resolutely put his own shoulder to the wheel, and who has NOT stuck idle in the mud. In giving this aid you will be doing an act of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and this is what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those who are struggling manfully for their own independence as to pretend to entreat from you ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... an air of always being ready on duty waiting to pounce out on any patient who may arrive at any hour of the day or night and promptly transfer him to his bed. I have known of a visitor, witnessing this incident, who commented on it in a manner which showed that he imagined he had seen our unit performing its sole function; he pictured us existing purely and simply for one end—the carrying of stretchers up the front steps into the building. He was kind enough to praise the rapidity with which the job was done—but he held it to be a job which hardly justified the ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... Darragh was performing a like office for his wife, and the State Trooper, being unobserved, took Eve's slim hands and kissed them, looking up at her where he ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... life spent to the honor and glory of him who had redeemed her with his precious blood. She offered up her children upon the altar of her heart's purest affections, consecrating them to God, by having them publicly dedicated, thus performing what she felt to be an important ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... something is that makes a man into a criminal instead of constituting him into a hero. This I do know: that but for the possession of a little something, many of my friends, now homeless save when they are in prison, would be performing life's duties in settled and comfortable homes, and would be quite as estimable ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... that developed with the later development of the world empire of Rome and as the expression of its moral and spiritual side. Its head was, and so far as its main body is concerned still is, the pontifex maximus of the Roman world empire, an official who was performing sacrifices centuries before Christ was born. It is easy to assert that the Empire was converted to Christianity and submitted to its terrestrial leader, the bishop of Rome; it is quite equally plausible to say that ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... prospered me in my worldly affairs, and I am in a position far above taking payment in money for doing my duty. I am, I trust, walking in the Light, and do not want to obtain wealth—which is but of this world—for performing such duty." ...
— Officer And Man - 1901 • Louis Becke
... fellow-passenger he purposed giving a lift to,—a rabbit, muzzled and netted within a small basket, which, being appended to a parachute, was destined to come from aloft with the latest lunar intelligence. Chance, however, robbed the rabbit of the honour of performing this desperate service; for as the balloon was about to mount, the pipe bound within the neck of the valve was by some unlucky pull withdrawn, and, before this could be re-inserted, so much gas had escaped it became necessary to make a proportionate ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power |
