"Solitaire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it there's been something doin' in the solitaire and wilt-thou line. Some cross-mated pair they'll make; but I ain't so sure it won't be a ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... emphasis and copiousness of many things. He told me of the birds he had seen or heard; among them he had heard one that was new to him. From his description I told him I thought it was Townsend's solitaire, a bird I much wanted to see and hear. I had heard the West India solitaire,—one of the most impressive songsters I ever heard,—and I wished to compare our ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... himself by absurd speculations about her. If she did have a definite object in spying on Ferguson, the solitaire diamond on her engagement finger might be a bluff; her cheap manner, so out of keeping with refinement of feature and dress,—that might be faked likewise. If she were one of these female detectives you read about, who had hired ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... him at solitaire, a fooling, piffling game. He played it ninety-seven hours and failed to find it tame. In all the times he dealt the cards no two games were ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... ladies manage their beaux and the old ones their children; dropped into the card-rooms and watched the innocent games—some heavy ones of "draw poker" with a "bale better;" some light ones of "all fours," with only an occasional old sinner deep in chess, or solitaire. For cards, conversation, tobacco, yarns and the bar make up boat life; it being rare, indeed, that the ennui is attacked from the barricade of a book. Then we roamed below and saw the negroes—our demons of the night before, much modified by ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... of L100,000. In the year 1885, when she appeared in New York as Violetta, the diamonds she wore on that occasion were estimated to be worth L60,000. One of the handsomest lockets in her possession is a present from Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and a splendid solitaire ring which she is in the habit of wearing was given to her by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Of no less than twenty-three valuable bracelets, one of the most costly is that presented by the committee of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... of the company improved, too—or retrograded, according to the point of view. Now and then a pair of deer, with long tails and manes, hitched to a spider-web of a wagon, would drive up to the front entrance and a gentleman wearing a watch-chain, a solitaire diamond ring, a polished silk hat, and a white overcoat with big pearl buttons, would order "a pint of fiz" and talk in an undertone to Muffles while he drank it. Often a number of these combinations would meet in Muffles's back room and a quiet little game would last ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... by my engagement solitaire, was upon the third finger of my left hand. Jack would be sure to see them if ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... at Captain Blake across the table. The captain was deep in a game of solitaire, but he looked up ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... all very fine, said I. Your Utopia, your New Atlantis, and the rest are pretty to look at. But your philosophers are treating the world of living souls as if they were, each of them, playing a game of solitaire,—all the pegs and all the holes alike. Life is a very different sort of game. It is a game of chess, and not of solitaire, nor even of checkers. The men are not all pawns, but you have your knights, bishops, rooks,—yes, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... there is usually a season of devotion to a kind of solitaire which is played with shells on a circular board, scooped out into a series of little cup-like depressions. They will amuse themselves with this for hours at a time. The shells are moved from cup to cup, and other shells are thrown like dice to determine ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... to say that the dinner, as a dinner, was a complete success. Half-way through the Swiss general missed his diamond solitaire, and cold glances were cast at Raisuli, who sat on his immediate left. Then the King of Bollygolla's table-manners were frankly inelegant. When he wanted a thing, he grabbed for it. And he seemed to want nearly ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... reminded me of the woolsacks in the House of Lords. In the farthest corner of the room, elevated on a crimson velvet cushion, sat the Vizier, wrapped in a superb pelisse: on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger, incrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire as large as the knob on the stopper of a vinegar-cruet, and which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. In his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... looked at her. How beautiful she was! She still wore slight mourning, and her dress was black silk, that fell in full rich folds behind her, high to the round white throat, where it was clasped with a flashing diamond. A solitaire diamond blazed on her left hand—those slender, delicate little hands—her engagement ring, no doubt. They were all the jewels she wore. The trimming of her dress was of filmy black lace, and all her masses of bright golden hair were twisted coronet-wise round her noble ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... shown into a large room, brightly carpeted and hung with portraits. On a leather lounge a man lay asleep; at a round table a man sat, solemnly playing solitaire; and in one corner of the apartment sat several men, discussing an outrageous clause in the constitution that Henry had just signed. The new member was introduced to them. Among the number were John ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... native ones, so, remembering that at the foot of one I had found some ant-hills covered with beautiful diamond-like quartz crystals, I called it Diamond Butte, and the other, having a dark, weird, forbidding look, I named on the spur of the moment Solitaire Butte. These names being used by the other members of the corps, they became fixtures and are now on all the maps. I had no idea at that time of their becoming permanent. This was also the case with a large butte on the east side of Marble Canyon, which I had occasion to sight to from the Kaibab. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... have quite enough to do, for mathematics, the sciences, and the arts and crafts all lie ahead of me in my programme. I plainly see that I have played my last game of tiddledywinks and solitaire. But I'll have fun anyhow. If I gain a half-year in each twelve-month as I have my programme mapped out, in seventy years I shall have a net gain of thirty-five years. Then, when Atropos comes along ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... exasperated too, by the discovery that Miss Wincher seemed not only unconscious of any possible rivalry between them, but actually unaware of her existence. Listless, long-faced, supercilious, the young lady from Washington sat apart reading novels or playing solitaire with her parents, as though the huge hotel's loud life of gossip and flirtation were invisible and inaudible to her. Undine never even succeeded in catching her eye: she always lowered it to her book when the ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... make a quarrel, it also takes two to keep a peace. We must be in terrible earnest about bringing in a new era, and yet we cannot commit the folly of trying to play the peace game by ourselves. It is not solitaire. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... the Solitaire as inhabiting Bourbon, either in Pere Brown's letter or in the Voyage de l'Arabic Heureuse, from whence the notice of the Oiseau Bleu was extracted. I have since seen Dellon, Relation d'un Voyage des Indes Orientales, 2 vols. 12mo. Paris, 1685, in which there is a brief notice of the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 30. Saturday, May 25, 1850 • Various
... novels that d'Argens recommended had different fortunes in England. D'Argens's book, Memoires du Marquis de Mirmon, ou Le Solitaire Philosophe (Amsterdam, 1736) was never translated into English and apparently was not much read. But Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon, the younger, was extolled by Thomas Gray and Horace Walpole, quoted by Sarah Fielding,[9] and had the honor, if one can trust Walpole, of an ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... stripped the gauntlet without purpose from one of her little brown hands. A solitaire sparkled on the third finger. Again she murmured, "I'll ask mother"; then turned and flashed up the steps, her slender limbs carrying with fluent grace ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... ornamented with embroidered trees conventionally displayed on their backs, fronts, and sleeves; others showed heraldic blazonry, while a blue velvet tunic was covered with balas rubies set in pearls, alternating with suns of solid gold with great solitaire pearls as centres. Again, in 1390, when the king visited Dijon, he presented to the same nephew a set of harnesses for jousting. Some of them were composed largely of sheets of beaten gold and silver. In some gold and ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... to supper with flattering alacrity; they were so good to take pity on a solitaire, and Mrs. Bartlett was such a famous housekeeper; he had heard of her apple-pies in Boston. Dave scented patronage in his "citified" air; he and other young men at the table—young men who helped about the farm—resented everything about the ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... please let your father put this ring on your engagement finger?" and he gave Mr. Walton a magnificent solitaire diamond. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... half enough of you," Ruth said, giving him a pat on the cheek with the gloved finger that now wore a diamond solitaire. To Mr. Gretzinger she continued, "If you get us home without a wetting, you may stay and eat with us; but if you don't, why, you can go straight ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... arranged a small card table by the fire in the hall. He found cards, and, with a package of cigarettes and a box of matches convenient to his hand, commenced to play solitaire. The detective, Bobby gathered, had brought his report up to date, for he lounged near by, watching the Panamanian's slender fingers as they handled the cards deftly. Bobby, Graham, and Katherine were glad to withdraw beyond ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... hand, palm down, on the edge of his desk. His solitaire threw off actual sparks of brilliancy. "I can crush every one of you," he said, as he shoved his hand along the edge of the desk toward Eleanore. "That boy out there, your brother, is an underhanded sharper. If I want to I can make him turn a somersault, believe me." He shoved ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the boxes of curious games, With all sorts of objects and all sorts of names,— Lotto and Ludo, the Fox and the Geese, Halma and Solitaire—all of a piece; Go-bang and Ringolette, Hook-it and Quoits, For junior endeavours and senior exploits; And Skittles and Spellicans, Tiddle-de-winks— But one mustn't mention the half that one thinks; Chessmen ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... name. We were asked to meet her at tea, in the dining-room of a private house in Brook Street, a non-professional affair, merely a little gathering to hear her views upon God. On our arrival I had a good look at her heavy, white face, as deeply pitted with smallpox as a solitaire board, and I wondered if she hailed from Moscow or Margate. She was tightly surrounded by strenuous and palpitating ladies and all the blinds were up. Seeing no vacant seat near her, I sat down ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... Jim was disgraceful. She snubbed him, ignored him, tramped on him, and Jim was growing positively flabby. He spent most of his time writing letters to the board of health and playing solitaire. He was ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... He played solitaire with his marked cards and whistled. He worked at his raised-picture puzzles and sang snatches of merry song. He talked with anybody who came near him—talked very fast and laughed a great deal. But behind the whistling and the singing and the laughter ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... not too big, for that price. The little ones cost much less than the big one in proportion. A large solitaire costs much more than a number of small ones taking up as much space. But why this sudden interest in diamonds? Have you twenty pounds to spend and are you thinking of spending it all in diamonds to take home as a ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... playing solitaire, and at once I recalled that it was at Aix-les-Bains I had first seen him, and that he held a bank at baccarat. When he asked me to sit down I said: "I saw you last summer ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... sparkled and glistened a great diamond set in the style much affected by the "sporting gent" of the day. "See this diamond. It cost eleven hundred dollars in San Francisco six months ago; and here, this solitaire," and he produced from an inner pocket an unquestionably valuable ring and, with trembling hands, laid them upon the table in front of the judge advocate; "and here," and he whipped from the waistband of his trousers a massive and beautiful watch. "There ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... that for many days they travelled woods where no sunshine entered; where no trail had ever been, nor foot of man had trod: that they had lost their way. Nor did he make his comrade know that one night he sat and played a game of solitaire to see if they would ever reach the place called Lonely Valley. Before the cards were dealt, he made a sign upon his breast and forehead. Three times he played, and three times he counted victory; and before three suns had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... so easy now that she considered the sequence of her inspired moves. Drifting near another shanty-boat, she passed the time of day with a runaway couple who had come down the Ohio. They had dinner together on their boat. A solitaire and an unscarred wedding ring attested to the respectability of ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... may talk as you please of the wildness and impracticability of the sentiments of my amiable solitaire, they are at least in the highest degree amusing and beautiful. There is a voice in every breast, whose feelings have not yet been entirely warped by selfishness, responsive to them. It is in vain that the ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... thousand dollars in less than a month, off a working capital of three thoroughbred horses and about sixty dollars cash. And I'll add the knowledge that I was playing against men that would slip a cold deck if they played solitaire, they were so crooked. And if that doesn't recommend me sufficiently, I'll say I'm a deputy sheriff of Crater County, and Jesse Cummings knows my past. I want to hire you to go with me and make some money, and I'll pay you forty a month and five per cent bonus on my profits ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... table was Danvers Carmichael, the cards spread before him, making a solitaire, and at a little distance, holding the bridle of his gray horse, stood the Duke of Borthwicke, who, I judge, had interrupted by his entrance a morning talk between Danvers and Nancy. There was a peculiar gleam in the eyes ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... his paper, Madame her fancy work, and Edith, attempting to play solitaire, hopelessly fumbled her cards. Madame made a valiant effort to carry on a conversation alone, but at length the monologue wearied her, and she slipped quietly ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... courtesy, and Iras, after playing with the pendent solitaire of her necklace of coins, rejoined, "For a Jew, the son of Hur is clever. I saw your dreaming Caesar make his entry into Jerusalem. You told us he would that day proclaim himself King of the Jews from ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... himself hopelessly beaten and a bad loser. So the Crown Prince put away the cards, which belonged to Miss Braithwaite, and with which she played solitaire in the evenings. Then he lounged to the window, his hands in his pockets. There was something on his mind which the Chancellor's reference to Hedwig's picture had recalled. Something he wished to say to Nikky, without ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... entered the little house. Old Caleb sat at the dining-room table playing solitaire. He looked up as she entered, swept the cards into a heap and extended his old arm to encircle her waist as she sat on the broad arm of his chair. She drew his gray head down on ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Melton that morning recurred to him. He pulled his hat over his eyes, half turned in his seat, and, picking up a greasy pack of cards that lay on the table began to lay them out before him as in solitaire. But under the brim of his sombrero, his keen eyes stole frequent glances at the two, who had now adjourned to a table in the farther corner and were engaged in a low and ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... I holler 'Boo,' the South Denboro folks—some of them, anyhow—set up and take notice. I can lead the grand march down in this neighborhood once in a while, and I cal'late I'm prettier leadin' it than I would be doin' a solitaire jig for two years on the outside edge of New York's best circles. And I'm mighty sure I'm more welcome. Now my eyesight's strong enough to see through a two-foot hole after the plug's out, and I can see that you and 'Bije's children ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... faint aura of evil and his mind that refused to focus, playing a lifeless solitaire with ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... seemed not to notice the singer's confusion. And when the latter disappeared with Hattie, she appealed to Sue, beaming with excitement. "Did you notice?" she asked. "A solitaire! She's ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... other games about which he is not so keen: solitaire, for instance. For solitaire is a social game that soon loses its zest if there be not some devoted friend or relative sitting by and simulating that pleasureable absorption in the performance which you yourself only ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... his manner. He would not tell them what was the matter and left them to their game. It interested them no more. It seemed so unimportant whether the cards fell right or not. The points were not worth the excitement. Their son was playing solitaire, and it was not coming out at all. They discussed the possible reasons for his gloom. There were ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... it. A few nuggets would be his reward. But if the aeroplane had been disabled or had reached Blue Creek too late, why then Red Bill held all the cards. Mr. Bell had reasoned this out with himself over and over again, while his brother sat, staring and disconsolate, playing endless games of solitaire. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... M. Berthier d'Eyzelles read the newspaper, and the Princess Seniavine played solitaire. Therese sat, her eyes half ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... leisurely, her slim hands balanced lightly on her narrow hips, and strolled into the second dressing-room, where Mrs. Vendenning sat sullenly indulging in that particular species of solitaire ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... on the northward speeding train, he left Portlaw playing solitaire in their own compartment, and, crossing the swaying corridor, entered the state-room opposite. Miss Wilming was there, reading a novel, an enormous bunch of roses, a box of bonbons, and a tiny kitten on the table before ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... with gold like the coat. Across his breast went the purple riband of his order of the Spur; and the star of the order, an enormous one, sparkled on his breast. He had rings on all his fingers, a couple of watches in his fobs, a rich diamond solitaire in the black riband round his neck, and fastened to the bag of his wig; his ruffles and frills were decorated with a profusion of the richest lace. He had pink silk stockings rolled over the knee, and tied with gold garters; and enormous diamond buckles to ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... self-respecting Bornean girl demands that her suitor shall establish his social position in the tribe by acquiring a respectable number of heads, just as an American girl insists that the man she marries must provide her with a solitaire, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... well knowe that I solytarie and of all company Pource que bien scaues que moy solitaire et de ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous
... outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed in persons of humble birth and arduous life. Her dusky hair, belonging to the family of neutral-brown, was elaborately puffed and frizzed, and in her ears hung large solitaire diamonds that glowed like globes of fire, and scattered rays that were reflected in the circlet ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... I can get him into good humor without half trying. Oh, Count Marlanx! Come here, please. You aren't angry with me, are you? Wasn't it awful for me to run away and leave you to play solitaire instead of poker? But, don't you know, I was so wretchedly tired after the ride, and I knew you wouldn't mind if I—" and so she ran glibly on, completely forestalling him, to the secret amusement of the others. Nevertheless, she was nervous and embarrassed ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... for