"Acting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... painted with a book? Well, those that can read 'em make out that they're full of wonderful things; as a man that's been to a fair across the mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything they'll ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music, play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly, with his eyes down, as though he'd just come from confession; when the Duchess's lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... artificial means. Along this admirably selected fighting ground the French Marshal posted some hundred thousand men altogether, clinging to Gravelotte with his best troops, and leaving about twenty thousand as a reserve near Metz—thus acting entirely on the defensive. ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... time he went up to his room, and sat there thinking it all over again, and asking himself whether it was fair of him to leave his sisters, and whether he was not acting selfishly in thus choosing his own life. He had gone over this ground again and again in the last few days, and he now came to the same conclusion, namely, that he could do no better for the girls by stopping at home, and that he had not decided upon accepting his uncle's invitation because the ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... danger to either of them, it was no more than, on the shore, the uneasy stir of a storm far out at sea. Had the least thought of wronging her invaded his mind, he would have turned from it with abhorrence; yet was he endangering all her peace without giving it one reasonable thought. He was acting with a selfishness too much ingrained to manifest its own unlovely shape; while in his mind lay all the time a half-conscious care to avoid making the ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... to continue his life of navigation with new enthusiasm. He had faith, the ideals, the illusions that heroes are made of. While the war lasted he would assist in his own way, acting as an auxiliary to those who were fighting, transporting all that was necessary to the struggle. He began to look with greater respect upon the sailors obedient to his orders, simple folk who had given their blood without fine phrases ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... my life when I met a young girl who was the chief's captive, and I intended to thwart his plans to again capture her, for we gave her up for ransom two days ago, and, acting for him, I received ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... you must have taken the wrong turning after you came through the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. I am a native of Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I wonder why such an idyllic place should have produced anything so unromantic as myself, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still has a large place in my affections, and it gave me a considerable shock the other day to get a letter from the Squire, who is an old friend, asking me down for a week-end, and adding, "You can do a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... admitting none but spiritual powers, and invoking the maxims of pontiffs who professed themselves guardians, not masters, of the established legislation—"Canones ecclesiae solvere non possumus, qui custodes canonum sumus." Acting on these principles, in the Paulskirche, and at Ratisbon, he vindicated Rome against the reproach of oppression, argued that society can only gain by the emancipation of the Church, as it claims no superiority over the State, and that both ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... extortion with habitual impunity. When accused, they were tried by accomplices and partisans. Their unjust condemnation of Rutilius Rufus had shown how unfit they were to be intrusted with judicial duties. Rutilius was a man of spotless integrity, and while acting as lieutenant to Q. Mucius Scaevola, Proconsul of Asia in B.C. 95, he displayed so much honesty and firmness in repressing the extortions of the farmers of the taxes, that he became an object of fear and hatred to the whole body. Accordingly, on his return to Rome, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... contrary, nothing can be a stronger proof of it, Elinor; for if there had been any real impropriety in what I did, I should have been sensible of it at the time, for we always know when we are acting wrong, and with such a conviction I could ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... subject. In some of the designs selected from the exhibits of '51 this desire to leave the beaten track of conventionality will be evident: and for a considerable time after the exhibition there is to be seen in our designs, the result of too many opportunities for imitation, acting upon minds insufficiently trained to exercise careful ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... the siege the Portuguese garrison was a mere handful of men, and the works being very slight no particular posts were assigned, all acting wherever their services were most wanted. Soon afterwards, the news of the siege having spread abroad, many officers and gentlemen flocked thither with reinforcements, so that in a short time the garrison was augmented to 2000 men. It was then resolved to maintain particular points ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... not to hear this, and demanded some explanation of the incendiary letter addressed by Bergami to his wife. Rodolphe, accused of acting as secretary to the waiter, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... enter others. The employees, calm but weary-looking, were going from side to side, giving explanations about mountains of all sorts of freight and arranging them for transport. In the convoy in which Desnoyers was placed the Territorials were sleeping, accustomed to the monotony of acting as guard. Those in charge of the horses had opened the sliding doors, seating themselves on the floor with their legs hanging over the edge. The train went very slowly during the night, across shadowy fields, stopping here and there ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the Duke of Lerma proceeds to attack the unities; arguing, because it is impossible that the stage can represent exactly a house, or that the time of acting can be extended to twenty-four hours; therefore it is needless there should be any limitation whatever as to time or place, since otherwise it must be inferred, that there are degrees in impossibility, and that one thing may be more ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... "Well, it's fine acting, if you call it so, my love. In a little over a year he has made himself the pride of Cherry Hill. Your great friend,"—this with a sniff—"Monsignor O'Donnell, is his sponsor. He speaks like the orator born and with sincerity, though ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... may vary slightly in different ages, yet there are few things so stable and certain as general average, where large numbers and many years are considered, as in the present case. No life insurance company, acting on general average statistics, ever failed on that account. The Jews and the whole human race have lived together the same thirty-eight centuries with very little intermarriage, and are affected by similar advantages and disadvantages, making the ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... with her protegee was becoming too much for the good-natured patience even of my better half. Acting upon generous impulses is all very fine, but they need to be backed up by a large amount of endurance and tolerance if the results are ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... is claimed that divers persons settled upon said lands prior to the 30th day of December, 1887, acting in good faith upon the belief that the same belonged to and were subject to the jurisdiction of the State of Texas and that Congress will be asked to extend to all such settlers ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... Darwin's view, in all directions, or at least in many. If these include the useful ones, and if this is repeated a number of times, cumulation is possible; if not, there is simply no progression, and the type remains stable through the ages. Natural selection is continually acting as a sieve, throwing out the useless changes and retaining the real improvements. Hence the accumulation in apparently predisposed directions, and hence the increasing adaptations to the more specialized conditions ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... utilitarian one. On them morality of any kind has no hold but through the external sanctions. Meanwhile the feelings exist, a feet in human nature, the reality of which, and the great power with which they are capable of acting on those in whom they have been duly cultivated, are proved by experience. No reason has ever been shown why they may not be cultivated to as great intensity in connection with the utilitarian, as with any other ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... seventeen, his junior by some twenty years. During his journeys into the interior of Brazil he had fallen seriously ill with malarial fever, and had been most kindly taken in and nursed by a coffee-planter and his family. Here he had met his future wife who was acting as governess. She was of Spanish descent, and combined the passionate enthusiasm of a Southerner with the independence and self-reliance which life in a new and only partially civilised country breeds. She was an orphan and penniless, but ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... its traditions to lay down, its experience to buy, and large sections of its military lesson still to learn. It could not, as a fighting force, have determined the war last year; and the war was finally won, under the supreme command of a great Frenchman, by the British Army, acting in concert with the French and American armies—and supported by the British naval blockade, and the British, French, and Serbian military successes in ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the bases but also in the shafts of the columns, some among them being thick, some slender, some joined together two by two, and others four by four. In like manner there are some twined in the manner of vines, and some made in the shape of figures acting as supports, with diverse carvings. He also made therein many animals of diverse sorts that support on the middle of their backs the weights of those columns, and all with the most strange and extravagant inventions that can possibly be imagined, and not only wide of the good order of the ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... Scully little dreamed of the urgency of the case. Had she seen the telegram which John Girdlestone had just despatched, it is conceivable that she might have read between the words, and by acting more promptly have prevented a terrible crime. As a matter of fact, with all her sympathy the worthy woman had taken a large part of Kate's story with the proverbial grain of salt. It seemed to her to be incredible and impossible that in this nineteenth century such a thing as deliberate and carefully ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... will finish with you, sir," resumed Gaut's lawyer, turning again sternly to Elwood, from whom he—like many other over-acting attorneys, who cannot see where they should stop in examinations of this kind—seemed to think he could draw something more that would make for his client. "When that fellow interrupted me, just now, I was asking what reason, besides some grudge or malice, you had for your unwarrantable ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the heart even in the tropical summer.) "Then, as you prayed, a great light seemed to shine into my soul. I saw that I had been charging God unjustly with all my failures and misfortunes, when I had to thank myself for them. Like a wilful child, I had been acting as if God had but to carry out my wild schemes. I remembered all my unreasonable murmurings and anger; I remembered the dreadful words I was on the point of uttering tonight, and for a moment it seemed as if the pit would open and swallow ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... The "Acting Commissioner" of the time was General Jacob of the Sind Horse, who wore a helmet of silver and a sabre-tache studded with diamonds. This, however, was not from pride or love of display, but because he held it policy in those ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... as if intended by a bounteous Providence to correct the deficiencies of too dry a climate. An industrious and increasing people may always secure an abundant supply by adopting artificial means to preserve it and, in acting thus, they would only extend the natural plan according to their wants. The fine climate is worthy of a little extra toil, especially in those parts at a distance from the surplus waters of the large rivers, and in places considered favourable ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... believed what she said, and that this illusory sincerity had furnished her with that deep tenderness of accent, those despairing attitudes, those tears. How well he knew it all! She had a sentimental hallucination as other people have a physical one. She forgot that she was acting a lie, was no longer conscious whether she were living in a world of truth or falsehood, of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... entrails, tasted the inwards in company with the rest. Those who cooeperated with him most were: In Rome, the consul and Publius Lentulus, who, after his consulship, had been expelled from the senate (he was now acting as praetor, in order to gain senatorial rank again); at Faesulae, where the men of his party were collecting, one Gaius Mallius, who was most experienced in military matters (he had served with Sulla's centurions) and the greatest possible spendthrift. Everything that he had gained ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... a report from the Acting Secretary of State, accompanied with a letter from Rear-Admiral S.R. Franklin, United States Navy, president of the conference, stating that in all probability the labors of the conference can not be brought to a close by the time fixed by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... risk-insurance. Perhaps especially risk-insurance covering piracy. I was given quotations on the risk-insurance divisions of all Krim companies. Of course those are not very active stocks, but if there were a rumor of a pirate ship acting in this part of the galaxy, one ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Brown's boy first caught sight of the nest and saw the Crows darting down toward it and acting so excited, he ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... see it written in my face, or painted in my eyes?" inquired Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a half-frenzied raillery. "I would fain know how it is that Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to watch us, when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest privacy. Did all Rome see it, then? Or, at least, our merry company of artists? Or is it some blood-stain on me, or death-scent in my garments? They say that monstrous deformities sprout out of fiends, who once were lovely ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... specialist along another line. His occupation had been almost exclusively the pursuit of animals or conflict with his neighbors; and in this connection he had become the inventor of weapons and traps, and in addition had learned the value of acting in concert with his companions. But a hunting life cannot last forever; and when large game began to be exhausted, man found himself forced to abandon his destructive and predacious activities, and adopt the settled occupations ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... information of the Senate, in confidence, a report of the Secretary of State, accompanied by a copy of a dispatch recently received from the acting consul of the United States at San ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... authority in case the President is dismissed or incapable of acting, or is absent from ...
— Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain • Various
... Mrs. Knipp's chamber, where this Italian is to teach her to sing her part. And so we all thither, and there she did sing an Italian song or two very fine, while he played the bass upon a harpsicon there; and exceedingly taken I am with her singing, and believe she will do miracles at that and acting. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... Contents: Cultivation of the Speaking Voice, Management of the Voice, Pausing, Taking Breath, Pitch, Articulation, Pronunciation, The Aspirate, The Letter E, Emphasis, Tone, Movement, Feeling and Passion, Verse, Scriptural Reading, Stammering and Stuttering, Action, Acting, Reciting, etc. ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... will withstand a gradually applied, evenly distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be nothing very serious in itself,—no more so than a rent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... borrowed, and accidentally; his mind being always in repose and in health; not without action, but without vexation, without passion. To be simply acting costs him so little, that he acts even sleeping; but it must be set on going with discretion; for the body receives the offices imposed upon it just according to what they are; the mind often extends and makes them heavier at its own expense, giving them what measure it pleases. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... inch or two of this narrative, and let kind oblivion cover it as cool dusk masks the ravages of burning noon. Anyway, this was part of a hunting outfit, including Fred Stone, bound for the North Rim. To this day I can't see any comedy in Mr. Stone's acting. ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... here. If you desire me for a slave, I will live with you in your village of Tibor, and will serve you as a slave if you will in turn let me teach you how you may obtain salvation. I have compassion on you when I see you acting thus, for if the Spaniards seize you they will do you much harm. Let us be friends, and in token of our friendship, take this garment:' and I handed to the chiefs an elegant striped mantilla, asking them to give me also some pledge. They presented to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... cast his eyes down. Suddenly he opened them very wide with an effect that startled Mrs. Travers.—"Yes. But do you see?" Mrs. Travers, her hand resting lightly on Lingard's arm, had the sensation of acting in a gorgeously got up play on the brilliantly lighted stage of an exotic opera whose accompaniment was not music but the varied strains of the all-pervading silence.—"Yes, I see," Lingard replied with a surprisingly confidential intonation. "But power, too, is in the hands ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... strangely magnanimous conduct was the true one, then indeed St. Genis felt that he would have everything to fear from him. For indeed was it so very unlikely that the Englishman was throughout acting in collusion with Victor de Marmont, who was known ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... but giggle and chatter incessantly, about the game they had been playing at, in order to prevent Helen from saying anything about the result of their excursion the evening before, and to keep herself from thinking of the cowardly part she had been acting all day. Helen only wished to be left in peace, to think over her share in all these transactions, and to consider how she might become a tolerably useful member of society for the future; and on her making no reply to one of Katherine's speeches, the latter suddenly ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not for the presence of M'Carthy, the meal in question would have been a very gloomy one indeed. Even M'Carthy himself felt the influence of the spirit that prevailed, and found that all his attempts to produce cheerfulness or mirth among them were by no means successful. The two sons, as if acting under the influence of some unaccountable presentiment, engaged themselves in casting bullets for the fire-arms with which the house was furnished, whilst M'Carthy spent his time with the ladies, and endeavored to ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... me?" he continued; "or were you simply acting, to try me, last night? Can you, or ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... offerings to the heroic dead. Aphrodite, indeed—Aphrodite, of whom he had scarcely so much as heard—was just then the best-served deity in Athens, with all its new wealth of colour and form, its gold and ivory, the acting, the music, the fantastic women, beneath the shadow of the great walls still rising steadily. Hippolytus would have no part in her worship; instead did what was in him to revive the neglected service of his own goddess, stirring ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... muttering away straight up to the fifth watch, when she at last turned in. But shortly, daylight broke, and I heard her get up and comb her hair, all in a hurry, and rush after P'in Erh. In a while, however, she returned; and, after acting like an idiot the whole day, she managed to put together a stanza. But it wasn't after all, good, so she's, of course, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... much, but it was very well played, and all the characters turned their painted sides to the audience, for they were made only to be seen on one side. The acting was wonderful, excepting that sometimes they came out beyond the lamps, because the wires were a little too long. The doll, whose neck had been darned, was so excited that the place in her neck burst, and the money-pig declared he must do something ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... hand. Now is the moment to complete the material victory by a moral victory, and that which a government cannot do when beaten, it ought to do when victorious. After destroying the old parties, bring about the restoration of the people; proclaim that universal suffrage, sincere, and acting in harmony with the greatest liberty, shall name the President and the Constituent Assembly to save ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... day, never forgetting to chronicle anything strange or pathetic as it occurred to him. On the fourth day he sent off Fathers Diego, Nicolas Hennerio, and Mansilla into the province of Itatines to found a mission there, acting upon orders which had just reached him from the Provincial of the Order shortly before he had started from Guayra. They took with them 'bells, images, and everything suitable for the foundation of a mission'; but the first two were martyred by the ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... Acting under the advice of Lanfranc, he had sought and obtained Edith in marriage, and had thereby, like Henry Beauclerc, united the claims of conquerors and conquered in his person. He had obtained from the king a promise of free ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... insincerity. "I think," he said, in a letter to the President-elect, "that Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana could not be arrested, even if we should offer all you suggest, and with it the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line. But persons acting for those States intimate that they might be so arrested, because they think that the Republicans are not going to concede the restoration of that line."[622] It is likely Seward hesitated to believe that his vote against the compromise, for whatever reason it was given, helped ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... This comes of acting on impulse. Why couldn't I have waited! I had the whole thing ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... well-deserved dust under which the "Discovery" and the "Tender Husband" have been half-a-century imbedded. But this supposition would be entirely erroneous. The courtiers and citizens themselves were but dull company: it was chiefly the acting that kept the audience on the benches and out of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... acts on the will? To think that, because those who wield the power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests. They who can succeed in creating ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... realized that his favourite was dead, turned upon his guest in a perfect fury. His face looked like a devil's. But Arthur, acting with wonderful self-possession for so young ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... circumstances, he had less means of being liberal, he began, on a sudden, to boast, and to promise her seas and mountains;[132] threatening her, at times, with the sword, if she were not submissive to his will; and acting, in his general conduct, with greater arrogance than ever.[133] Fulvia, having learned the cause of his extravagant behavior, did not keep such danger to the state a secret; but, without naming her informant, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... Palmer by the arm, and, acting in concert, they threw both their weights against the ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... have it. They bristled, proudly. They were defiant. They considered themselves not only as good as humans—the cops didn't care what they thought—but they insisted on acting as if they ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Christy's first thought after he had settled himself in his new quarters related to the cabin steward, who had served him very faithfully, and whom he had brought off in the Teaser, the former name of the Bronx. He had no doubt he was still on board, and probably acting in his former capacity, for Mr. Flint knew that he was attached to the man for the service he had rendered, not only to him but to his country. He was absolutely sure that Dave could be trusted under ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... don't think we have any one here smart enough to pull off a job like that. Hello, what now?" as Jack, acting upon a sudden thought, rushed from the room. ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... as I lay in bed, that we were acting foolishly; for an ancient shepherd had dropped in and taken supper with us, and foretold a heavy fall and great disaster to live stock. He said that he had known a frost beginning, just as this had done, with a black ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... old eyes, and the quaint importance of his delivery, are so much more like some pragmatical old coxcomb represented on the stage, than like anything in real and common life, that I think, were I a man, I should sometimes be betrayed into clapping him for acting so Well. As it is, I am sure no character in any comedy I ever saw has made ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... steamers we had so long kept up the river, and those which had come out with the iron-clad from Norfolk, all concentrated the fire of their small rifled guns upon us. At this time we lost two officers, both elderly men. One was an acting master, who was killed on the quarter-deck by a small rifle-bolt which struck him between the shoulders, and went right through him. The other was our old coast pilot, who was mortally wounded by a fragment of shell. We kept up as strong a fire as we could from our ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... nature. Moreover, it was indirectly a compliment to herself, in that she could be credited with doing what she felt to be highest as well as anyone else. In her life hitherto she had been figuratively kicked and beaten into doing what she couldn't resist. Now she was considered capable of acting worthily of her own accord. It inspired a ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... of Acting President Henry Landes of the University of Washington to the Chancellor of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... existed. Women he was aware were an enigma. Men could not fathom them. They were fickle, mysterious creatures, on whom no sane man could rely, whom the wisest owned they could not understand, capable alternately of devotion and treachery, acting from instincts that men did not share, moved by sudden, amazing impulses that men could ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... a great mistake, Virginia," she repeated,—"a great mistake. No young lady of your age can afford to make herself conspicuous by acting differently from other people. Do you wish to ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... something to make our circumstances pleasant, prepared a large peach pie with her own hands in celebration. The Major and Jones having come in the night before, we passed most of the time that day in a large tent eating melons, the Major acting as carver of the fruit. When we had eaten a watermelon he would declare that he thought muskmelon far better. We all agreed. He would cut one only to find when we had eaten it that we had changed ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Parliament. As to the mode in which King, Lords, and Commons were to divide the sovereign power between themselves there have been at different times disputes leading to civil war; but that Parliament—that is, the Crown, the Peers, and the Commons acting together—is absolutely supreme, has never been doubted. Here constitutional theory and constitutional practice are for once at one. Hence, it has been well said by the acutest of foreign critics that the merit of the English ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... young man's fancy saw attractive possibilities in the village print-shop, and later his ambition was diverted to acting, encouraged by the good times he had in the theatricals of the Adelphian Society of Greenfield. "In my dreamy way," he afterward said, "I did a little of a number of things fairly well—sang, played the guitar and violin, acted, painted signs and wrote ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... around the pools for an hour. Before dinner was over, the acting foreman of the second herd rode in, and in mimicking a trail boss, issued some drastic orders. The second herd was within sight, refused to graze, and his wagon was pulling in below the ranch for the ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... disapprove of this behavior, and scold, as the finch was quite apt to do, the mocking-bird instantly alighted beside him, humped his back till he looked deformed, sidled two or three steps towards him, stopped, and stared at his critic; then two or three steps more, stopping again, and in every way acting more like a mischievous monster than a bird, till the astonished finch was reduced to silence, and as meek as poor Mrs. Quilp before the antics of ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... of a beautiful woman are always interesting, and when you are allowed to study them at close range without being under the necessity of acting the part of a faithful lover they become ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... heavens, and in making the worse appear the better cause, and in teaching these same things to others." Such is the accusation: for such things you have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes, one Socrates there carried about, saying that he walks in the air, and acting many other buffooneries, of which I understand nothing whatever. Nor do I say this as disparaging such a science, if there be any one skilled in such things, only let me not be prosecuted by Melitus on a charge of this kind; but I say ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... increased on the goods offered, the correspondent has a first-class opportunity to urge an immediate response: "There is just two weeks' time in which you can buy this machine at $25. So you can save $5 by acting immediately." ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... the building, and, for a time, could not find the watchman. When he did come upon the man, he found him rubbing his eyes sleepily, and acting as though he had just ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... these keeps the legislative power in due health and vigour, so as to make it improbable that laws should be enacted destructive of general liberty: the latter is a guard upon the executive power, by restraining it from acting either beyond or in contradiction to the laws, that are framed ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... power," that they would do as the Scriptures foretold; and yet He determined to send His son into their very midst, and when He came, they took Him and crucified Him. In all that they did they acted freely. Had it not been so, had they been acting under an iron necessity, then the apostle could not have brought against them the charge of having done what they did with "wicked hands." That charge, that homethrust, explodes the Calvinistic argument, as far as the ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... Corpuscles or Electrons, which at the last seem to be nothing but a unit of Electricity, tied up in a "knot in the Ether"—although just what the Ether is, Science does not dare to guess. And Energy, also seems to be unthinkable except as operating through matter, and always seems to be acting under the operation of Laws—and Laws without a Law giver, and a Law giver without mind or something higher than Mind, is unthinkable. And Mind, as we know it, seems to be bound up with matter and energy ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... to open her card case, then, acting on a sudden resolution, she looked up again and asked, "Is Miss ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... may be condoned. It will be seen in this history that French women have acted banefully on politics, causing mischief, inciting jealousy and revenge, almost invariably an instrument in the hands of man, acting as a disturbing element. In art, literature, religion, and business, however, they have ever been a directing force, a guide, a critic and judge, an inspiration ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... gasp for breath; but when he seemed only to meditate on relieving himself of the superabundant clothing, the dusky watcher leaned forward to see whether he dared violate his implied commands. It looked very much as though the Pah Utah was acting as a physician ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... I am not asking as to that," said the Duke impatiently. "The man had been injured by indiscreet persons acting on my behalf and in opposition to my wishes." He said not a word about the Duchess; but Mr. Monk no doubt knew that her Grace had been at any rate one of the indiscreet persons. "He applied to me for the money, alleging that he had been injured by my agents. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... impossible! As for being herself deceived, it was equally impossible. It was certainly her son whom she had just seen; and if he had not recognized her, it was because he would not, because he ought not, because he had some strong reason for acting thus. And then, her mother feelings arising within her, she had only one thought: Can I unwittingly ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... water-cart and left behind in the stampede. Jeremy appropriated it, riding Arab fashion with short stirrups, and I wouldn't have blamed Feisul's own brother for falsely identifying him at ten yards. He was born mischievous and he caricatured Feisul on horseback as if he were acting for the movies. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... to their ecclesiastical buildings in the way our Saviour acted with regard to the temple, then it is but fair to hold that their belief in their sacredness is real. But if, on the contrary, we find them acting, not as our Saviour acted, but as the money-changers or the cattle-sellers acted, then is it equally fair to conclude that their belief in their sacredness is not a real belief, but a piece of mere pretence. In the north transept of York Minster there may be seen a table ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... that as its Homogeneal primitive and generating Element; but that that shining transient body which we call Flame, is nothing else but a mixture of Air, and volatil sulphureous parts of dissoluble or combustible bodies, which are acting upon each other whilst they ascend, that is, flame seems to be a mixture of Air, and the combustible volatil parts of any body, which parts the encompassing Air does dissolve or work upon, which action, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... us, her younger housemates,—a dozen or so of cousins, friends, and sisters, some attending school, and some at work in the mill,—was a little fortnightly paper, to be filled with our original contributions, she herself acting as editor. ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... but Captain Cutler was still mured within his own quarters, declining to see Mr. Blakely until ready to come to the office. Ahorah and his swarthy partner were already gone, "started even before six," said the acting sergeant major, and Blakely was fuming with impatience and sense of something much amiss. Doty was obviously dodging him, there could be no doubt of that, for the youngster was between two fires, the post commander's positive orders ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... travellers. The Africans entertained some vague suspicion, that the King of England, in sending the white men to their country, had some sinister object in view. A letter had reached the sultan from Bornou, intimating, that in sending missions to Africa, the English were acting in the same manner as they had done, in order to subdue the Indian princes, and even advising that Clapperton should be put to death. Bello evidently put some faith in this ridiculous assertion. He seized Clapperton's baggage, under the pretence that he was conveying arms and warlike ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... it may seem good to them." But why should that be the privilege of the "great souls" only, and not of the others also, who are no "great souls," and can be none? No such difference exists to us. If a Goethe and a George Sand—to take these two from the many who have acted and are acting like them—live according to the inclinations of their hearts—and about Goethe's love affairs whole libraries are published that are devoured by his male and female admirers in wrapt ecstasy—why condemn in others that, which done ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... the Audiencia shall appoint a magistrate, in order that the rights of the parties may not be lost for want of evidence; and they shall give direction that he is to give his testimony, unless it shall appear that he is offered as a witness maliciously to prevent him from acting as judge ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... slipped away, and again Glenarvan begged for longer grace. To hear his imploring tones, one might have thought him a criminal begging a respite. So the day passed on till it was almost noon. McNabbs hesitated now no longer, but, acting on the advice of the rest, told his cousin that start they must, for all their lives ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... tent of the general, that he might be protected from open danger and secret treachery. The velites mounted guard the whole night and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and each gate was guarded by ten men; the equites were intrusted with the duty of acting as sentinels during the night, and most ingenious measures were adopted to secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The watchword for the night was given by the commander-in-chief. "On the first signal being given by the trumpet, the tents ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... rose up to tell us what we should do, to batten himself off the wretched commonwealth, and then go to the guillotine before his successor. As a good citizen I should have turned these jewels and stones and coins over to the state. But I was acting the part of Jacquot, and as an honest peasant I whipped them under my blouse and carried them away. In my straits of exile I never decreased them. And you may take inventory of your property and claim it when we rise from ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 1: A greater power causes sorrow, as acting not potentially but actually, i.e. by causing the actual presence of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Have you taken this comedy for truth? Did you think this theatrical performance was a reality? You have forgotten what I told you a month since in Paris, that I had a native talent for acting. You would contest the matter with me, and I bet you that I could introduce an impromptu scene in my house, with such artistic skill, that you would be ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... citizens and loyal subjects, it was all the same to her whether they went to church or to mass. Had it been possible to adopt and apply in the sixteenth century the modern doctrine of contemptuous indifference to sectarian quarrels, there was not one of her subjects more capable of appreciating and acting upon it than the great Queen herself. But in that case she would have estranged her friends without conciliating her opponents. She would have forfeited her throne and her life. Pius V. had not merely excommunicated her, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... plunder, and by even encouraging them to continue poisoning themselves and their descendants by over-indulgence in alcoholic drink?[1216] Surely "the defective natures of citizens will show themselves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they are arranged into. There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... of external objects, by the external organs being rendered unfit to transmit to them the impulses of bodies, during the suspension of the power of volition; thus, the eye-lids are closed in sleep, to prevent the impulse of the light from acting on the optic nerve; and it is very probable that the drum of the ear is not stretched; it is likewise probable that something similar happens to the external apparatus of all our organs of sense, which may ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... play acting of estrangement," said he, impatiently. "Let's forget it—it doesn't carry naturally with either you ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... how an airplane is made to tip and turn. Before a machine is under control we must be able to climb, or come down to the ground for a landing. Vertical control of an airplane is attained by the use of elevators, flaps on the tail plane acting as horizontal rudders. A pull-back on the joy-stick lifts the flaps, raises the nose of the machine, and causes it to gain height. Push the joy-stick forward, the elevators are turned down, and the machine goes into a dive for the ground. In making many maneuvers all three controls, ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... The White Doe of Rylston, Peter Bell, The Waggoner, The Prelude, etc. In 1843 he was appointed to succeed Southey as poet-laureate. He is undoubtedly a poet of the first rank. Regarding Nature as a living and mysterious whole, constantly acting on humanity, the visible universe and its inhabitants were alike to him full of wonder, awe and mystery. His influence on the literature and poetry of Britain and America has been immense, and is yet far from being exhausted. He died ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... by some players who were performing in the town; and from one of those he learned that the two strangers were from Ireland—He who gave him the crownpiece being a gentleman of the name of Comerford, a merchant—he who gave him his blessing, a Mr. Dawson, a player of Dublin, who was an acting assistant, and a kind of purveyor for the manager of the theatre in that city, and stepfather to the celebrated William Lewis. The Mr. Wilder alluded to was many years an actor and singer in Dublin and the original Linco and colonel ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... should be the instrument of violating what is most sacred. If our late friend had designed that his MSS. should remain in her hands, he would certainly have left them to her by his last will and testament; his acting otherwise is an evident proof that ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town, upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old- fashioned old gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the Dedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... and half a mile wide were forced up, carried over the first ice-pack, and summarily stopped below the barrier. Huge pieces, broken off from the sides, came crunching their way angrily up the bank, as if acting on some independent impulse. There they sat, great fragments, glistening in the sunlight, as big as cabins. It was something to see them come walking up the shelving bank! The cheechalkos who laughed before ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... bread-fruit tree laden with fruit, thirteen musicians were seated, who sang together in different parts. Four of the musicians played the accompaniment by striking bamboo canes, yard and a yard and a half long, upon the ground, the holder of the longest bamboo occasionally acting as conductor. These bamboo canes emitted a sound not unlike that of a tambourine, and they were arranged in the following order. The two medium-sized canes were in unison, the longest a tone and a half lower, and the shortest two tones and a half higher. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... a man who witnessed the failure of Miss Baillie's 'De Montford,' notwithstanding the scenic advantages of a vast London theatre, fine dresses, fine music at intervals, and, above all, the superb acting of John Kemble, supported on that occasion by his incomparable sister, that this unexpected disappointment began with the gallery, who could not comprehend or enter into a hatred so fiendish growing out of causes so slight as any by possibility supposable in the trivial Rezenvelt. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... yards from that gate, its horn blatted irritably at the car of the acting head of municipal police. That car obediently made ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... the pupils enormously large.' The vision in each organ appeared to be perfect. 'He could shut any particular eye, the other three remaining open, or, indeed, as many as he chose, each several eye seeming to be controlled by his will and acting independently of the remainder. He could also revolve each eye separately in its orbit, looking backward with one and forward with another, upward with one and downward with another simultaneously.' He was of a savage, malignant disposition, delighting in ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... in Florence about Easter 1500. After apparently working there in 1501 on a second Cartoon, similar in most respects to the one he had executed in Milan two years earlier, he travelled in Umbria, visiting Orvieto, Pesaro, Rimini, and other towns, acting as engineer and architect to Cesare Borgia, for whom he planned a navigable canal between ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell |
