"Whist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 with the likenesses of Dr. Busby's son and servant, ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... "Whist, David, whist!" soothed the little man. "Twas but for yer ain good yer auld dad did it. 'Twas that he had at heart as he aye has. Rin aff wi' ye noo to Kenmuir. She'll mak' it up to ye, I war'nt. She's leeberal wi' ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... most entertaining as well as the most improving play in which women can join. There is also a demand among women who seek an intellectual element in their recreation for instruction in the games of bridge-whist, whist, and chess. Bridge-whist is the most popular, largely because of the desire to win money and valuable prizes at the game. Then, too, a greater amount of time is spent at it than is legitimate for recreation. For moral reasons, therefore, the teaching ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... this evening. The cook considered to be very quarrelsome; quarrelled this evening with some of the sailors and got a bloody face. Jackson took more to drink than usual. They continued playing at whist till after eleven. ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... pastimes rather than labours to Janice, there were lighter hours in which she made a fourth at whist, learned chess from the general, and played on the harpsichord or sang to him. Once a week there was a musicale, at which all who could play on any instrument contributed a share, and dances and dinners were frequently given ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... vessels to Finland, ten or a dozen extra regiments of Cossacks to Warsaw, closed upon terms for a loan of fifty millions, banished various objectionable parties to the deserts of Siberia, and partaken of a game or two of whist with his camarilla. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. Two card tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair of old ladies and a corresponding number of stout gentlemen were executing whist therein." ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... between a dowager and one of the vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled drawing-room, floored with large white tiles. The family portraits which adorned the walls looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen persons gathered about them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, thinking of nothing, digesting one of those exquisite dinners to which the provincial looks forward all through the day, found himself justifying the customs of ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... he'll give ye all ye deserve. Come by. There's kindlin' to split an' praties to peel, an'—Whist! What's ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... is not like a game of chess, in which the two players start upon equal terms and can deliberate sufficiently over every move; but more like whist, in which the cards we hold represent our fortunes at the beginning, but the result of the game depends also on the skill with which we play it. Life also resembles whist in this, that we are obliged ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... "Whist, Dick," said his father, putting a strong arm round the girl's waist. "See, my wench, yonder is the goodly light of day. We ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you have passed a month in the Islands you will have a better opinion of idleness than you had before, though in some respects the odd effects of a tropical climate will hardly meet your approval. Euchre, for instance, takes the place here which whist holds elsewhere as the amusement ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... BUMBLEPUPPY—Bumblepuppy is persisting to play whist, either in utter ignorance of all its known principles, or in ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... 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 a sentence ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... afternoon during the picking season, Mrs. Tiffany served tea on the lawn for the half-dozen familiar households on the Santa Lucia tract. That was the busy time of all the year, affording no leisure for those dinners and whist parties which came in the early season, when the country families had just arrived from town, or in the late season, when prune picking grew slack. Night finds one weary in the country, even when ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... so much ado about a fourteen-days' passage across the Atlantic; who so pathetically relate the privations and hardships of the sea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne-punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but 'those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping overhead',—what would ye say to our six months out of sight ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... 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, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... were his only link with the old life. She wrote that she was well. That Anne Warfield was with her, and Cousin Sulie, and that the three of them and Cousin David played whist. That Anne was such a dear—that she didn't know what ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... shade, dimly suggestive of that figment, "Mrs. Harris"), Charles Kemble, Fanny Kelly ("Barbara S."), on red-letter occasions Coleridge and Wordsworth,—and sees them discharging the severer offices of the whist-table ("cards were cards" then), and, later, unbending their minds over poetry, criticism, and metaphysics. Elia was no Barmecide host, and the serjeant dwells not without regret upon the solider business of the evening,—"the cold ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... source of dark heat was scientifically situated in front of the window, and on ordinarily cold evenings Edward Henry and his wife and mother, and an acquaintance if one happened to come in, would gather round the radiator and play bridge or dummy whist. ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... contributor to periodicals, especially the Quarterly Review. Many of his articles were reprinted as Biographical and Critical Essays, and Eminent Statesmen and Writers; he also wrote Lives of George Selwyn and Lord Chesterfield, and books on Whist, Junius, and The Art of Dining. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... the Iron King returned home accompanied by their guest and by Mr. Clarence, who had come with them in honor of the duke. The evening was spent in a rubber of whist, in which Mr. Rockharrt and the duke, who were partners, were the winners over Cora and Mr. Clarence, their antagonists. The evening was finished at the usual hour with ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... 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 ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Scotland,—sometimes in derision,—sometimes in serious apprehension: "the 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... happened, at that moment the prosecutor, and Varvinsky, our district doctor, a young man, who had only just come to us from Petersburg after taking a brilliant degree at the Academy of Medicine, were playing whist at the police captain's. Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor (he was really the deputy prosecutor, but we always called him the prosecutor), was rather a peculiar man, of about five and thirty, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... as making his appearance at all hours, chiefly, however in the evening, of course. Now the good old orthodox idea of a ghost is, of a very long, cadaverous, ghastly personage, of either sex, appearing in white draperies, with uplifted finger, and attended or preceded by sepulchral sounds—whist! hush! and sometimes the rattling of casements and the jingling of chains. A bluish glare and a strong smell of brimstone seldom failed to enhance the horror of the scene. This ghost, however, came it seems, in more ordinary guise, but ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... became at once the centre of a memorable little society, consisting, as far as I remember, of people whom we had never known before. There was a delightful old Mr. Marshall, of the Marshalls of the Lakes, who used to come and play whist with her, and with whom we boys sometimes rode. Though he was about eighty, he kept up his riding and liked to have a boy to ride with him. Another old gentleman, attractive in his manner, in his dress, and in his kindly, old-fashioned dignity, was Lord Suffolk. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... a law against race-track gambling and add to the profits from faro. We raid the faro joints, and drive gambling into the home, where poker and bridge whist are taught to children who follow their parents' example. We deprive anarchists of free speech by the heavy hand of a police magistrate, and furnish them with a practical instead of a theoretical argument against government. We answer strikes with bayonets, and make treason ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... in life is one that may possibly, probably, not occur again. His position is good and secure, and the life of his wife would be a happy one. You may not be sure that you love him madly; but suppose you are not sure? My father used to say to me as a child when he was teaching me whist, "When in doubt win the trick!" That advice is ten times as valuable to a woman on the subject of matrimony. In refusing a man there is always the risk that you may never get ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... and Southerne windes are whist, Come Dido, let vs hasten to the towne, Since gloomie AEolus ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... the way, for during the past week the colonel had been letting us go on very easily, I was sentry at the tent. There had been some singing, and Lieutenant Leigh had gone off in the middle of a duet. Then the doctor, the colonel, and a couple of subs were busy over a game at whist, and the black nurse had beckoned Mrs Maine out, I suppose to see something about the two children; when Captain Dyer and Miss Ross walked together just outside the tent, she holding by one of the cords, and ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... day, after dinner, over the red cloth of the tables, beneath the swinging lamps and the racks of tumblers, decanters and wine-glasses, we sat down to whist, Mrs. Peck, among others, taking a hand in the game. She played very badly and talked too much, and when the rubber was over assuaged her discomfiture (though not mine—we had been partners) with a Welsh rabbit and a tumbler of something hot. ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... Admiral living at Bath, As grey as a badger, as thin as a lath; And his very queer eyes have such very queer leers, They seem to be trying to peep at his ears; That old Yellow Admiral goes to the Rooms, And he plays long whist, but he frets and he fumes, For all his knaves stand upside down, And the Jack of Clubs does nothing but frown; And the Kings and the Aces, and all the best trumps Get into the hands of the other old frumps; While, close to his partner, a man he sees Counting the tricks with his ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... the percheth he With pretty flight, And makes his pillow of my knee The livelong night. Strike I my lute, he tunes the string; He music plays if so I sing; He lends me every lovely thing, Yet cruel he my heart doth sting: Whist, wanton, still ye! ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... And then take hands: Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd (The wild waves whist), Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... 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, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... No one would have suspected the author of those wild theories which startled the wise and shocked the prudent in the calm, gentlemanly person who rarely said anything above the most gentle commonplace, and took interest in little beyond the whist-table." ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... 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. Yet if the Jews took a petty and huckstering view of conduct, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the whist- players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and full of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton families, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the Pistolet had invited Capt. T. and myself to have a game of bridge whist on board. His ship was lying alongside the Government wharf, just inside the inner harbor. The game proved a most interesting one and time flew by unnoticed. Finally, just before 1 A.M., it came to a close, but, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... off her cap,—which was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop,—and strewing the ground with her hair,—which assuredly had never grown on her head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss Havisham's room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into Estella's hair, and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Street Plausible Grocer Husband Allow Worship Gipsy Insane Encourage Clerk Disease Astonish Clergyman Boulevard Realize Hectoring Canary Bombast Primrose Diamond Benedict Walnut Abominate Piazza Holiday Barbarous Disgust Heavy Kind Virtu Nightmare Devil Gospel Comfort Whist Mermaid Pearl Onion Enthusiasm Domino Book Fanatic Grotesque Cheat Auction Economy Illegible Quell Cheap Illegitimate Sheriff Excelsior Emasculate Danger Dunce Champion Shibboleth Calico Adieu Essay Pontiff Macadamize Wages Copy Stentorian Quarantine ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... by year more capable and prosperous. Given time— of which there is no scant in the matter of organic development—and cunning will do more with ill luck than folly with good. People do not hold six trumps every hand for a dozen games of whist running, if they do not keep a card or two up their sleeves. Cunning, if it can keep its head above water at all, will beat mere luck unaided by cunning, no matter what start luck may have had, if the race be a fairly long one. Growth is a kind of success which does indeed come to ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... can't play whist very well," added Hynard in rather ungracious tones. "Be a good fellow and stay in ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... time before his death, and, I believe, had not been outside his own gates for nearly thirty years. During the whole of that long time, up to within a few weeks of his death, Mr. Van Wart never missed paying him a visit every Saturday evening. On these occasions they invariably played whist, a game of which Mr. Van Wart, being a particularly skilful player, was remarkably fond. His punctuality in this matter was something remarkable; at eight o'clock to the minute he arrived, and at five minutes to twelve exactly ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... enough—and some excellent arguments about the movement of religion, where I found him unexpectedly liberal-minded. He left me to do very much what I liked. I read in the mornings and before dinner; and after dinner we smoked or even played a game of dummy whist. It is a pretty part of the country, and when he was occupied in the afternoon, I walked about by myself. From first to last not a single word fell from Musgrave to indicate that he thought me in any way different, or suspected that I was not perfectly content, with the blessed result ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... but subject to recurring attacks of madness. Lamb was "a notched and cropped scrivener, a votary of the desk," a clerk, that is, in the employ of the East India Company. He was of antiquarian tastes, an ardent play-goer, a lover of whist and of the London streets; and these tastes are reflected in his Essays of Elia, contributed to the London Magazine and reprinted in book form in 1823. From his mousing among the Elisabethan dramatists and such old humorists as Burton and Fuller, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... occurred so frequently, that sometimes for three nights out of the week he never went home at all. On one of these occasions, a party of gentlemen in the commercial room of the hotel where he was staying proposed a game of cards, and asked George to make one at a rubber of whist. George had often played with his own friends, but never before with total strangers. However, without any hesitation, he accepted the invitation, and yielded to the proposition that they should play sixpenny points. The game ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... not consider it unbecoming his cloth and profession to swear in a foreign language—"por Dios! senores, I have known the time, too, when I have played whist with a French prince of the blood and two ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... 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 ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... seems incredible, let us remember how old whist players note and remember every card in the pack, and can tell whether they have been played or not, and all the circumstances attending upon them. The same is true of chess players, who observe every move and can relate the whole game in detail long after it has been ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... thirteen days. Is there any gain—mental, muscular, or nervous—from this unhappy pursuit? Not one jot or tittle. Supposing that a weary man of science leaves his laboratory in the evening, and wends his way homeward, the very thought of the game of whist which awaits him is a kind of recuperative agency. Whist is the true recreation of the man of science; and the astronomer or mathematician or biologist goes calmly to rest with his mind at ease after he has enjoyed his rubber. The most industrious of living novelists and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Whist was the constant game in the royal cabins. Sir Harry, who did everything as well as he could, though far from a good player, often beat the King, who was an indifferent one. Lord A—, a practised courtier, was, ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... a touch of the subject. The circoli at Florence are as 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 ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... 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
... folks carol and revolve untunefully enough through the figures of a singing quadrille. A magazine club supplies you with everything, from the Quarterly to the Sunday at Home. Grand tournaments are organised at chess, draughts, billiards, and whist. Once and again wandering artists drop into our mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going you cannot imagine whither, and belonging to every degree in the hierarchy of musical art, from the recognised performer ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gambler. He is growing numerous to-day. He is the same person, whether clad in full dress in the drawing-room of the worldling, or in common dress around the fireside of the unchristian Church member. Like the professional gambler his instrument is "cards," and he can shake the "dice." His games are whist, progressive euchre, and sometimes poker. The stakes now are not money, but the gratification of excitement and the indulgence of passion. One, two, four hours go by almost unnoticed. Prizes are offered for the ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... occasions, he would shrink into a corner in silence, scowling and looking crossly at every one. The first time I was delighted at his letting me off so easily; but afterwards I would sometimes begin myself begging him to sit down to whist, the part of third person was so insupportable! I was so unpleasantly in Kolosov's and Varia's way, though they did assure each other that there was no ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... manifestation of God. As to means of 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
... of taste, some point of history, criticism, and even philosophy; which, though probably not quite so solid as Mr. Locke's, is, however, better and more becoming rational beings than our frivolous dissertations upon the weather or upon whist." ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... a caffe; that is to say, a place for no other purpose than that of gossipping, drinking and gaming. And it is with great sorrow that I acknowledge that many English husbands indulge too much in a similar habit. Drinking clubs, smoking clubs, singing clubs, clubs of odd-fellows, whist clubs, sotting clubs: these are inexcusable, they are censurable, they are at once foolish and wicked, even in single men; what must they be, then, in husbands; and how are they to answer, not only to their wives, but to their children, for this profligate abandonment ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... who could barely afford to pay for his cab fares, lost a pound to him at whist, Lord Houghton said, as he pocketed the coin, "Ah, my dear boy, the great Lord Hertford, whom foolish people called the wicked Lord Hertford—Thackeray's Steyne and Dizzy's Monmouth—used to say, 'There is no pleasure in winning money from ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... in the Elizabethan style, covered with figures, and the walls white and gold panelling hung with full-length family portraits not set into the wall like the saloon, but in frames. In the evening the young people had a round game at cards and the elder ones seemed to prefer talking to a game at whist. The ladies brought down their embroidery or netting. At eleven a tray with wine and water is brought in and a quantity of bed candlesticks, and everybody retires when they like. The next morning the guests assembled at half-past nine in the great gallery which leads ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... went on: "You ought to get him out more—come over some night and we'll make a hand at whist. Mrs. Van Dorn isn't much of a player, but like all poor players, she enjoys it." And the eyes continued: But you and I will have a fine time—now ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... my whist, Maggie; if it's your will, I'll no speak your name. And I hope I hae keepit a' things to your liking in the cottage. If sae, you might gie me a screed o' writing to your brither, sae that when he comes again, he'll be contented, ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... 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, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... day, after dinner, over the red cloth of the tables, beneath the swinging lamps and the racks of tumblers, decanters and wine-glasses, we sat down to whist, Mrs. Peck, to oblige, taking a hand in the game. She played very badly and talked too much, and when the rubber was over assuaged her discomfiture (though not mine—we had been partners) with a Welsh rabbit and a tumbler of something hot. We had done with the cards, but while she waited ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... artist," said Loring with a flash of white teeth, "is trying to get up a whist game, to pass away the time. Will you gentlemen assist?" He turned aside in ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... 'Whist, can't 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
... but we will not dwell over it at great length, as we might do if we loved her. She was the only child of old Admiral Greystock, who in the latter years of his life was much perplexed by the possession of a daughter. The admiral was a man who liked whist, wine,—and wickedness in general we may perhaps say, and whose ambition it was to live every day of his life up to the end of it. People say that he succeeded, and that the whist, wine, and wickedness were there, at the side even of his dying bed. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Suppose, for instance, it had not chanced to rain on a certain day at Clifden, when a cricket match was being played in which Frederick, Prince of Wales, happened to be interested. A fretted Prince would not have had to retire to his tent like Achilles, would not have insisted on a game of whist to cheer his humor. There would have been no difficulty in forming a rubber. There would have been no need to seek for a fourth hand. No wistful gentleman-in-attendance seeking the desirable would have had to ask the aid of a strange nobleman perched in an apothecary's chariot. Had this ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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
... 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, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... indulged in no lamentations, but sturdily produced the schnapps and sandwiches without which no Dane is easily to be tempted out of sight of his home: the rector evolved a pack of cards from the depths of his coat pocket, and upon the sandbank the party camped, playing a cheerful game of whist until the tide came back ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... The duelling pistols were even a greater delight to me. They were equipped with rifle barrels and hair triggers, and were inlaid richly with silver, and more than once had been used on the field of honor. Whenever my grandfather went out for a walk, or to play whist at the house of a neighbor, I would get down these pistols and fight duels with myself in front of the looking-glass. With my left hand I would hold the handkerchief above my head, and with the other clutch the pistol at my side, ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... 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 ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... with the class of facts to which its central point of interest belongs without some words in the nature of preparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember that Sarah Battle insisted on a clean-swept hearth before sitting down to her favorite game of whist. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... possess all the manner of an old lady of sixty: she would flirt with three men at a time, and have a ready answer for them when teasing her; would move like an accomplished actress, manipulate gracefully, play whist, chess, and other games, and talk about getting married. This child, for such I must call her, was a greater mental giant than O'Brien, with his moving mountain of flesh, and far more entertaining than twenty Tom ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... 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 he lay wakeful within, he was happy to think his son was happy. ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... A man who sits down to whist may have a run of ill-luck before he gets a decent hand; but the good cards are sure to come if he only sits long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... about 1807, represents one of the most celebrated characters who ever sat upon the bench of the Court of Session. Famous in his day for "law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth," the exploits of Charles Hay, "The Mighty," as he was called, have become traditions of the ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... familiar:—"are ye, Jorrocks?" cried one, holding out both hands. "How are ye, my lad of wax? Do you still play billiards?—Give you nine, and play you for a Nap." "Come to my house this evening, old boy, and take a hand at whist for old acquaintance sake," urged the friend on his left; "got some rare cogniac, and a box of beautiful Havannahs." "No, Jorrocks,—dine with me," said a third, "and play chicken-hazard." "Don't," said a fourth, confidentially, "he'll fleece ye like fun". "Let me put your name down to our ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... preferred billiards and cards in the mess-room, but Frank, who declined to play billiards, and had not acquired sufficient skill at cards to take a hand at whist, was very glad to accept these invitations. He specially enjoyed going to the houses of the clergy in the precincts of the cathedral; most of them were very musical, and Frank, who had never heard much music at Weymouth, enjoyed intensely the old English glees, madrigals, ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... "I have whist parties here frequently," she said drily; "nearly every evening four friends of mine call to play. Have you any objection to enter my ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... vnto these yellow sands, and then take hands: Curtsied when you haue, and kist the wilde waues whist: Foote it featly heere, and there, and sweete Sprights ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... nor yet Sebastia great, But whist'leth to thy flock in cold and heat. Viewing the Sun by day, the Moon by night Endimions, Dianaes dear delight, Upon the grass resting your healthy limbs, By purling Brooks looking how fishes swims, If pride within your lowly Cells ere haunt, Of him that was Shepherd ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... give them delight without any trouble on their part: 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
... 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 the ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... 25, Thursday night, Almack's.—Here are the Duke of Roxb[urgh], Vernon, James, and Sir W. Draper at Whist; Boothby, Richard, and R. Fletcher at Quinze. I dined to-day at the Duke of Argyle's(117) at a quarter before four. He and the Duchess went to Richmond at six. The maccaroni dinner was at Mannin's. My eyes are still ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... to Oatlands[7] on Saturday. There was a very large party— Mr. and Mrs. Burrell, Lord Alvanley, Berkeley Craven, Cooke, Arthur Upton, Armstrong, Foley, Lord Lauderdale, Lake, Page, Lord Yarmouth. We played at whist till four in the morning. On Sunday we amused ourselves with eating fruit in the garden, and shooting at a mark with pistols, and playing with the monkeys. I bathed in the cold bath in the grotto, which is as clear as crystal and as cold as ice. Oatlands ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to him for an hour, while the others, with the exception of Mrs. Madison, who went to sleep, became absorbed in whist. But she did not see him for a moment alone, and Jack rowed him across ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... exercising power of any noticeable degree, it now ceases to be even attractive. The successors of St. Paul are not shaping world policy at Washington; they are organising whist-drives and opening bazaars. The average clergyman, I am afraid, is regarded in these days as something of a bore, a ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... He lives by himself in a small cottage outside the village—hating women with an unaccountable detestation—and apparently earns a precarious livelihood, and certainly the sincere aversion of the country side, by umpiring in matches, and playing whist and "Nap" with such as will not be so discreet and economical as to ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... liberty of attending one of these feasts unasked (which by the bye is considered no liberty at all in Cumberland) and see what is going on. Upon entering the room we behold several card parties, some at 'whist,' others at 'loo' (there called 'lant'), or any other game that may suit their fancy. You will be surprised on looking over the company to find that there is no distinction of persons. Masters and servants, rich and poor, humble and lofty, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... weak that, unable even to perform her part at the card-table, Lady Mary was obliged to deal, hold her cards and sort them for her, while she could just take them out one by one and drop them on the table. Whist and quadrille became too laborious to her weakened intellects, but loo supplied their places and continued her amusement to the last, as reason or memory were not necessary qualifications to ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... a man may be with weighty work to do, but composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face he might be a famous whist-player for a large stake—say a hundred guineas certain—with the game in his hand, but with a high reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a masterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... testy General by writing it so. A brave and self-confident, but rancorous old man, Jacob by his senseless regulations brought the Indian army to the verge of ruin. This peccadillo was passed over, but a more serious offence, his inability to play whist, was remembered against him by his brother officers right to the day ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... and most of the women huddled at the dressing-room door, and Scott, marching over to pay his respects to the colonel's wife, and explain his coming at so late an hour, noted instantly the trouble in her serious face. He had known her long and liked her well, as, despite occasional differences at whist, he did her husband. Captain Snaffle was speaking with her at the moment. Mrs. Snaffle was at her side. "Why did they tell her at all?" Mrs. Snaffle was asking, with much spirit and obvious effort to control a racial ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... 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, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... hummed during a pause in conversation, which is generally supplied with a circulation of a pinch of snuff. By means of this cultivation she became a wonderful proficient in the polite graces of the age; she, with great facility, comprehended the scheme of whist, though cribbage was her favourite game, with which she had amused herself in her vacant hours, from her first entrance into the profession of hopping; and brag soon grew familiar to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... double sweetness in double rhymes, And a double at Whist and a double Times In profit are certainly double— By doubling, the Hare contrives to escape; And all seamen delight in a doubled Cape, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... promenade on deck, where is no motion to discompose our steps, we think of a game of whist. We ask the brisk and capable stewardess from Ireland if there are ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wished to move him to Pybus St. Anthony. Far from it! The Archdeacon, in the deep secrecy of his own heart, could not honestly admit that young Forsyth was a very hard worker —he liked hunting and whist and a good bottle of wine...he was that kind ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... would tell of many cosy little dinners, closed, of course, with whist or loo—of many recherche pic-nics in days of yore, kept up until the "sma' hours" at two renowned hostelries, only recently removed—the BLUE HOUSE and the RED HOUSE,—chiefly at that festive and crowning season of the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... 