instance, why is the King of Hearts the only one that hasn't a moustache?" Patricia peeped to see what cards lay beneath that monarch, and upon reflection moved the King of Spades into the vacant space. She was a devotee of solitaire and invariably cheated ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... if he had been caught with a hand in a jam pot. And it meant only one thing: she knew of the Bowenville episode. Involuntarily his eyes flashed to her left hand with which she was brushing back the hair under her hat brim. There was no diamond solitaire on its third finger. Surely, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... when a rube makes a winning he gambles or gets him a woman, but these hicks take their coin and buy banks.... Ranger's a real town; everything wide open and the law in on the play. That makes good times. Show me a camp where the gamblers play solitaire and the women take in washing and I'll show you a dead village. The joints here have big signs on the wall, 'Gambling Positively Prohibited,' and underneath the games are running high, wide, and fancy. Refined ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... have done my bidding at all events, this time," thought I, and I looked at the ring more attentively. It was a splendid solitaire diamond, worth many hundred crowns. "Will you ever find your way back to our lawful owner?" was the question in my mind when Albert made his appearance in his ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... happen to be all alone and in an idle mood, I play a game of solitaire, of which I am very fond. I use playing cards marked in the upper right-hand corner with braille symbols which indicate the value of ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... nightgown, and there on her breast, hung by a little gold chain about her neck, was a diamond ring—Guy Franklin's solitaire; every one in Riverbend knew ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... stood at the wheel, and watch the proceedings in the cabin; especially when the steward was setting the table for dinner, or the captain was lounging over a decanter of wine on a little mahogany stand, or playing the game called solitaire, at cards, of an evening; for at times he was all alone with his dignity; though, as will ere long be shown, he generally had one pleasant companion, whose ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... tall, thin, handsome man, this young officer—a year or two older than Maude, whom he greatly resembled. Seated before a table, he was playing at that delectable game "solitaire;" and his eyes looked large and wild with surprise, and his cheeks became hectic, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was in no mood for the long table d'hote dinner, with its inevitable comments upon the affair of the afternoon. He preferred a sandwich and a glass of wine in a secluded corner of the smoking-room, after which he played a few games of solitaire, then betook himself to bed. His sleep was not a restful one, being haunted by departing steamers, arriving Chinamen, and an endless ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... was really at a loss what to say of the cause of such a sudden illness. At last he said that it might be an attack of the "ver solitaire" (tape-worm). He declared that it was not dangerous; that he knew how to cure her. He ordered some new powder to be taken, and left, after having promised to return the next day. Half an hour after she began to complain of a most terrible pain in her chest, and fainted again; but before doing ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... the graceful Chevalier de Jacquelin, toying with his solitaire. "Your father is bringing him to life that he may ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... At seven-thirty-five Miss Tee poured out her chocolate; And Todgers at nine-thirty yawned 'Lights out! I'll go to bed.' At half-past nine Miss Tee 'retired'—a word she used instead. Their hours were identical at meals and church and chores, At weeding in the garden, or at solitaire indoors." ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... I roomed with last year was a fiend at Canfield solitaire. He'd sit up until all hours of the morning, trying to make himself believe he wasn't cheating, and I lost ten pounds from not ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... Our Hero had learned two new kinds of Solitaire and began to call around for a Dish of Tea with some distant Female Relatives who had long supposed him Dead. Along about the Cocktail Hour he would find himself sitting first in one Chair and then in another, but he Cashed big every Morning when he awoke and found that ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... their form. Soon after the publication of this volume Madame Ackermann removed to Paris,where she gathered round her a circle of friends, but published nothing further except a prose volume, the Pensees d'un solitaire (1883), to which she prefixed a short autobiography. She died at Nice on the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... over now. I've lived through the game of Christmas solitaire in a big city, and I feel as relieved as a man just getting out of a dentist's office. He's minus a few molars, and aches considerable, but he's full of a ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... at fifteen hundred dollars a dozen; the controller and the board of audit passed the bills, and a mayor, who was simply ignorant but not criminal, signed them. When they were paid, Mr. O'Riley's admirers gave him a solitaire diamond pin of the size of a filbert, in imitation of the liberality of Mr. Weed's friends, and then Mr. O'Riley retired from active service and amused himself with buying real estate at enormous figures and holding ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... for those who may to-day prepare The wedding trousseau for the morrow's wear, A voice of warning cried, "There's many a slip Betwixt the Altar and the Solitaire!" ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... doing that tell in the long run. A farmer may by chance get a good crop by seeding on unplowed stubble land, but he must feel that he is engaged in the business of trying to cheat himself, like the boy playing solitaire—he does not let his right hand know what his left hand is doing. The good farmer is an artist in his work, while the poor farmer is a veritable bungler—blaming his tools and ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... affairs for more than a week, and Alan was becoming somewhat restless. He was not a saint, but only one of the next best things, a bright, lovable boy; and having rather exhausted his resources of reading, playing solitaire, and talking to his mother, the evening usually found him decidedly cross after his dull day, and he only half responded to the ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... of the caffe in Bassano who could have given some of its particulars from personal recollection. He was an old and smoothly shaven gentleman, in a scrupulously white waistcoat, whom we saw every evening in a corner of the caffe playing solitaire. He talked with no one, saluted no one. He drank his glasses of water with anisette, and silently played solitaire. There is no good reason to doubt that he had been doing the same thing every ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... with blushing happiness, and solitaire engagement rings, thus is shown the first result of Mrs. Allen's policy, and ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... back, arrives every night at the Mellicite Club for his dinner on the dot of eight"—Citizen Drew waved his hand at the illuminated circle of the First National clock—"leaves the club exactly at nine for a walk through the park, then marches home, plays three games of solitaire, and ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... trick of his when in a quandary. He had curtly refused a game of bezique; so Rogers had produced a pack of cards from his own pocket—soiled, frayed cards, which had likely done service on many a similar occasion—and was whiling the time away with solitaire. To sit there watching his slow manipulation of the cards, his patent intentness on the game; to listen any longer to the accursed din of the gnats and flies passed Mahony's powers of endurance. Abruptly shoving back his chair, he went ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... a crimson velvet cushion, wrapped in a superb pelisse; on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger encrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. In his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit." "In his manners," ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... for an engagement ring, a solitaire diamond, and clusters or colored stones are not considered in this connection. As after the wedding the engagement ring is used as a guard to the wedding ring, it should be as handsome as possible, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... Carancro was a Creole gentleman who looked burly and hard when in meditation; but all that vanished when he spoke and smiled. In the pocket of his cassock there was always a deck of cards, but that was only for the game of solitaire. You have your pipe or cigar, your flute or violoncello; he had his little table under the orange-tree and ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... a slender fellow sitting at a table in a corner of the long room, his sombrero pushed back on his head. He was playing solitaire and his back was towards Jerry Strann, who now made a brief survey, hitched his cartridge belt, and approached the stranger with a grin. The man did not turn; he continued to lay down his cards with monotonous regularity, and while he was doing it he said in the gentlest voice ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... his break didn't faze any one but Ellabelle. The host was an old train-robber who'd cut your throat for two bits—I'll bet he couldn't play an honest game of solitaire—and he let out himself right off that he had once worked in a livery stable and was proud of it; but poor Ellabelle, who'd been talking about the dear Countess of Comtessa or somebody, and the dukes and earls that was ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... understand ourselves better than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get a fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don't expect sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond ear-rings, begin to be speculated about among the young people as among possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house with Axminster and hang our windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that it was "all off" and that he was going to marry the maid of Philadelphia. He had thrown the solitaire engagement ring he had given her down a sewer! At first he would confess nothing as to the reason or the details, but being so close to me it eventually came out. Apparently, to the others as to myself, he ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... toothy vise. And when he was not feeding the stove's flaming maw with broken boxes, barrel-staves and green wood, his blowzy countenance was suspended over the pasteboards he was thumbing in a game of solitaire. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... old voice—which I dare say in its time had often said to the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamond-hilted sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire—sounded gravely in the moonlight, and two cherry-colored maids came fluttering out to receive Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she gave me her hand and a smile, and said good night, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... was seated at a small green-covered table playing solitaire. A velvet smoking-jacket and a pair of wine-coloured morocco slippers suggested that the day's work ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... difficult for the thief to dispose of it, a description of the stolen jewelry was given out, and summarized as follows: a pearl collar; a diamond bow-knot with pear-shaped pearl pendant; a ring set with two diamonds and a ruby; a ring set with diamond and ruby; a small diamond ring; a solitaire diamond ring; a diamond marquise ring; a ring set with two diamonds crosswise; a diamond bracelet; a ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... letter himself, and feeling almost sure of a favorable response, went and bought Bessie a small solitaire ring, such as he could afford, and sent it with the most loving, hopeful letter he had yet written ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... contemplated her elegant person with rapture. A coat of rosy velvet, embroidered with gold spangles, a vest to match, embroidered likewise in the richest fashion, breeches of black satin, diamond buckles, a solitaire of great value on her little finger, and on the other hand a ring: such was her toilet. Her black lace mask was remarkable for its fineness and the beauty of the design. To enable me to see her better she stood before me. I looked ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... kindly sent him there) His father sleeps, and, till the last trump shake The corners of the earth, shall not awake. Whence flows this sorrow, then? Behind his chair, Didst thou not see, deck'd with a solitaire, Which on his bare breast glittering play'd, and graced With nicest ornaments, a stripling placed, 420 A smooth, smug stripling, in life's fairest prime? Didst thou not mind, too, how from time to time, The monstrous lecher, tempted ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... up with the cook, Lucy said, and had showed her a game of Solitaire in the morning by the kitchin window. He had then fallen asleep in the pantrey, the window being up. In the afternoon, luncheon being over and the Familey out in the car for a ride, he had gone out into the yard behind the house and pretended to look to see if the crocuses were ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... this ring," she said slowly, pointing to a slender circlet of gold set with a solitaire diamond, "if you think there is any chance ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... replied. "Just look at them next year's models, Mawruss, and a little thing like cigars wouldn't trouble you at all. Silk, soutache and buttons they got it, Mawruss. I guess pretty soon them Paris people will be getting out garments trimmed with solitaire diamonds." ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... her room one day it occurred to her that Phil's pictures were missing. There had been several, so prominently placed on mantel, dressing-table and desk that one saw them the first thing on entering. Then she noticed that the solitaire was gone from Mary's finger, and was tempted to ask the reason, but resisted the impulse, thinking that it was probably because of some trivial misunderstanding which would right itself ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the piano, and he went to her side and took her hand—the hand wearing the solitaire that had ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... spent the day putting her multitudinous belongings into place, hanging up her bird-cage, arranging her books and her bureau-drawers, setting up a stocking, and making the acquaintance of the old ladies next her. She taught one of them to play double solitaire that very evening. And then she talked a little while concerning Dr. Maybury, about whom Julia had never seemed willing to hear a word; and then she read, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... teach him double solitaire." Deacon turned toward the door, where Captain Donovan waited, and added with a sigh, "And I fancy he'll skin me, too, if he plays like the rest of you ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... that the man in the seat across the aisle was looking at him intently. He was a large, florid man, wore a conspicuous diamond solitaire upon his third finger, and Everett judged him to be a traveling salesman of some sort. He had the air of an adaptable fellow who had been about the world and who could keep cool and clean under almost ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... read the paper while Madame played solitaire. When she turned the queen of hearts, she remembered the red-haired woman whom she had seen in the crystal ball. And they were not going away, after all! Madame felt that she had in some way gained an unfair advantage ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... she said, "he will not. He has just promised to teach me a new solitaire, and I won't yield him to ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... anticipated, but what of that? Doubtless you recall this ring also. I think it signified an engagement. Take it. There may come a day when it will be ornamental as well as useful to your wife." He accepted the solitaire which she drew from her finger. His ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the Nineteenth Indiana, was the undisputed fistic monarch of the Island. He did not bear his blushing honors modestly; few of a right arm that indefinite locality known as "the middle of next week," is something that the possessor can as little resist showing as can a girl her first solitaire ring. To know that one can certainly strike a disagreeable fellow out of time is pretty sure to breed a desire to do that thing whenever occasion serves. Jack Oliver was one who did not let his biceps rust in inaction, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... could to make the time pass quickly. He had managed to seat Miss Bridger so that her back was toward the stove and the Pilgrim, and he did it so unobtrusively that neither guessed his reason. He taught her coon-can, two-handed whist and Chinese solitaire before a gray lightening outside proclaimed that the night was over. Miss Bridger, heavy-eyed and languid, turned her face to the window; Billy swept the cards together and stacked them with ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... very early and secured a private interview, previous to the arrival of the other guests, and it was noticeable that, as the lady received, a new and magnificent solitaire gleamed upon the third ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... its high water mark in that awful hymn. The solitaire of its sphere and time in the novelty of its rhythmic triplets, it stood a wonder to the church and hierarchy accustomed to the slow spondees of the ancient chant. There could be such a thing as a trochaic ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... fallut donc chercher Quelque nouvel objet qui l'en pt dtacher. De l'Inde a l'Hellespont ses esclaves coururent; Les filles de l'gypte Suse comparurent; 40 Celles mme du Parthe et du Scythe indompt Y brigurent le sceptre offert la beaut. On m'elevait alors, solitaire et cache, Sous les yeux vigilants du sage Mardoche. Tu sais combien je dois ses heureux secours. 45 La mort m'avait ravi les auteurs de mes jours; Mais lui, voyant en moi la fille de son frre, Me tint lieu, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... instincts qui bravent la raison, C'est l'effroi du bonheur et la soif du poison. Coeur solitaire, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... we got frightened. I had had nearly enough jumping, but I took Captain Delamere on my toboggin—didn't trust him to steer, I can tell you, my dear—and bumped down quite safe. Bertie was insensible, with a queer cut on his forehead; so I extracted the solitaire out of his shirt-collar, and Captain Delamere gave him a nip out of his pocket-pistol, and then he seemed to pull himself together and sat up. A lot of people had collected round, and Mr. Vavasour asked me to come and tell ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... too, a good many of them, but we found them rather uninteresting at first. It was like two people playing solitaire to see who would get it first; more like a race or a—a competitive examination, than a real game with some ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... easy indifference of a man who holds himself superior to his company. He was indeed an important person, as was testified by his portly appearance; his hat laced with POINT D'ESPAGNE; his coat and waistcoat once richly embroidered, though now almost threadbare; the splendour of his solitaire, and laced ruffles, though the first was sorely creased, and the other sullied; not to forget the length of his silver-hilted rapier. His wit, or rather humour, bordered on the sarcastic, and intimated a discontented man; and although ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... his chair and poked the fire. Then he came back to the ample, well-gowned, firm-looking lady, and sat beside her on the sofa. He took her hand gently and looked at the two rings—a thin band of gold, and a small solitaire diamond—which kept their place on her third finger in modest dignity, as if not shamed, but rather justified, by the splendour of the emerald which glittered ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... idle men looked up at him with mild interest, withdrawing their eyes briefly from solitaire or newspaper or cribbage game or whatever had been holding their careless attention ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... on it. There are six prim chairs, two of them not to be sat upon, backed against the walls, and between the window and the fireplace a chest of drawers, with a snowy coverlet. On the drawers stands a board with coloured marbles for the game of solitaire, and I have only to open the drawer with the loose handle to bring out the dambrod. In the carved wood frame over the window hangs Jamie's portrait; in the only other frame a picture of Daniel in the den of lions, sewn by Leeby in wool. Over the chimney-piece with its shells, in which the roar ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... eyebrows. "Ought to! That tastes of duty. Don't let it come to that. We'll take it off if you like." She touched the solitaire he had given her. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine |
