"Whist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... didn't say, but he cut short Sandy's visit to his sister, and suggested that he go down and tell the assemblage under the front gallery that they would better return to whist—or whatever game was in progress when the alarm was given. The colonel could not invite them in as matters stood, and they slowly dispersed, leaving only a senior or two and Lieutenant Stuyvesant to question further, for Stuyvesant, coming from afar and arriving late, was full ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... in before I got back. I sauntered down two streets, and then drove to the Club. In the card-room I found Dick and two other fellows, one of whom was a stranger to me. As I made the convenient fourth, we played a rubber at whist. After this it seemed generally voted that the weather was too fatiguing for the strain of whist, and an adjournment was made to an open window, chairs, and drinks. I was preoccupied with my own thoughts, and I sat listening fitfully to the other men's gossip. Sometimes ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... given most of her time to the mastering of that one accomplishment. But here is where her cleverness showed most. It was not that she really did everything, and did it perfectly. It was that she never attempted anything which she had not mastered. For example, she never played whist, because she had no memory, no finesse, and because she played games of chance so much better. She could never settle herself down to a multitude of details, but she could plan and execute a coup of such brilliancy that it would ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... now enter the drawing-room at Laughton, in which were already assembled several of the families residing in the more immediate neighbourhood, and who sociably dropped in to chat around the national tea-table, play a rubber at whist, or make up, by the help of two or three children and two or three grandpapas, a merry country-dance; for in that happy day people were much more sociable than they are now in the houses of our rural Thanes. Our country seats became bustling and animated after ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you? Whist!' said Hollyhock. 'Do you want to spoil the whole thing by unseemly mirth? Now, then, mum's the word. Wee Jeanie shall sleep in my room to-night; but I somehow fancy that I have shown Leuchy who means to be head ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... as cordially hated as Bobby was liked at the Idlers', where he had crept in "while the window was open," as Nick Allstyne expressed it. Ordinarily he was most prim and pretty of manner, but to-night he was on vinously familiar terms with all the world, and, crowding himself upon Bobby's quiet whist crowd, slapped ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... alacrity, saying, "Mr. Graham, you have brought me into danger, and must now extricate me. Papa is an inveterate whist- player, and you have put my errand here quite out of my mind. I didn't come for the sake of your delicious muffins altogether"—with a nod at her hostess; "our game has been broken up, you know, Mrs. Mayburn, by the departure of Mrs. Weeks ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... yer young un's mine, and not yourn, and you've no kind o' business with it. I'm going to sell it, first chance; mind, you don't cut up none o' yer shines about it, or I'll make ye wish ye'd never been born.' I tell ye, they sees it an't no play, when I gets hold. I makes 'em as whist as fishes; and if one on 'em begins and gives a yelp, why,—" and Mr. Loker brought down his fist with a thump that fully explained ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a moment, and then began: "A couple of days before the wedding we went over to Major Scheffer's to help prepare for it. You know we have no restaurateurs nor confectioners to depend upon, and such occasions are busy seasons. The gentlemen played whist, rode about the plantation, or tried the Major's wines, while indoors we, all of us—married ladies and girls and a dozen old aunties—were at work with cakes, creams, and pastry. I recollect I took over our cook, Prue, because Lou fancied nobody could make such wine jelly as hers. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... ten o'clock, when the children were asleep in bed, the king and queen were playing whist with his next brother and sister-in-law (who had not gone away), and the Princess Elizabeth was kneeling on a footstool beside the card table, looking on. Monsieur Campan, one of the most trusty of the queen's attendants, came ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... confidential relations were more or less disturbed, for it particularly grieved me to hear Minna's talents and mental gifts criticised by the other. One evening I had promised Minna to have tea with her and Mme. Haas, but I had thoughtlessly promised to go to a whist party first. This engagement I purposely prolonged, much as it wearied me, in the deliberate hope that her companion—who had already grown irksome to me—might have left before my arrival. The only way in which I could do this ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... but its pride and its severity of manners. I am seldom alone, I never go out unless accompanied by my mother-in-law or my husband. We receive the heavy people of the city in the evening. They play whist at two sous a point, and I listen to ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... for giving so much of her time to Church work, and said that she should go with him to dances and whist parties. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... talk languished, she would beg her husband to read to them from the BALLARAT STAR, until, as often as not, Mrs. Beamish fell asleep. Frequently, too, she persuaded him to go out and take a hand in a newlyformed whist club, or discuss politics ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... and Rastignac sat down to a whist-table; Florine, Madame du Val-Noble, Esther, Blondet, and Bixiou sat round the fire chatting. Lucien spent the time in looking through a book of ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... their work with rigid accuracy: I will do them justice—to do it perfectly; but granted that, as speedily as possible: and, their work over, to amuse themselves—literally: to play games that they enjoyed with childish keenness, and fill up all the day with them; to read the papers; to play whist; to smoke in the sun; to get through a certain amount of general reading for conversational purposes, and to gossip about one another and their doings, and talk about their work, in which, it must ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... years began to find these precepts insufficient; and made an addition of no less than six hundred and fifty others! They hoped to make a pocket-book of reference on morals, which should stand to life in some such relation, say, as Hoyle stands in to the scientific game of whist. The comparison is just, and condemns the design; for those who play by rule will never be more than tolerable players; and you and I would like to play our game in life to the noblest and the most divine advantage. ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the shadow of a flying bird that comes and goes on the wall and is none the less hard to forget. It is so with all, I'm thinking, high and low, rich and poor; we see these shadows of what might be, and whist! they are gone again, as if to say we'd live again in another world and there is plenty of time in other lives than ours—time for the right head to lean on the shoulder that was meant for it and this hand ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Then—whist—up the chimney he went after the fairies, and before he had time to let out his breath he was standing in the middle of Spain, and strangeness ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... be lonely," she said. "There's the excitement of work, of mingling with crowds, of going when and where one pleases. A woman is hemmed in by a thousand petty must-nots. She can't go out after dark; she can't play whist or billiards, or sit at a table in the open and drink and smoke and spin yarns. Woman's lot is wondering and waiting at home. When I marry I suppose that I shall learn the truth ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... a progressive whist party for an hour, at the end of which there was considerable fun occasioned by the awarding of the prizes, and after that everybody was ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... if to punctuate my ruminations with an interrogation point? Does he like this dog-day morning, with its alternate shower and sunshine, and its constant stickiness and heat? In any case I was glad to hear him, though I cannot in the spirit of veracity call him a good singer. Whist! There goes an oriole, a gorgeous creature, flashing from one elm to another, and piping in his happiest manner as he flies. It might be the middle of May, to judge from his behavior. He likes dog-day weather, there can be no ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... jeerers or sneerers, because they did not stick at anything. It happened, for instance, that the wife of a local lieutenant, a little brunette, very young though she looked worn out from her husband's ill-treatment, at an evening party thoughtlessly sat down to play whist for high stakes in the fervent hope of winning enough to buy herself a mantle, and instead of winning, lost fifteen roubles. Being afraid of her husband, and having no means of paying, she plucked up the courage of former days and ventured on the sly ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... This was a serious deduction in the important point of quantity, and Uncle John felt a slight touch of remorse at having thrown, as he thought, his friend's Italian sausage into the Thames. However, there was still provision in the garrison. But the run of luck in events, as at a game of whist, may be against you; and when it is so, be assured that human prudence and foresight—remarkable as even Mrs. Bagshaw's, who bespoke her pigeons seven weeks before she wanted them—avail but little. When the packages were first stowed in the boat, the pigeon-pie was inadvertently ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... all is whist and still, Save that the sea playing on yellow sand Sends forth a rattling murmur ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... thinking about! And then dear Mama went, and I stepped into her place with P'pa. He wasn't exactly an invalid, but he did like to be fussed over, to have his meals cooked by my own hands, even if we were in a hotel. And whist—dear me, how I used to dread those three rubbers every evening! I was only a young woman then, and I suppose I was attractive to other men, but I never forgot Mr. Totter. And Cousin George," she turned to him submissively, "when you were talking about a woman's real sphere, I felt—well, almost ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... Marmont, with only twelve thousand troops, was powerless against a great city in arms. The king thinking it was only an emeute, to be easily put down, withdrew to St. Cloud; and there he spent his time in playing whist, as Nero fiddled over burning Rome, until at last aroused by the vengeance of the whole nation, he made his escape to England, to rust in the old palace of the kings of Scotland, and to meditate over ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... of that name, falling unexpectedly into this annoying affair, the Assistant Commissioner dismissed brusquely the vague remembrance of his daily whist party at his club. It was the most comforting habit of his life, in a mainly successful display of his skill without the assistance of any subordinate. He entered his club to play from five to seven, before going home to dinner, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... general direction, and betrayed an astonishing familiarity with the requirements. Under his direction they grouped themselves about the table as for whist, Viola at the north end, with Clarke directly opposite, and Kate and Mrs. Lambert on either side and quite near him. The two inquisitors then took seats—Morton at the psychic's ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Rucker through his pipe. "Take two grains every night. And don't make your trip too long, Johnny, because we haf needs of you. It is ein villainous game dot Melville play of whist, and dere is no oder substitute. Auf wiedersehen, und keep your eyes dot mule's ears between when you on der edge of ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... "Whist, Dick," said his father, putting a strong arm round the girl's waist. "See, my wench, yonder is the goodly light of day. ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to celebrate it with a party. The Christmas before she had been in mourning, but in her father's day it had been usual to invite a few respectable farmers to a respectable revel, beginning with high tea, then proceeding through whist to a hot supper. Joanna would have failed in her duty to "poor father" if she had not maintained this custom, and she would have failed in consistency with herself if she had not improved upon it—embellished it with one or two ornate touches, which lifted it out of its ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... professional earnings ought to have been ample for all his needs, and no excuse can be urged for the selfishness which made him a burden to his father after he had left Cambridge. But chambers in Piccadilly, as well as at the Inner Temple, a couple of West End clubs, a nightly rubber at whist, and certain regular drains upon his pocket which never found their way into any book of accounts, made up a formidable total of expenditure by the year's end. He was too clever a man of the world to let his reputation—or even his conscience—suffer by his self-indulgence, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... still the hunting establishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive presents and dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there were still the count's games of whist and boston, at which—spreading out his cards so that everybody could see them—he let himself be plundered of hundreds of rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to play a rubber with Count Rostov as a most ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... heart's bird!' The screams and hootings rose again: They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred Their noisy plumage; small but plain The lonely hidden singer made A well of grief within the glade. 'Whist, silly fool, be off,' they shout, 'Or we'll ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... criminal— the road she wandered on grew, step by step, more extended. There being no definite boundary, it was inevitable that women should go very far, and when the educated woman does nothing more than to steal a pencil from her husband and to cheat at whist, her sole fortune is that she does not get opportunities or needs for more serious mistakes. The uneducated, poverty-stricken woman has, however, both opportunity and need, and crime becomes very easy to her. Our life is rich in experiment and our will too weak not to fail ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... old-time belle, whose smiles had kindled the fierce passion that was here quenched, more than a century since. Did she marry the rival, of surer aim and cooler head and heart, or did she haunt this place with regretful tears? Did she become a stout, prosaic woman, and end her days in whist and all the ancient proprieties, or fade into a remorseful wraith that still haunts her unfortunate lover's grave? One shivers, and grows superstitious. The light twinkling from the windows of the cottage under the pines becomes very attractive. As ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... eleven o'clock, he usually plays whist till that hour; her ladyship probably not until after midnight. Do you wish ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... whist in order to amuse Mr. Dudley. They had small dinners, at which Hazard was sometimes present, and more often Strong, until he was obliged to go West to deliver a course of lectures at St. Louis. In spite of Mr. Dudley's supposed dislike ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... man, with an ill-made black scratch-wig, that stared out on either side from his lantern jaws. He resided nine months out of the twelve at St. Ronan's, and was supposed to make an indifferent good thing of it,—especially as he played whist to admiration. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... made her acquaintance at this time, and it was a delight to hear her speak of those gay, brilliant days. How often Baron von Humboldt, Rauch, or Schleiermacher had escorted her to dinner! Hegel had kept a blackened coin won from her at whist. Whenever he sat down to play cards with her he liked to draw it out, and, showing it to his partner, say, "My ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he remarked to Lord Southend as they were sitting down to whist, "but, really, don't you think the ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... waste life in our office must have been before Miss Larrabee came to us to edit a society page for the paper! To be sure we had known in a vague way that there were lines of social cleavage in the town; that there were whist clubs, and dancing clubs and women's clubs, and in a general way that the women who composed these clubs made up our best society, and that those benighted souls beyond the pale of these clubs were out of the caste. We knew that certain persons whose names were always handed ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... comparison, the first is infinitely the more beautiful and intellectual game. The ethical distinctions are positively bewildering between balls of ivory and balls of wood; between mallets and cues; between green baize and green grass. A Christian household must not sit down and play at whist, but they are engaged in a Christian and laudable manner if they spend an evening over Dr. Busby, or Master Rodbury cards. Really, it is hard to draw the moral line between cards bearing aces and spades, and cards ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... fatiguing to the listeners. A witty man is an agreeable acquaintance, but a tiresome friend. "The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company," says Mrs. Montagu, "is the meanest person in it. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist: if the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do not love to see a man of wit win all ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... him, Elisabeth's glowing auburn colouring had sobered to a steady brown—evidenced in the crisp, curly hair and sun-tanned skin; and the misty hyacinth-blue of her eyes had hardened in the eyes of her son into the clear, bright azure of the sea, whist the beautiful contours of her face, repeated in his, had strengthened ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... that there was one point connected with the card-playing which he feared might overtax the credulity of his readers, but which he protested had occurred more than once: "Apropos of rolling, I have forgotten to mention that in playing whist we are obliged to put the tricks in our pockets, to keep them from disappearing altogether; and that five or six times in the course of every rubber we are all flung from our seats, roll out at different doors, and keep on rolling until we are ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... BUMBLEPUPPY—Bumblepuppy is persisting to play whist, either in utter ignorance of all its known principles, or in defiance ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... hold up. It lasted through fried soles and a huge fowl—done enough this time—and a bread-and-butter pudding impaired by too many raisins. Through the long end of a game of chess begun by Sally and Dr. Conrad the evening before, and two rubbers of whist, in which everybody else had all the good cards in their hands, as is the case in that game. And through the visit to Neptune ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... her room, whilst the counsellor takes his ease on the sofa by her side, evidently the familiar of the house, and the confidant of the mistress. My lord takes his pleasure elsewhere than at home, whither he returns jaded and tipsy from the "Rose", to find his wife yawning in her drawing-room, her whist-party over, and the daylight streaming in; or he amuses himself with the very worst company abroad, whilst his wife sits at home listening to foreign singers, or wastes her money at auctions, or, worse still, seeks amusement at masquerades. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... why a man who plays a good game of whist should not know how to make love. There are so many points in common. You can play a game of whist with only enough skill to keep your partner's hands from your throat, or you can play it for all ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... "Those who drink the waters in the morning are inert—like all invalids, and those who drink the wines in the evening are unendurable—like all healthy people! There are ladies who entertain, but there is no great amusement to be obtained from them. They play whist, they dress badly and speak French dreadfully! The only Moscow people here this year are Princess Ligovski and her daughter—but I am not acquainted with them. My soldier's cloak is like a seal of renunciation. The sympathy ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... on deck, and a cup of tea or coffee, you form your party for whist or some round game, or join the ladies in their boudoir, which I ought to have mentioned before as leading out of the great room forward, being a pretty square apartment, fitted up with sofas, mirrors, loo-table, and other little elegancies which ladies love to look upon ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... they think that it is the fault of a Swiss mountain, or a Titian Madonna, or a poem by Browning if it does not at once ravish their inert souls into a seventh heaven. Yet these are people who occasionally ride, or play at golf or whist, and who never expect the cards and the golf clubs to play the game by themselves, nor the very best horse to carry them to some destination without riding. Now, beautiful and interesting things also require a deal of riding, of playing with; let us ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... one end and of mutton at the other, curried kidneys, sweet omelettes and cheese, whisky with water or soda to drink at dinner; and, after the meal, four bottles of claret were placed on the table, and cigars or pipes lit. Half an hour later four of the party sat down to whist, and the rest, going outside the tent, sat or threw themselves down on the sand, and smoked or chatted till it was time to ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... one is to appear in the publick Rooms undressed, or enter abruptly into each other's Apartment without intimation. Every one has hitherto been so careful in his Behaviour, that there has but one Offender in ten Days Time been sent into the Infirmary, and that was for throwing away his Cards at Whist. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... have anything to say to a revolutionary who had taken the oaths. His society, therefore, consisted of a few individuals of what were then called liberal or patriotic, or constitutional opinions, on whom he would call for a rubber of whist or ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... may have several years of useful life before him. I need not point out to you that the conditions of the negotiation are now greatly altered. On the one hand, my partners and myself may seem to occupy the position of players who work a double ruff at whist. We are open to the marquis's offers for release, and to yours for his eternal absence from the scene of life and enjoyment. But it is by no means impossible that you may have scruples about outbidding your kinsman, especially as, if you did, you would, by the very fact, become ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... to have an opportunity of gaining a new experience, but on the whole I must say I prefer a quiet rubber of whist. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... mildly at the Bar, After a touch at two or three professions, From easy affluence extremely far, A brief or two on Circuit—"soup" at Sessions; A pound or two from whist and backing horses, And, say three hundred from his ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... "Whist, mon," replied a professor from the University of Aberdeen, "let us whip the gillravaging villains first, and then we can describe them by any intitulation that may ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... in a clothes-bag, and the pair of them ultimately arranged to stand watch and watch. While one went down to eat, the other kept an eye on the two stateroom doors. When Churchill wanted to take a hand at whist, the other man mounted guard, and when the other man wanted to relax his soul, Churchill read four-months'-old newspapers on a camp stool ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... worth. It is overestimated. A good orator must be something of a poet, which means that he cannot be a stickler for truth and mathematical accuracy. He must be inspiring, quick, and excitable, able himself to kindle the enthusiasm of others. But a good orator I fear will rarely play a good game of whist or of chess, and will be even less satisfactory as a statesman. The emotional element and not cool reason must predominate in his make-up. Physiologically, I believe, the same man cannot be a good orator and a calm ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the General kept interposing. "Let him tell his tale his own way, Colonel. Let him give you the whole story, Monterey and all," and Strain, who had hoped to spend the evening with his cronies at the club and whist, was compelled to sit till long after nine and hear the details of ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... the tea-table, my dear," explained Miss Belinda. "And afterward we—we converse. A few of us play whist. I do not. I feel as if I were not clever enough, and I get flurried too easily by—by ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... remained to finish the holiday, admitting nothing. He scarcely ever left her alone, but followed her like a shadow, he was like a doom upon her, a continual 'thou shalt,' 'thou shalt not.' Sometimes it was he who seemed strongest, whist she was almost gone, creeping near the earth like a spent wind; sometimes it was the reverse. But always it was this eternal see-saw, one destroyed that the other might exist, one ratified because the other ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... exemplary patience, stared at each other, and sighed bitterly. Order was entirely out of the question; no one had time to think of such a thing. Smoking and card-playing were perseveringly carried on all day and all night; it can easily be imagined that things did not go so quietly as at an English whist-party. The incessant rain rendered it impossible to leave the cabin even for a short time. The only consolation I had was, that I made the acquaintance of the amiable composer Lorzing, a circumstance which delighted me ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... arrangement, for in case they should fall in with some out-post, the girl's knowledge of the Indian tongue, would, perhaps, enable her to deceive the sentinel: and so the sequel proved, for scarcely had they descended one hundred feet, when a low "whist" from the girl, warned them of ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... "'By the back door—whist!' says I. ''Twas a glorious blow for liberty we struck,' I continues; 'but we was overpowered by numbers. Let us accept our defeat like brave ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... grace,—all expressions and interchanges of kind feeling are means of grace. Shaking hands is a means of grace. Free, friendly talk, a concert or a song, a social ride, a family feast, a social gathering, a pleasant chat, a game at whist, all are means of grace. All are holy to holy souls. All are pure to pure minds. Eating, drinking, sleeping are all divine ordinances. Religion, in its higher and more enlightened form, raises our views of all things; makes all things beautiful; ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... modest request upon my word," he indignantly exclaimed as they walked away. "To want to nail me to a card-table for the next two hours with herself and Dr. Grant, who are always quarrelling, and that poking old woman, who knows no more of whist than of algebra. I wish my good aunt would be a little less busy! And to ask me in such a way too! without ceremony, before them all, so as to leave me no possibility of refusing. That is what I dislike most particularly. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... which every living being on the globe was swept away, to be replaced by a brand-new creation when the world returned to quiescence. A scheme of nature which appeared to be modelled on the likeness of a succession of rubbers of whist, at the end of each of which the players upset the table and called for a new pack, did ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... this, we old folks taking up our residence at Baroona had agreed to make common house of it. We were very dull at first, but I remember many pleasant evenings, when we played whist; and Mary Hawker, in her widow's weeds, sat sewing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... her bed, found a box of bonbons that her mother had won as a prize in an afternoon whist party the day before, and crept back into bed. When she had eaten nearly all of the candy, she sat up and in the softly shaded light, looked at the box with its few remaining bits of candy. She was wondering where she ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... peaceful was the night Wherin the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist Whispering new joys to the mild ocean— Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... before they'd put the kybosh on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow the rocks about to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, in one ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... together the family once a year,—our brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces,—we all of us love the children so much, and have a good time. I would not give that up. The dinner is very well; but the evening goes off a little heavy; that whist playing, we both dislike it; so much talk about such trifles. What if we should have a Child's Festival on Christmas night, and ask all the little folks in the town to your nice New Hall,—it will be done before that time, won't it? It will be a good christening for it; and ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... Mr. Travers would return from town, and at seven they dined, sitting long at table; and afterwards, if there were friends, there would be a rubber of whist. It was a quiet almost sleepy existence, and Fan began to look forward with a little impatience to the end of her fortnight, when she would be able to return to her friend. For Mary's last words had been, "I shall not leave London without you." But she ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... between the Calvinism of Switzerland and the Calvinism of America. I was brought up in that faith. I went to meeting in the morning, I danced with the parson's daughter on the green in the afternoon, and I played whist with the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... preference to every other; the person is gone whom it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every departure destroys a class of sympathies. There's Captain Burney gone! What fun has whist now? What matters it what you lead if you can no longer fancy him looking over you? One never hears anything but the image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would care to share the intelligence. Thus one distributes oneself about, and now for so many parts ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... Taunton, he with the leonine mane, who spared her none of his forensic eloquence, but found Patricia less tractable than the most stubborn of juries. Bluff Walter Thurman, too, who was said to know more of Dickens, whist and criminal law than any other man living, came to worship at her shrine, as likewise did huge red-faced Ashby Bland, famed for that cavalry charge which history-books tell you that he led, and at which ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... knew the weak side of everybody's character but his own. There was a gentleman of a vocal turn, and a gentleman of a smoking turn, and a gentleman of a convivial turn; some of the gentlemen had a turn for whist, and a large proportion of the gentlemen had a strong turn for billiards and betting. They had all, it may be presumed, a turn for business; being all commercially employed in one way or other; and had, every one in his own way, a decided turn for pleasure ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... kind of reading and music seem to me far better occupations for home evenings than games. There is too much hard work in chess and whist and too little sociability to make them in any way desirable. Euchre and backgammon seem invented to pass away time, which is so precious to most of us that we should like to feel we had something at the end of an hour by which our lives were richer ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... rode thirty-five miles into the territory of the Elector of B——, and met Monsieur de Schmetterling, and passed my sword twice through his body; then rode back with my second, the Chevalier de Magny, and presented myself at the Duchess's whist that evening. Magny was very unwilling to accompany me at first; but I insisted upon his support, and that he should countenance my quarrel. Directly after paying my homage to her Highness, I went up to ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... directed him to address them as follows: "M. le Vicomte de Saint Remy. Lucenay cannot do without him," said D'Harville to himself. "M. de Monville—one of his traveling companions. Lord Douglas—his faithful partner at whist. Baron de Sezannes—the friend of ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Flavouring—1d. * * Total Cost—6d. * * Time—5 Minutes * Put the yolks of the eggs into a basin and whisk them. Put the milk into a saucepan, and when it is boiling pour it over the eggs, stirring all the time. Strain back into the saucepan and whist well till it comes to boiling point; draw away from the fire, but continue whisking for a few minutes. Then pour into a basin, sweeten and flavour to taste, and it is ready ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... doubt I doubt, he'll give ye all ye deserve. Come by. There's kindlin' to split an' praties to peel, an'—Whist! What's that ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... to draw, and the first who discards is even free to change all his nine cards; but he usually limits his discard to six or seven, and avoids encroachment on the share of the next player. The two who play against the Ombre are only half in the position of partners at whist, because one of them, when his hand is strong enough, can be ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... this beneficent disturbance. And the spectacle is mighty taking and commendable; but you'll excuse me for holding that it is not Love. It bears about the same relation to Love that Bumble-puppy bears to good whist. Among the eccentricities that make up the Average Man I find none more diverting than his complacent belief that he is, or has been, or will certainly some day be, in love. As a matter of fact, the capacity to love belongs to one man or woman ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... man like this? John Perkins, who had come down as one of Scully's aides-de-camp, in a fit of generous enthusiasm, leaped on a whist-table, flung up a pocket-handkerchief, and ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... City cousin, a daughter of coz Cleve; (you are much the wiser). I had never been at her house before. My he-coz Thompson the butcher is dead, or dying. I dined with my printer, and walked home, and went to sit with Lady Clarges. I found four of them at whist; Lady Godolphin(3) was one. I sat by her, and talked of her cards, etc., but she would not give me one look, nor say a word to me. She refused some time ago to be acquainted with me. You know she is Lord Marlborough's eldest daughter. She is a fool for her pains, and ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... eats, drinks, sleeps and yawns. She rides in a coach in a red jacket, plays golf in a secondary sexual sweater, dawdles on a hotel veranda, and can tum-tum on a piano, but you never hear of her doing a useful thing or saying a wise one. She plays bridge whist, for "keeps" when she wins, and "owes" when she loses, and her picture in flattering half-tone often adorns a page ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... Of the flight of young Louis, Carlyle says: "Brave young Egalite reaches Switzerland and the Genlis Cottage; with a strong crabstick in his hand, a strong heart in his body: his Princedom is now reduced to that Egalite the father sat playing whist, in his Palais Egalite, at Paris, on the sixth day of this same month of April, when a catchpole entered. Citoyen Egalite is wanted at the Convention Committee!" What the committee wanted with Equality Philip and what they did with him has ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... It seems that I caught two in my mouse-trap! And all the time the General is so calm, so tranquil, and this household is so peaceful! Things are getting mixed up. I shan't go yet; I wish to have a game of whist! Oh! I give up all thoughts of marriage for the present. (Glancing at Ferdinand) There's a lucky fellow! He is loved by two women—two charming, delightful creatures! He is indeed a factotum! But how is it that he is more successful than I am, who have an income ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... claims her place among 'The Mystic Nine.' Her language, erewhile slumbering in the pages of the Flash Dictionary, now lives upon the lips of all, even in the most fashionable circles. Ladies accost crossing-sweepers as 'dubsmen'; whist-players are generally spoken of in gambling families as 'dummy-hunters'; children in their nursery sports are accustomed to 'nix their dolls'; and the all but universal summons to exertion of every ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... Of course you packed the cards, and could cut what you liked. You'd settled that between you. Yes; and when she took a trick, instead of leading off a trump—she play whist, indeed!—what did you say to her, when she found it was wrong? Oh— it was impossible that HER heart should mistake! And this, Mr. Caudle, before people—with your ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... that all were charmed with him; and that even Captain Barnabas postponed the whist-table for a full hour after the usual time. The Doctor did not play—he thus became the property of the two ladies, Miss Jemima ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Dowager Strafford," writes Horace Walpole (Sept. 1745), "has already written cards for my Lady Nithesdale, my Lady Tullebardine, the Duchess of Perth and Berwick, and twenty more revived peeresses, to invite them to play at whist, Monday three months: for your part, you will divert yourself with their old taffetys, and tarnished slippers, and their awkwardness the first day they go to Court in clean linen."[415] "I shall wonderfully dislike," observes the same writer, "being a loyal sufferer in a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... with a temper which no disappointment could disturb, and a brain, amid reverses, full of resource. He made his fortune in the midway of life, and settled near Enfield, where he formed an Italian garden, entertained his friends, played whist with Sir Horace Mann, who was his great acquaintance, and who had known his brother at Venice as a banker, eat macaroni which was dressed by the Venetian Consul, sang canzonettas, and notwithstanding a wife who never pardoned him for his name, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... window, and tells the story how her father (physician to George III.) was robbed of his queue in the streets on that occasion. The two old ladies have taken the brevet rank, and are addressed as Mrs. Jane and Mrs. Betsy: one of them is at whist in the back drawing-room. But the youngest is still called Miss Nancy, and is considered quite a baby by ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in London," returned the salesman, "who have two-and-thirty teeth? Believe me, young gentleman, there are more still who play a fair hand at whist. Whist, sir, is wide as the world; 'tis an accomplishment like breathing. I once knew a youth who announced that he was studying to be Chancellor of England; the design was certainly ambitious; but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the rest of our party for an entertainment he proposed to give that evening. This was easily secured, and a goodly sum was raised by dollar tickets. The sleight-of-hand was excellent. But the special performance of the evening deserves description in full. It was that of a whist-playing dog. Three passengers - one of us taking a hand - played as in dummy whist, dummy's hand being spread in a long row upon the deck of the saloon cabin. The conjuror, as did the other passengers, walked about behind the players, and saw ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... temporary embarrassments—that came out at the inquest; it was known that the Admiral had just made a twenty-third will in his favour, and that the Admiral's wills were liable to alteration every time a nephew ventured upon an opinion in politics, religion, science, navigation, or the right card at whist, differing by a shade from that of the uncle. The Admiral died of aconitine poisoning; and Sebastian observed and detailed the symptoms. Could anything be plainer—I mean, could any combination of fortuitous circumstances"—he blinked pleasantly again—"be more adverse to an advocate ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... materials. Writing to Miss Thackeray during the outward voyage, he says that he will trespass upon her province and try to describe his companions. Among them are a set of 'jolly military officers 'who play whist, smoke and chaff, and are always exploding over the smallest of jokes. They are not like the people with whom he has hitherto associated, but he will not depreciate them; for they know all kinds of things of which he is ignorant, and are made, as he perceives, just ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... lawyer; and that they went rarely into society, being very exclusive. This was communicated to me by Mrs. Ballard, who brought Miss Ballard with her. She asked in tones of the intensest interest if we played whist; while Miss Ballard suggested that about the only way we could find to enjoy ourselves in such a little place would be to identify ourselves with the dancing-party and card-club set. I began to suspect that life in Lattimore would ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... for the playing of whist, domino, or poker are often given by bachelors at their apartments or residences. In apartments this class of entertainment is only for men. Women should not go to bachelors' apartments except for luncheon, ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... BROWN. Whist. There's more in what I'm telling you than you think. And I'll hold you to a shilling that Sarah McMinn will be Mrs. John Murray ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne
... husband is some pleasure, and doing one's business well. Why, if I've only got some orange-flowers to candy, I shouldn't like to die till I see them all right. Then there's the sunshine now and then; I like that, as the cats do. I look upon it life is like our game at whist, when Banks and his wife come to the still-room of an evening. I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it; and I want to see you make the best of your hand, madam, for your luck has been mine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... on the door with his fist. A murmur of voices stopped suddenly, and, in response to a gruff command from within, he opened the door and stood staring at all three of his victims, who were seated at the table playing whist ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... "Whist, boy! On your life, not so much as the ghost of a whimper! The hole's ramjammed chuck full of trout, and we'll have a meal fit for the gods ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... "Whist, ye son of Patrick McFadden; don't ye hear the responses all around ye, as if the spirits were in the organ loft, thinkin' ye a praist and thimselves the choir-boys. I belaves, by me sowl, that ivery tree has got a tongue, for ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... which exposed him to sundry mischances; this was his covetousness, which on some occasions became too hard for his discretion. At this period of time it was, by the circumstances of his situation, inflamed to a degree of rapacity. He was now prevailed upon to take a hand at whist or piquet, and even to wield the hazard-box; though he had hitherto declared himself an irreconcilable enemy to all sorts of play; and so uncommon was his success and dexterity at these exercises, as to surprise his acquaintance, and arouse ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... ayre is cleere, and Southerne windes are whist, Come Dido, let vs hasten to the towne, Since gloomie AEolus doth ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale, catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never before been known to display—except at the whist-table:— ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... instance, watermelon will be served costing seven hundred rubles. The soup comes in the tureen straight from Paris by steamer. When the lid is raised, the aroma of the steam is like nothing else in the world. And we have formed a circle for playing whist—the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the French, the English and the German Ambassadors and myself. We play so hard we kill ourselves over the cards. There's nothing like it. After it's over I'm so tired I run home up the stairs to the fourth floor and tell ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... antechamber, composed the whole apartment. At twelve o'clock tea was served, with eternally the same cakes, over which a pupil of Gerard's, Mlle. Godefroy, presided. Gerard himself talked; his wife remained nailed to a whist-table, attending to nothing and to nobody. Evening once closed in, cards were the only occupation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... teacher, who is now a doctor of medicine, a whist-player and a mean fellow all around, used to tell me whenever I knew my lesson well: 'You're a fine fellow, Kolya! You are an able boy. We proletariats, plain and poor people, coming from the backyard of life, we must study and study, in order to come to the front, ahead of everybody. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... faced, not ordered. Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of. Is it the wisest who is always the most successful? I think not. The luckiest whist-player I ever came across was a man who was never QUITE certain what were trumps, and whose most frequent observation during the game was "I really beg your pardon," addressed to his partner; a remark which generally elicited the reply, "Oh, don't apologize. All's well that ends ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... changed; and at noon Mr. Merton, who had heard of Cleveland's arrival, called at Burleigh to renew an old acquaintance. He invited them to pass the evening at the rectory; and Cleveland, hearing that whist was a regular amusement, accepted the invitation for his host and himself. But when the evening came, Maltravers pleaded indisposition, and Cleveland was ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... were, the broad and generous policy of his father, Christy had no personal prejudices against this enemy of his country, and he felt just as he would if he had been sailing a boat against him, or playing a game of whist with him. He was determined to beat him if he could. But he was not satisfied with locking his papers up; he called Dave, and set him as a watch over them. If the conspirator overhauled his papers, he would have ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... is wont to take an airing, and after tea a game of whist affords an evening amusement. The Commodore is simple in his manners and habits. He is a representative of a former age, when men lived less artificially than at the present time, and when there was more happiness and less show. ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... enough. The German Band performed prodigies; the row was simply deafening. There were a few seats by the walls for those who did not dance, and there was a room for lemonade, cakes, and bad ices for those who liked them, as well as a small room in which the old fogies could play a rubber of whist. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... on a flat in Westminster, and belonged to two excellent clubs. He had not been near his property for the last ten years, and as he was addicted to no country sport there were ten weeks in the year which were terrible to him. From the middle of August to the end of October for him there was no whist, no society,—it may almost be said no dinner. He had tried going to the seaside; he had tried going to Paris; he had endeavoured to enjoy Switzerland and the Italian lakes;—but all had failed, and he had acknowledged to himself that ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... own sense of shame and mortification. The lesson was useful; he forsook the Bourse, and at cards he conquered the passion without giving up the game. Rightly or wrongly it was said that many years after he played high stakes at whist with political men to gain an insight into their characters. In any case there is nothing to show that his fondness for play ever again led him into excesses which his judgment condemned. He ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... them as sins; merely as errors and misplays—as in a game. Some of them, who were palpably less agreeable than others or who had a real weakness or fault, were treated with cheerful allowance, as a friendly group at whist ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... the old lady make a memorandum, and of what, at whist? Show that there were at least three times as many fiddles as harps in Muggleton at the time of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... son lay dead. Faithful Medoro mourned his master dear, Who well agnized the quartering white and red, With visage bathed in many a bitter tear (For he a rill from either eyelid shed), And piteous act and moan, that might have whist The winds, his ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... devoted to his use, inviting his father and Mr. Binnie now and then, but the good Colonel did not often attend those parties. He saw that his presence rather silenced the young men, and went away to play his rubber of whist at the club. And although time hung a bit heavily on the good Colonel's hands, now that Clive's interests were separate from his own, yet of nights as he heard Clive's companions tramping by his bedchamber door, where ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... own convenience. Only allow me to make one observation: on Wednesday evening, 23rd July, I am invited by somebody where a refusal would be wrong and stupid. But if you were favorably inclined, our extra three-handed whist might be quite well arranged at the house of ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... life—ruined in every possible shape of ruin. There were times when he could not command a guinea in the world. Yet there were times when he won immensely. At one sitting he carried off L8000, but in a few more he lost L11,000. He was a capital whist player; and in the cool calculation of the clubs on such subjects, it was supposed that he might have made L4000 a-year, if he had adhered to this profitable direction of his genius. But, like many other great men, he mistook his forte, and disdained all but the desperation of hazard. There he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... revolutionary as ever, only tilting over tables instead of States, alas! From the Legation to the English chemist's, people are 'serving tables' (in spite of the Apostle) everywhere. When people gather round a table it isn't to play whist. So good, you say. You can believe in table-moving, because that may be 'electricity;' but you can't believe in the 'rapping spirits,' with the history of whom these movements are undeniably connected, because it's 'a jump.' Well, but you will jump when the time comes for jumping, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... to loves and labours light, To fields the morning, and to feasts the night; None better skilled the noisy pack to guide, To urge their chase, to cheer them or to chide; A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day, And, skilled at whist, devotes the night to play: Then, while such honours bloom around his head, Shall he sit sadly by the sick man's bed, To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal To combat fears that ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... then, that an old bachelor, wedded to trout-fishing and tobacco-smoke; familiar with nothing but whist, yarn stockings, flannels and shooting-jackets; without the least possible relish for landscape or color, for the twittering of birds, or the swarming of bumble-bees and forest-leaves; with no sense of poetry, and a mortal hatred of rigmarole, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... her wrapped in her long pelisse, with the red flag at her side, resting against a market pillar, he began to sneer and deride her in foul language. The girl, thunderstruck at seeing him, was unable to speak. She wept beneath his abuse, and whist she was overcome by sobbing, bowing her head and hiding her face, Justin called her a convict's daughter, and shouted that old Rebufat would give her a good thrashing should she ever dare ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... from Erin's isle Just fresh, thinking he'd walk around a while, With open mouth and widely staring eyes, Cried "Och!" and "Whist!" at every new surprise. He saw some labourers in a field of corn; The golden pumpkins lit the scene with glory; Of all that he had heard since being born, Nothing had equaled this in song or story. "The holy mither! and, sirs, would ye plaise To be a tellin' me what might be these? ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... on the stand in the great market-place at Elsinore are seen to drive off, and several people are drowned. The gas-lamps along the street are wrenched from their foundations, and shoot through the troubled air. Whist, rush, hish! how the rain roars and pours! The darkness becomes awful, always deepened by the power of the music — and see — in the midst of a rush, and whirl, and scream of spirits of air and wave — what is that ghastly figure moving hither? It becomes ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... there's my house among the trees, Sheltered, yet open to the southern breeze. In that beyond, with other two, you see, Whose grounds close round my own so pleasantly, Live valued friends of whom I never tire; With each abode a telegraphic wire Communicates, so, when we feel inclined For whist or billiards, after we have dined We telegraph to fix the time and place, And oft arrange a meet for hunt and chase, Which is convenient, as you soon will see, And makes us like one ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... to the coast, ere the search begins; and there, either for love of Sir Simon the righteous or for that gilt knife of yours, we may get ferried over to the Isle of Wight, whence- -But what ails the dog! Whist, Leonillo! Hold your throat: I can hear naught but ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had married the man of her choice during the previous year; his sons were scattered in their own avocations, and the complaints and peevishness of his wife were poor companions for his fireside. The officers welcomed him to their club-room, and gladly strove to interest him in billiards or whist, to the exclusion of the Gleason clique and concomitant poker, which was never played in the colonel's presence; but even this solace was denied him by his wife. She was just as lonely at home, poor lady, and she had to have some one to listen to her long accumulation of feminine ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... cool as if he owned time, if those boys were girls! Though if Jenks-Smith gets the Bluff Colony he's planned under way next spring, there'll soon be some riding and golfing men hereabouts that'll shake things up a bit,—bridge whist, poker, and perhaps red and black to help out in the between-seasons." (I little thought then what this colony and shaking ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... There was your grandfather and Mr. Henry. I don't think she ever got it over,—his disappearing so. There were lots of folks then that's dead and gone, and they used to have their card-parties, and old Cap'n Manning—he's dead and gone—used to have 'em all to play whist every fortnight, sometimes three or four tables, and they always had cake and wine handed round, or the cap'n made some punch, like's not, with oranges in it, and lemons; he knew how! He was a bachelor to the end of his days, the old cap'n was, but he used to ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... sinners,' said the minister's son of a neighbouring parish, who united in his own person his father's lack of devotion with his mother's love of liquor. 'Whist!—speak as if ye had the fear of something holy before ye. Let the vessels run their own way to destruction: who can stay the eastern wind, and the current of the Solway sea? I can find ye Scripture warrant for that; so let them try their strength on Blawhooly rocks, and their might ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... can hear every whisper in this parish and the seven parishes are nearest. And the little midges roaring in the air.—Let ye whist now with your sneezing ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... has many clubs, but is not entirely at home in them. He uses them as places in which to play poker or whist, to dine his men friends, and in a great measure because it is the "proper thing." At many a room is set apart for the national game of poker—a fascinating game to the player who wins. Poker was never mentioned in my presence that some did not make a joke on a supposed ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... years went by in decades, aggrandizing none of them. They took, perforce, to the ways of the country, and soon nobody kept a groom but the Doctor, and nobody dined late but the Judge. There came a time when the Sheriff's whist club and the Archdeacon's port became a tradition to the oldest inhabitant. Trade flourished, education improved, politics changed. Her Majesty removed her troops—the Dominion wouldn't pay, a poor-spirited business—and ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... thing that "is a joy for ever"—a cultivated intellect—in order to amass a fortune that turns to ashes, when he has time to ask of it any of the pleasures and resources he fondly imagined it would afford him. Like Talleyrand's young man who would not learn whist, he finds that he has prepared for himself ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... Jane, and Calypso—the last named after her father's old ship—and young Mr. Moggridge, the amusing collector of customs. They were playing with ratafias for counters (ratafias were cumeelfo), and peals of guileless laughter from time to time broke in upon the grave silence of the whist-table. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... coffee, hot breads in variety, crisp celery, and plenteous pickle, came before the sweets. Punch, not very heady, hardly more than a fortified pink lemonade, came with the sweets many times. Grandfather's punch was held sacred to very late suppers, hot and hearty, set for gentlemen who had played whist or euchre until cock-crow. ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... indulge. I received a good education. I can play the violin nearly well enough to earn money in the orchestra of a penny gaff, but not quite. The same remark applies to the flute and the French horn. I learned enough of whist to lose about a hundred a year at that scientific game. My acquaintance with French was sufficient to enable me to squander money in Paris with almost the same facility as in London. In short, I am a person full of manly accomplishments. I have ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sacrifice, if it be one, one may procure one's self much pleasure, and even a greater freedom in society than one would otherwise enjoy. The old piquet, which had gone to sleep, was again looked out; I learned whist; I made myself, according to the directions of my Mentor, a card-purse, which was to remain untouched under all circumstances; and I now found opportunity to spend most of my evenings with my friend in the best circles, where, for the most part, they wished me well, and pardoned ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... But Bog's eyes passed them by. To an inquisitive mind, there was something of interest to be seen and speculated over, in the lighted windows of houses all about him. People could be seen eating their late suppers, rocking by the fire, playing the piano, dancing, taking a rubber at whist or euchre, or diverting themselves with other recreations of winter house life. In one upper chamber, a physician was presenting a child just born to the proud father. In another, there was a mysterious spectacle, which a closer examination might have proved to be the preparing of a dead ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton |