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 ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... addicted himself chiefly to the society of the rich freshmen, for somehow the men of his own standing seemed a little shy of him. But with the freshmen he was always hand and glove, lived in their rooms, and used their wines, horses, and other movable property as his own. Being a good whist and billiard player, and not a bad jockey, he managed in one way or another to make his young friends pay well for the honour of his acquaintance; as, indeed, why should they not, at least those of them who came to the college to form eligible connexions; for had not ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... thought he 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 ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... who, with a partner, danced a cake-walk, accompanied by the blare of their new brass band. Mandolines were soon in vogue and most rooms could boast of several. As we were mostly beginners the resulting noise is best left to the imagination. Whist drives, bridge tournaments, etc., helped to pass the time, and a good many of us improved the shining hour by learning French, Russian or German in exchange for lessons in ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... they were all together of an evening, Michael would be more like his old self. He would sit beside the piano when she sang, and turn over the leaves for her, or he would coax her to be his partner in a game of whist, and lecture her in his old fashion; but all the time he would be looking at her so kindly that his lectures never troubled her ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... began to be played at the Club, and the Admiral's weekly accounts to grow less satisfactory than in the days when he and Mrs. Buzza were steadfast opponents at Whist. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Whist, Thora! or you must take a buffet," said Grisell, clenching a fist unused to striking, and trying to regard chastisement as a duty. "You know full well that my only speech with Master Hardcastle is ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 I find it less excessive than that of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to drop into the Eastry Arms, jes' when all those beggars in the parlour are sittin' down to whist, Ruck and Marbel and all, and give 'em ten minutes of my mind, George. Straight from the shoulder. Jes' exactly what I think of them. It's a little thing, but I'd like to do it ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... yellow sands, 375 And then take hands: Courtsied when you have and kiss'd The wild waves whist: Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... "pshutt"-looking cab was to wait for me at the casino door. In the casino Siegfried introduced me to about a dozen of young and old local celebrities, and one or two great lights of national reputation. Party divisions there were none; all parties agreed harmoniously, and played with each other their whist, their games of chess or dominoes. I was very cordially received, and in the ensuing conversation I took a very lively and active share, and stood my ground without any of the usual bashfulness of a novice. Siegfried seconded me in all my remarks ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... brought before the magistrates charged with vulgar 'tossing' in the streets; and every now and then we hear of some victim of genteel gambling, as recently—in the month of February, 1868—when 'a young member of the aristocracy lost L10,000 at Whist.' ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... was kept on a water diet; no wine, coffee, or tea was allowed; and this regime, in the dismal company of nothing but incurables, with dull evenings only enlivened by desperate attempts at games of whist, and the prohibition of all intellectual occupation, resulted in irritability and overwrought nerves. I led this life for nine weeks, but I was determined not to give in until I felt that every kind of drug or poison I had ever ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... never a thought did I give to love of man. And when it came, there was a flit of it like 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
... and for a moment marvels at the nature of a boy who rises to the alarm in the middle of the night, awake and ready; the indifference with which he buttons his coat whilst hearing the snow he has just escaped snarl threateningly against the window. "Whist!" says Molly, hesitating to tell the reason for her coming at that hour, lest it shock or frighten him. But the bearing of the meager boy and the level glance of the untamable blue eyes once more assure ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... women," so the new theme began; "we know the game of life. We know that where we once played straight whist we now play bridge, but we are fully aware that ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... given is worth very much," she said. "I could decide better in another six months. Now it is perhaps fortunate that Colonel Barrington is waiting for us to make up his four at whist." ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... should move about actively but noiselessly; no creaking of shoes, which is an abomination; watching the lights from time to time, so as to keep up their brilliancy. But even if the attendant likes a game of cribbage or whist himself, he must not interfere in his master or mistress's game, nor even seem to take an interest in it. We once knew a lady who had a footman, and both were fond of a game of cribbage,—John in the kitchen, the lady in her drawing-room. The ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... was not Foreign Secretary; he was Prime Minister, but he loved foreign affairs and could no more resist scoring a point in diplomacy than in whist. Ministers of foreign powers, knowing his habits, tried to hold him at arms'-length, and, to do this, were obliged to court the actual Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell, who, on July 30, 1861, was called up ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... all sorts, from the conversazioni of the rigid proprietarians, where people sit down to a kind of hopeless whist, at a soldo the point, and say nothing, to the conversazioni of the demi- monde where they say any thing. There are persons in Venice, as well as everywhere else, of new-fashioned modes of thinking, and these strive to give a greater life and ease to their assemblies, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... this 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
... uttered with piercing distinctness, have been exchanged, the belated revellers from some club or whist-party or an evening at the theatre in town terminate their sweet sorrow at parting by going their several ways to their different homes, where, no doubt, on retiring to rest they sink at once into blameless slumber, ignorant of the fact that for me they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... mouche itself; it was dull, it was long; the players accused their mouche as Negroes stone the moon in the water when the weather is bad. On one occasion, after an arrival of the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, there was talk of whist and boston being games of more interest than mouche. The baroness, who was bored by mouche, encouraged the innovation, and all the company—but not without reluctance—adopted it. But it proved impossible to make them really ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... useful, and wonderfully convenient when we wish to find anything. If, on the other hand, you are out on a lengthy holiday, and have time at your disposal, after putting things right for the day, and for next day too, we know of nothing better than a good rubber at whist for filling up the evening. It must be a good rubber, however, for the parlour game is neither relaxation nor pleasure. Hence we would advise all our angling friends to acquire a thorough knowledge ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... seizing upon Sir Tom in the evenings, and occupying all his attention, that was the most natural and simple of proceedings. She did this as another woman played bezique. Some entertainment was a necessity, and everybody had something. There were people who insisted upon whist—she insisted only upon "some one to talk to." What could be more natural? The Contessa's "some one" had to be a man and one who could pay with sense and spirit the homage to which she was accustomed. It was her only stipulation—and surely it must be an ungracious hostess ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... answered with decision, "the contrary wind be God's wind. 'Twas whist poor speed the fishers were once making—toiling and rowing—and the wind contrary, when He came walking on the water and into the boat, and then, to be sure, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... of whom at least had sunk in the scale of worldly consideration. They were ladies who would not have found much recreation in literary discussions; elderly, and habitually depressed. On their account, Lamb proposed whist, and in that kind effort to amuse them, which naturally drew forth some momentary gayeties from himself, but not of a kind to impress themselves on the recollection, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... He does not care for wealth in itself and yet he scrambles for it as greedily and as hungrily as the rest of them. Sometimes I think he regards the whole thing as a game which he enjoys playing with superior skill, just as one might with whist or chess. He likes to win, not for the sake of the winnings, but for the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival to me to dine there—which I did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to play a rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I am speaking now of the old club in King Street. This playing of whist before dinner has since that become a habit with me, so that unless there be something else special to do—unless there be hunting, or I am wanted to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my household—it is "my custom always in the afternoon." I have sometimes ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... subjects, including religion and matrimony. The husband wears a cashmere dressing-gown, and spreads a red handkerchief over his white hair to protect his white head from draughts; reads "A Sentimental Journey;" looks at his wife before expressing an opinion, and makes an excellent fourth at whist (1888). ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... they haven't any stated luncheon or supper time for doing it. They are very informal. One time is as good as another, and the oftener the merrier. If Katy doesn't keep very quiet and demure, like her leafy background, whist! and Father Robin or Mother Bluebird has ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... down and replaced by lordly structures with all the modern conveniences, including spacious stables and farm buildings. Two clubs had been organized along the six miles of coast to provide golf and tennis, afternoon teas and bridge whist for the entertainment of the colony. The scale of living had become more elaborate, and there had been many newcomers—people of large means who offered for the finest sites sums which the owners could not afford to refuse. The prices paid in several instances represented ten ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... even in the recumbent attitude, the more so as that was quite sufficient for the province. You should have seen him at our club when he sat down to cards. His whole figure seemed to exclaim "Cards! Me sit down to whist with you! Is it consistent? Who is responsible for it? Who has shattered my energies and turned them to whist? Ah, perish, Russia!" and he would majestically trump ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in which he excelled; music, especially that of the school of Schubert and Mozart—he entertained very decided opinions about the "music of the future"—and whist, which he rarely missed playing after dinner, even when at the seat of war. The count was an authority on the culture of roses, and at Kreisau, where he spent most of his time after his retirement from more active service, he possessed one of the finest and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... 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 ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... oi've hope I'll be whist as a baby asleep. Ye knew me onst as a light, giddy gurl, but oi'll watch over Barney wid such a slapeless eye as ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... divinity; Birnie for his valet. The task of maintenance fell on Gawtrey, who hit off his character to a hair; larded his grave jokes with university scraps of Latin; looked big and well-fed; wore knee-breeches and a shovel hat; and played whist with the skill of a veteran vicar. By his science in that game he made, at first, enough; at least, to defray their weekly expenses. But, by degrees, the good people at Tours, who, under pretence ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... very late before I could get asleep, owing to the gambling going forward on deck until two o'clock in the morning. There was a rouge et noir table, and a whist party, by both of which very high stakes were played, much to the annoyance of the better disposed passengers, who wished for ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... their incantations over you... the spell is done, and you sink back, cowed and whimpering! You are a machine, a domestic utensil! Never again are you to love and to dare to create No, there are other things in life for you... bread and butter, cooks and dinner parties, billiards and bridge-whist... that is ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... the fall and winter we kept pretty much by ourselves, not deliberately but because neither of us cared particularly about whist parties and such things but preferred to spend together what time we had. And then I guess Ruth was a little shy about her clothes. She dressed mighty well to my eye but she made most of her things herself and didn't care much about style. She didn't notice the difference at home but ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... his happiness is to see me elegant, in a perfectly appointed equipage. The duties he takes upon himself are all accomplished without fuss or emphasis. One evening I lost twenty thousand francs at whist. 'What will Paz say?' thought I as I walked home. Paz paid them to me, not without a sigh; but he never reproached me, even by a look. But that sigh of his restrained me more than the remonstrances of uncles, mothers, ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... the jug, Which he placed at his delicate mouth, And he drank it all down, Down, down, Derry down, He had such a terrible drouth. Then, with jug held on high, And Poteen in his eye, He says—this good ghost says to me: "Hist! Hist! Patrick, hist! And hould ye your whist While I shpake out this ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... 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 form ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... the brine, and quit the vessel, then all afire with me," yet having in itself the will and sweetness of truest peace, whence that is especially called "Ariel's" song, "Come unto these yellow sands, and there, take hands," "courtesied when you have, and kissed, the wild waves whist:" (mind, it is "cortesia," not "curtsey,") and read "quiet" for "whist," if you want the full sense. Then you may indeed foot it featly, and sweet spirits bear the burden for you—with watch in the night, and call in early ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... respect foppish. He is now, and always has been, an excellent athlete, a good rifle shot, and a first-class horseman; not given at any time to indoor pastimes over much, though fond of a quiet game of whist. He was born in Natal, of Dutch parents, and married to Miss Emmett, a relative of Robert Emmett, the Irish Revolutionist. Young Botha was educated at Greytown, and though a good, sound commercial scholar, he gave no evidence ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... all patience." Guy Trevelyan's voice was full, soft and musical, having the power of soothing the listener; but when required for dramatic readings, could command a versatility that was surprising. Miss Douglas archly proposed to Lady Douglas her wish to join in a game of whist. Thus engaged, the remainder of the evening passed quickly away. Mary Douglas still retaining her gallant partner, having secured the rubber against Mr. Howe and Miss Douglas, warmly congratulated Sir Howard on ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... 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
... made in the same way. You may make a name as Napoleon made his, through war, or you may make it as Keats made his, by listening to the nightingale and worshipping the moon. Or you may make it as Charles Lamb made his, merely by loving old folios, whist, and roast pig. All that is necessary—granted, of course, the gift of literary expression—is sincerity, an ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... love of recreation, there were no sedentary games in our repertoire. Cards were unknown. The General was said to like a quiet game of whist in his own room, but if he had a pack of cards, it was probably the only one on the Farm. There was no prejudice against cards or chess or any other game so far as I know, but no one cared for any form of amusement that separated two or four from all the others. I imagine that even ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... game of checkers between Perez and himself had been the regular after-supper amusement. Now they played whist, Captain Eri and Elsie against him and his former opponent. As Elsie and her partner almost invariably won, and as Perez usually found fault with him because they lost, this was not an agreeable change. But it was but one. He didn't like muslin curtains in his bedroom, because they were a nuisance ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... very true, and Mrs. Grimsby might carry her prayer-book to church herself. But Miss Clapperclaw, who is pretty well able to take care of herself too, was glad enough to have the protection of the page when she went out in the fly to pay visits, and before Mrs. Grimsby and she quarrelled at whist at ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sick of this old fool," said the Pater, one evening (the Dad can be very blunt, when he is put out, as you know), after Johnson had been more of a nuisance than usual, and had spoiled a good game of whist, by sitting up the chimney and groaning, till nobody knew what were trumps or what suit had been led, even. "We shall have to get rid of him, somehow or other. I wish I knew how ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... evidence of the difference 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 parson in ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... They have long left off using the waters, after having experienced their inefficacy. The diversions of the place they are not in a condition to enjoy. How then do they make shift to pass their time? In the forenoon they crawl out to the Rooms or the coffeehouse, where they take a hand at whist, or descant upon the General Advertiser; and their evenings they murder in private parties, among peevish invalids, and insipid old women — This is the case with a good number of individuals, whom nature seems to ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... friend Belton," Conward was saying. Dave was about to correct him when Conward managed to whisper, "Whist! Your stage name. Mine's Elward. ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... lack of sleep, we all found ourselves a little nervous. Coffee and Havanas failed to allay the feeling; and, in the absence of the morning papers, we resorted to whist, chess, and our pocket supplies of the "Atlantic Monthly," "Harper," and so forth, and to the very select library provided by Messrs. Bonflon and De Ary, the proprietors, for the use of the passengers,—and at last to our beds. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... throat?' 'Take a little quassia; ... but, dost thou remember, once—?' 'Yes, I remember; but once was once,' ... and so forth, and so forth. Then some evening, if a priest came in, we could take a hand at whist with a dummy, and so live on to the age of crutches in a passion whose phases are confided to the apothecary rather than ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... killed a young gentleman over a game o' whist, an' that was too much even for the Londoners. So he packed up and sailed for furrin' parts, an' didn' show his face in England till th' ould man, his father, was took wi' a seizure an' went dead, bein' palsied down half his face, but workin' away to the end ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... town. No one would 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 of boston. ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company to and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd of yelling jhampanies; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of whist; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the 'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and iron. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling |
