"Player" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Morphy seven years later) greatly favoured the place, and readily engaged in skirmishes of the more lively enterprising, and brilliant description in which he ever met a willing opponent in Bird, who, though a comparatively young player, to the surprise and gratification of all spectators, made even games. This young player who it seems had acquired his utmost form at this time, also won the two only even games he ever played with Staunton, and also two ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... was at least ten years younger than she was, and so incredibly handsome that he looked like a mask or a most perfect illustration in an American novel rather than a man. Black hair, dark blue eyes, red lips, a slow sleepy smile, a fine tennis player, a perfect dancer, and with it all a mystery. Harry Kember was like a man walking in his sleep. Men couldn't stand him, they couldn't get a word out of the chap; he ignored his wife just as she ignored him. How did he live? Of course there were stories, but such stories! They ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... the keyboard with a handkerchief, and make her practice both hands at first slowly on nothing but passages, trills, mordents, etc., until the difficulty with the left hand was remedied; after that I am sure I could make a real clavier player out of her. It is a pity; she has so much genius, reads respectably, has a great deal of natural fluency and plays with a great deal ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... good as the somewhat gentlemanly-caddish mixture called The Hon. Gould Harringay. Mr. NUTCOMBE GOULD, as a Family Solicitor, deeply interests everybody in the First Act; "and then," like Macbeth's "poor player,"—which Mr. N. G. isn't, far from it,—"is heard no more." Perhaps, during the Pantomime season, he might re-appear at the finish with a slight addition to his head-gear, as intimated in this little sketch of him, when he could observe confidentially to the audience, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... lips for a moment with a slight gurgling sound. He looked over his shoulder, and his face grew haggard with longing. His eyes sought Trent's, but Trent was smoking stolidly and looking at the cards spread out before him, as a chess-player at his pieces. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... serving as tutor for a short time, he entered the Confederate army. During his war experiences, whether in the field or in prison, he studied poetry and played the flute. These two arts were his passions for life. While yet in his college days he had acquired a fine reputation as a flute-player. At eighteen he was said to be the best flute-player in Georgia. One of his college friends at the time made record of his admiration in writing,—"Tutor Lanier is the finest flute-player you or I ever saw. It is perfectly ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... occurred which not only served to confirm these early prognostications, but to rouse him to exert all his energies. This was no other than a dream of his mother, Theresa. An angel appeared to her; she besought him to make her Nicolo a great violin player; he gave her a token of consent;—and the effect which this dream had upon all concerned, we sober-minded people can have no idea of. Young Paganini redoubled his perseverance. In his eighth year, under the superintendence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... as he certainly intended to have redressed all abuses, and to have rewarded us according to our merits. He was of a gay disposition, and fond of music; and it is said that his attendants, while his illness was at the height, brought a lute player into his apartment, in hopes of soothing his distress. While a favourite air was playing, he was said to have beat time with perfect accuracy, and expired just ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... two are in the same line, aren't you? He's a great little piano player, Ed is. Ever hear ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... in dudgeon. Barbara took Liosha aside and cross-examined her on the subject of Mr. Fendihook and as far as hospitality allowed signified her non-appreciation of the guest. After a time I took him into the billiard room, Susan following. As he was a brilliant player, giving me one hundred and fifty in two hundred and running out easily before I had made thirty, he found less excitement in the game than in narrating his exploits and performing tricks for the child. He did astonishing things with the billiard balls, making them run all over his ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... or was ordained (who knoweth which?) that Ord, a prophet, one night saw the gods as They strode knee deep among the stars. But as he gave Them worship, he saw the hand of a player, enormous over Their heads, stretched out to make his move. Then Ord, the prophet, knew. Had he been silent it might have still been well with Ord, but Ord went about the world crying out to all men, "There is a power ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... hazarded Old Man Bogle. "I always did hold Spackles was a brainy cuss. Hain't he 'most as good a checker player as I be? What gits me, though, is how Scattergood come to pick him ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... Sioux lacrosse player has often been unconsciously imitated by the fashionable hair-dressers of modern times. Some banged and singed their hair; others did a little more by adding powder. The Grecian knot was located on the wrong side of the head, being tied tightly over the forehead. A great many simply ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of others is easily perceived, but that of one's self is difficult to perceive; a man winnows his neighbor's faults like chaff, but his own fault he hides, as a cheat hides the bad die from the player. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... one instrument which they know and understand, and it has been in use among the Norwegians for hundreds of years. Their most famous violin-player, Ole Bull, who died some few years ago, was looked on as a great composer and musician. But all over the country there are to be found men who can play after a fashion; and a century or so ago, when the people were still very superstitious, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... and found it was not in the town, but standing about half a mile off, like a solitary vidette, in a grave-yard too! Got through the rehearsal of "Born to Good Luck," and inwardly resolved that the best fortune that could befall any player on this day would be to get off acting for the night. This was in due time happily accomplished without stir of mine; for the oil for our lamplighter being just landed, after the night's frost, from the deck of the Abeona steamer, refused ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... of his calling went to the player of the sprightliest air; after which awardment, the fiddlers, each to the tune of his own choosing, marched off the green to make room for Pretty Bessee, her father the beggar, and her suitors the innkeeper, the merchant, the gentleman, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Theodosia had a guilty consciousness of being an eavesdropper, yet she kept on eavesdropping. At a particular climax in the little play, she laughed aloud softly. Evangeline wriggled with enjoyment. Her fingers drummed applause on the glass, and the big player glanced quickly up and saw the two lookers-on. He did not hesitate in the play, did not stop the next little gleeful peek. Miss Theodosia loved it in him for not stopping. They were not ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... game called "Brag" is also popular. Using a casino deck, the dealer deals each player three cards. It is similar to our poker, except for the fact that you only use three cards and cannot draw. The deck is never shuffled until a man shows three of a kind or a "prile" as it is called. The value of ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... as there needed to be a fitting climax to these deeds, Nero himself appeared as an actor and Gallio [Footnote: L. Iunius Gallio.] proclaimed him by name. There stood Caesar on the stage wearing the garb of a singing zither-player. Spoke the emperor: "My lords, of your kindness give me ear." Then did the Augustus sing to the zither a thing called "Attis or the Bacchantes," [Footnote: The title of one of Nero's poems.] whilst many soldiers stood by and all the people that the seats would hold sat watching. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... pit and boxes into one; an operation in midwifery or copulation, whereby the division between the anus and vagina is cut through, broken, and demolished: a simile borrowed from the playhouse, when, for the benefit of some favourite player, the pit and boxes are laid together. The pit is also the hole under the gallows, where poor rogues unable to ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... supplements income from domestic production. The government provides for all medical services and subsidizes rice and housing. Brunei's leaders are concerned that steadily increased integration in the world economy will undermine internal social cohesion although it became a more prominent player by serving as chairman for the 2000 APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum. Plans for the future include upgrading the labor force, reducing unemployment, strengthening the banking and tourist ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... they stood, drawn back near some roadside bushes, watching him, the long, lean old arm went up, the knife flashing against the knuckles of the clenched fist and, with a whirl of the wrist, reversing swiftly in air, to bury its blade in the soil before the player. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... sickened me with the sight at Littleworthy; but that is not the line Con and Francie will take just yet. Why, my uncle is specially addicted to listening to croquet, and knows by the step and sound how each player is getting on, till he is quite ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ready to charge after it the moment it goes flying. The two best runners of our team are stationed quarter-back, where they can skirmish on the outskirts of the scrimmage. I am posted a little in rear of them at half-back—an unusual post for so young a player, but one which was accorded to me by virtue of my light weight and not inconsiderable running powers. Behind me are the two backs, on whom, when all else fails, the issue of the conflict depends. The ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... in Philadelphia except the chap who had taken me yachting once, and I felt pretty certain that he would not associate Leslie the football player with Leslie the sailor on the Ella. I went reluctantly to the rail, and looked down. Below me, just visible in the river mist of the early morning, was a small boat from which two men were looking up. ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the robust Robichon no more than she favoured the skinny Quinquart. She flirted with them equally, she approved them equally—and at last, when each of them had plagued her beyond endurance, she promised in a pet that she would marry the one that was the better actor. Tiens! Not a player on the stage, not a critic on the Press could quite make up his mind which the better actor was. Only Suzanne Brouette could have ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... The player agrees to let any person in the room turn over as many books, one at a time, as desired, while he is out of the room, and promises to tell you, upon his return, which book was turned over last. He goes out, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... is an artist, for he seems to divine what the next order is going to be, or if he is steering her on a course he predicts the direction of the next wave even as a skilful chess player works out the ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... about a coffin, were the only sounds, and these, at last, by reason of their regularity, began to grow nerve-racking. Between the emptying of the moccasin, and the gathering up and re-shaking of the counters, Granger held his breath. It seemed to him that Eyelids was gambling with an invisible player, and that the stake which he stood to lose or win was his own life. It was inconceivable that any man should have sat playing all these hours at a game of hazard, risking ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... odd liking for a dim light, she switched off most of the burners as she spoke, leaving only one or two heavily shaded lights still glowing. Mallory crossed the room so that, as he stood leaning with one elbow on the chimney-piece, he faced the player, on whose aureole of dusky hair one of the lights still burning cast a glimmer. While he waited for her to begin, he was aware of a little unaccustomed thrill of excitement, as though he were on the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... "let the Theban youths pipe, who do not know how to speak, but we Athenians, as our ancestors have told us, have Minerva for our patroness, and Apollo for our protector, one of whom threw away the flute, and the other stripped the Flute-player of his skin." Thus, between raillery and good earnest, Alcibiades kept not only himself but others from learning, as it presently became the talk of the young boys, how Alcibiades despised playing on the flute, and ridiculed those who studied it. In consequence of which, it ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... substitute for it than "Clonas" - - an early Greek poet and musician who flourished six hundred years before Christ. For "Proserus," however, has been substituted "Pronomus," the name of a celebrated Grecian player on the pipe, who taught Alcibiades the flute, and who therefore, although Theban by birth, might naturally be said by the poet to ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... at a select political dinner the next week; to speak for the hospital fund; to speak for the higher education of woman. Led by a passing remark of Henry Belden's to infer that his cousin was a whist player of parts, a prominent social magnate at once invited him to join the party at his house on one of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... in the pit and boxes: people were running to see 'Miss Lucy in Town,' at Drury Lane, and to admire Mrs. Clive, in her imitation of the Muscovites; but the greatest crowds assembled to wonder at Garrick, in 'Wine Merchant turned Player;' and great and small alike rushed to Goodman's Fields to see him act all parts, and to laugh at his admirable mimicry. It was perhaps, somewhat in jealousy of the counter attraction, that Horace ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... very agreeable-looking, with kind eyes that are both shrewd and sad. He talks English very well, and so did everybody at the Koseritzes who talked at all. He is pathetically keen on music. Kloster says he would have been a really great player, but being a Junker settles him for ever. It is tragic to be forced out of one's natural bent, and he says he hates soldiering. People in the street were very polite, and made way for me because I was with an officer. I wasn't pushed ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... father him as we like—and at least three claimants for that honour are known—Troilo d'Orsini, the Duke's cousin and the Duchess' companion; Lelio Torello, the comely young Calcio player, and the favourite page of the Grand Duke Francesco; and, be it said in terms of doubt and horror, the Grand Duke Cosimo! If the latter, then this "Tragedy" is the culmination of all the abominable orgies which have blackened the character of the greatest ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... unabashed lawyer, who in his life had been a dramatic actor, replied with his accustomed readiness and effrontery. A young man unacquainted with mobs would have descanted indignantly and with many theatrical flourishes on the dignity and usefulness of the player's vocation; an ordinary demagogue would have frankly admitted the discourteous impeachment, and pleaded in mitigation that he had always acted in leading parts and for high salaries. Sergeant Wilkins took neither of those courses, for he knew his audience, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... who was drawing out the cards from the box. "Bet yer life, man wins my money I never squeal," Amos was saying to the dealer. "Got skads of it anyhow, and when that's gone I know where to get a mine worth more an' a million." Rayder stood watching the player tossing twenty after twenty in gold and tapping a tiny bell now and then when a waiter came and took the orders from those seated around the table watching the game. They all called for whisky except the dealer, he took a cigar. It requires a clear head ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... in his profession; and there are a good many of us who owed our lives to him when we were down with cholera, in that bad attack three years ago. He is good all round; he is just as keen a shikari as he was when he joined the regiment, twenty years ago; he is a good billiard player, and one of the best storytellers I ever came across; but his best point is that he is such a thoroughly good fellow—always ready to do a good turn to anyone, and to help a lame dog over a stile. I could name a dozen men in India who owe their commissions ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... French ballet-dancer into the Appenines, with all her paraphernalia of gauze drapery, tinsel decorations, and opera airs and graces; not forgetting the orchestra, in the person of the luckless bass player. Yet so ingeniously does he dovetail it all together, so probable does he make his improbabilities appear, that we become almost reconciled to the idea of finding Mademoiselle Zephyrine Taglionizing away upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... in a tone that made Alan feel tremendously foolish. "If I got much richer too fast I'd wind up with a soft burn in the belly from a disgruntled customer. Look here, boy: how long would you go back to that casino if one player took 80% of the pots, and a hundred people competed with you for the 20% he left over? You'd win maybe once a month, if you played full time every day. In a short time you'd be broke, unless you quit ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... in a while, but making it a point to stake on the colors. Red began to repeat itself. He doubled and doubled. On the sixth consecutive turn he played the maximum of twelve thousand francs, and won. The diplomat touched him on the arm significantly, but the player shook his head. Ten minutes later he had won forty thousand francs. Again he ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... the criminal courts. Usually they received some leniency, and were viewed with more curiosity than alarm. The juvenile criminal was regarded as a prodigy with a capacity for crimes far beyond his years. Something of the attitude obtained in regard to him which attaches to the child chess player or the child mathematician. The child criminal is now common, and for the most part is a product of ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... Now Dimsdale noticed that, nearer still, just below the Sefi, on the shore, sat a singing-girl, an a'l'meh, with a darkfaced Arab beside her, a kemengeh in his lap. Looking down, Dimsdale caught their eyes, nodded to them, and the singing-girl and the kemengeh-player got to their feet and salaamed. The girl's face was in the light of evening. Her dark skin took on a curious reddish radiance, her eyes were lustrous and her figure beautiful. The kemengeh-player stood with his instrument ready, and he lifted it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Philosopher each did his duty by Rhodora before the evening was over. The Skeptic played four sets of tennis with her—she is an admirable player—but he beat her until he discovered that she was growing very much annoyed—then he allowed her to win the last set by a game. The Lad, who was watching the bout, announced it to me under his breath with a laugh. Then the Philosopher took Rhodora through the garden ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... speaking in strict confidence, of course—he was a bad egg. He had been in the Guards, and I don't quite know why he left; but I do know that he played bridge and baccarat pretty heavily at several clubs, and that he had a reputation for being a rather uncomfortably lucky player. He did a good deal at the race-meetings, too, and was in general such an obvious undesirable that I could never understand my cousin's intimacy with him, though I must say that Alfred's habits had changed somewhat for the worse since I ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... comes to drinking the health of the Devil (whom God assoilzie) and going down upon my marrow bones to his ill-favored majesty there, whom I know, as well as I know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole world, but Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player—why! it's quite another guess sort of a thing, and utterly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 2-pianoforte arrangement of the "Faust Symphony," together with a pretty, tuneful arrangement of the "Preludes" by Herr Klauser (of New York), and was thus induced to play the hackneyed piece through again, to touch up the closing movement and give it new figuration. In the hands of a skilful player ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... player paused, bent down to look, Lifted a cover of the book; Pished at the Prologue, passed it o'er, Went forward for a page or more (Asem and Asa: DICK could trace Almost the passage and the place); Then for a moment with bent head Rested upon her hand ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... while also fortune was wont to change, and so those who had any permanent cause of enmity with another nation were ever encouraged by hopes of success to make new attacks. Indeed subsequent events seemed to prove Titus right, as Aristonikus, the son of the harp-player, in his admiration for Eumenes, filled the whole of Asia with revolt and revolution, while Mithridates, after his tremendous losses at the hands of Sulla and Fimbria, again gathered together such great forces both by land and sea to oppose Lucullus. Yet Hannibal did not ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... in approbation or disgust over the play. As the game proceeds primitive passions play over the crowd and emotions find free expression in the language that habit and custom provide. The crowd is in a state of high suggestibility; it responds to the stimulus of a chance remark, the misplay of a player, or the misjudgment of an umpire; one moment it is thrown into panic by the prospect of defeat, and the next into paroxysms of delight as the tide of victory turns. On sufficient provocation the crowd gets into motion, impelled by a common excitement to unreasoning ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... was the only public room set apart for the use of the guests, was the resort of a party of drunken roisterers, who were playing poker in the corner, and betting on the game. At the elbow of each player was set a glass of whisky, and the end of each game was marked by a fresh glass ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... poem of which there is distinct evidence is the pantomime Agave, written not later than A.D. 84, the year in which the player Paris was put to death (Juv. ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... fortunate at hazard than his countryman, but his love of gambling was the cause of his being excluded from the banking establishment. Col. Sowerby, of the Guards, was one of the most inveterate players in Paris; and, as is frequently the case with a fair player, a considerable loser. But, perhaps, the most incurable gamester amongst the English was Lord Thanet, whose income was not less than 50,000L. a year, every farthing of which he lost at play. Cuthbert dissipated the whole of his fortune in like manner. ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... merely do you hide your tactics, but you do your best to make others believe that you are on the brink of ruin as soon as you are sure of winning the game. In short, you dissemble, do you not? You lie to win four or five louis d'or. What would you think of a player so generous as to proclaim that he held a hand full of trumps? Very well; the ambitious man who carries virtue's precepts into the arena when his antagonists have left them behind is behaving like a child. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... that almost at the same time as an American player was winning the British Amateur Golf Championship, an American polo team was putting All England on her mettle at Hurlingham, and it was not with any wider margin than was necessary for comfort that Great Britain retained the honours in lawn tennis, which she has since lost to one ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... by keeping very close to the Imperial sun. He had begun his career as private secretary to an Imperial Highness, a post for which he possessed every qualification. Personable and of a good figure, a clever billiard-player, a passable amateur actor, he danced well, and excelled in most physical exercises; he could, moreover, sing a ballad and applaud a witticism. Supple, envious, never at a loss, there was nothing that he did not know—nothing ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... caught it it should catch it right. Watching the landmarks on either shore, measuring distances, calculating the consequences of each stroke, he placed the clumsy barge where he would have it, with all the accurate skill of a good billiard player ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... modern pianoforte, reaching from the space immediately below the sixth added line under the bass staff to the ninth added line above the treble staff. These two extremes, which belong respectively to the bass tuba and piccolo flute, are not at the command of every player, but they are within the capacity of the instruments, and mark the orchestra's boundaries in respect of pitch. The gravest note is almost as deep as any in which the ordinary human ear can detect pitch, and the acutest reaches the same extremity ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the meanest of mankind, Pope himself did things that Bacon would never have stooped to. Nor was Bacon the wisest and brightest of mankind. A wiser and brighter spirit was contemporary with him in the person of "a poor player." The dullards who fancy that Lord Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare have no discrimination. His lordship's mind might have been cut out of the poet's without leaving an incurable wound. Some will dissent from this, but be it as it may, the styles of the two men are vastly different, like their ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... most prominent of all, a French game, pronounced in Fort Delaware "vang-tu-aug," meaning twenty-one. All these were games for "sheepskins"—bets, five cents; limit, ten cents. All were conducted on a high plane of honor. If a dealer or player was detected in attempting anything that was unclean, he was tried in ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... into the cosy sitting room she looked for the piano-player and the owner of the merry laugh and cheery voice. Near the center of the room was a wheeled chair in which sat a young girl of about her own age—a rather pretty girl in spite of her thin frame and pallid countenance. She was neatly dressed in figured dimity, with a bright ribbon at her throat. ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... in Mrs. Falconer's opinion was, that the young lady's want of temper should be seen by Count Altenberg; she therefore carried him off to a distant part of the room, to show him, as she said, "a bassoon player, who was the exact ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... a whole country—to turn streams from their course, move bogs, transplant trees, and shift houses, all of which has been done, and will now have to be undone, because of your inconstancy. I, myself, have been obliged to act as many parts as a poor player to please you, and now you dismiss me at a moment's notice, as if I had played them indifferently, whereas the most fastidious audience would have been ravished with my performance. This morning I was the reeve of the forest, and as such obliged to assume the shape of a ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Shift (1696), kept possession of the stage for forty years, and his best play, The Careless Husband (1704), received a like welcome. As an actor he was also successful, and played for L50 a night, the highest sum ever given at that time to any English player. His career was as long as it was prosperous. 'Old Cibber plays to-night,' Horace Walpole wrote in 1741, 'and all the world will ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... with some appearance of indignation at the question, "The king, without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed, that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as ne did. And then, to be sure, in that ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... The stranger mechanically sipped the contents of his glass, and then, without having altered his reluctant expression, drew from his breast-pocket a number of old letters. Holding them displayed in his fingers like a difficult hand of cards, and with something of the air of a dispirited player, he began:— ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... next time you drop across the old playgoer. It was natural in Hamlet to swear at Polonius—who, you will remember, was an old playgoer himself—but, being a gentleman, it was natural in him, too, to recall the first player with, 'Follow that lord; but ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... unpromising subjects, so it was highly encouraging to Marjorie to find her play noticed. Golden visions of winning goals for her hostel swam before her dazzled eyes. She dreamt one night that she was captain of the team. She almost quarrelled with Chrissie because the latter, who was a slack player, did not ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... lived, Monty had continued in his element, a cavalry officer, his combined income and pay ample for all that the Bombay side of India might require of an English gentleman. They say that a finer polo player, a steadier shot on foot at a tiger, or a bolder ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... found in the kingdom—had only paused when the dancers were exhausted, or when bite and sup were placed before him. There they were, perched up on a rough platform made up of packing-cases borrowed from the station-master; the czimbalom player in the centre, his fat, brown hands wield the tiny clappers with unerring precision, up and down the strings, with that soft, lingering tone which partakes of the clavecins and the harp alike. At the back the double-bass, lean and dark, with jet-black eyes ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... scientific principles and strictly according to the rules of the game. One result of this proceeding, when pursued for a considerable time, is unavoidably a certain amount of frivolity, especially in dealing with emotions directly affecting the player. Sympathy such as that displayed with the leper may be strong and genuine, because there is no danger about it; there is the suave mari magno preservative from the risk of a too deep emotion. But in matters which directly affect ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... one he first touches has the thing hidden in it, the player loses eight to the opposite party; if it is not in the second, but in one of the two passed over, he loses two; if it is not in the one he touches first, and is in the last, he wins eight. The articles staked are valued by agreement. A beaver-skin ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... gentlemen scrambled up the side of the vessel, the ladies, amid a good deal of blushing and hesitation, were hoisted on board in a chair. Tea was served on deck; and after half an hour's laughing and chatting, during which time our violin-player was endeavouring to coax his first string to the proper pitch without breaking, the ball opened with a Scotch reel. Every one knows what Scotch reels are, but every one does not know how the belles of the Western ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... red and blue by the intermediate rates. The solid incandescent coal-points give us a continuous spectrum; or in other words they emit rays of all possible periods between the two extremes of the spectrum. Colour, as many of you know, is to light what pitch is to sound. When a violin-player presses his finger on a string he makes it shorter and tighter, and thus, causing it to vibrate more speedily, heightens the pitch. Imagine such a player to move his fingers slowly along the string, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... playing for great stakes. Really, in the battle which he had begun and was fighting, the question was not of Cara alone—it was of her above all, but not of her alone. At the bottom of his being he felt himself a player, then, as he had been countless times before in cases wholly different; a player aided by energy, money, and universal reason, which was his own and that bought by money. The stakes in this play were not only the life of his child, but the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... proved. Each person takes the cards in his turn, risks what he chooses, and when his stakes are covered, deals. If he wins, he is free to follow up his vein of good-luck, or to pass the deal. When he loses, the deal passes at once to the next player on ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... next month. "As for you, my worthy sir (turning to Edward), I shall just put you down without ceremony. But I must ask leave to book Captain Dodd. Mrs. Dodd, I come at the universal desire of the club; they say it is sure to be a dull match without Captain Dodd. Besides, he is a capital player." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... king, where I met the Persian ambassador with the first muster of his presents. He seemed a jester or juggler, rather than a person of any gravity, continually skipping up and down, and acting all his words like a mimic player, so that the Atachikanne was converted as it were into a stage. He delivered all his presents with his own hand, which the king received with smiles and a chearful countenance, and many gracious words. His tongue was a great advantage to the Persian in delivering his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... in these days would have been picked out as a born athlete, one who was capable, with proper training, to become a first-class ball player, oarsman or boxer. He was a swift runner, a strong leaper, an expert rifle shot, and his rugged frame and rough, outdoor life gave him an endurance that few men could surpass. He was as tall as Deerfoot, with broad shoulders, muscular arms and legs, clear, keen eyes, a fine chest ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... Wildcatter, Naylor, San Antonio, 1952. The wildcatter is Mrs. Glasscock's husband. She chronicles this player's main moves in the game and gives an insight into ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... king, particularly one which the king made to him on a field-day, complimenting him on the excellence of his horse. He extols the whole royal family, but especially the present king, whom he pronounces the most perfect gentleman and best whist-player in Europe. The general swears rather more than is the fashion of the present day; but it was the mode of the old school. He is, however, very strict in religious matters, and a staunch churchman. He repeats the responses very loudly in church, and is ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... scene of parting with her wedding-ring, all! what a sight was there! The fiddlers in the orchestra, 'albeit unused to the melting mood!' blubbered like hungry children crying for their bread and butter; and when the bell rang for music between the acts, the tears ran from the bassoon player's eyes in such plentiful showers, that they choked the finger-stops, and, making a spout of the instrument, poured in such torrents on the first fiddler's book, that, not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band actually played in one flat. But the sobs ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... so myself," said Bucklaw. "I believe it would be safer than acting with you in the Fatal Conspiracy. But away, play your own part, and look after the horses like a groom as you are. A play-actor—a stage-player!" he repeated to himself; "that would have deserved a stab, but that Craigengelt's a coward. And yet I should like the profession well enough. Stay, let me see; ay, I would come out ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... prepared from the rudest materials, and many were the games with which some of our comrades sought to beguile the weary hours. Capt. Frank H. Mason of the 12th Cavalry had the reputation of being our best chess player and young Adjutant Putnam was his most ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... his head very knowingly. "No matter; you have been shipwrecked too! Sir, shipwreck shuffles dates as a player does cards, and the best of us will go wrong in famine, loneliness, cold, and peril. Be of good cheer, my friend; all will return to you. Sit, sir, that I may hear your adventures, and ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... four o'clock, when the house party were dispersed in the drawing-rooms and billiard-room, a servant announced to the inhabitants of the Villa Planat, "Monsieur DE Longueville." On hearing the name of the old admiral's protege, every one, down to the player who was about to miss his stroke, rushed in, as much to study Mademoiselle de Fontaine's countenance as to judge of this phoenix of men, who had earned honorable mention to the detriment of so many rivals. A simple but elegant ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... Colbert's favor would disappear at once; the latter trembled, therefore, lest so daring a blow might not overthrow his whole scaffold; in point of fact, the opportunity was so admirably suited to be taken advantage of, that a skillful, practiced player like Aramis would not have let it slip. "Sire," said Fouquet, with an easy, unconcerned air, "since you have had the kindness to forgive me, I am perfectly indifferent about my confession; this morning I sold one of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... this the young ladies had been drawing nearer and nearer to the bowling-green, where the young officers were skylarking and trundling the bowls at the fat major at three shots a penny, and the pool going to the player who caught him on the ankles. When they were tired of this they came strolling forth in a body, the most of them with arms linked, just as Susannah appeared at the end of the path carrying a ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on his face was hilarious compared with the one on his pony's. You see, a pony gets to know his rider mighty well, and it is not unlikely that cow ponies in pastures and at hitching racks had often guyed Sam's pony for being ridden by a guitar player instead of by a rollicking, cussing, all-wool cowboy. No man is a hero to his saddle-horse. And even an escalator in a department store might be excused for tripping ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... orchestra. Notwithstanding the record of the importation of oboes, many years earlier, and the fact that Graupner, one of the leading musicians in Boston about this time, was, or had been an oboeist, some historian has stated that even well into the nineteenth century there was only one oboe player in the United States, and he lived in Baltimore. Surely this must be ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... know of what family, a great player and combiner, who had gained much in various countries he had been in, had come to Paris during the last days of the deceased King. His name was Law; but when he became more known, people grew so accustomed to call him Las, that his name of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Red Jacket told me the next time we met. I asked if the lame man had cheated. Red Jacket said no—he had played quite fair and was a master player. I allow Red Jacket knew. I've seen him, on the Reservation, play himself out of everything he had and in again. Then I told Red Jacket all I'd heard at the party ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... end of the concert, when the men were packing to go home, the player found the missing band parts stuck in the bell of his instrument, where he had placed ...
— The Experiences of a Bandmaster • John Philip Sousa
... music was one of earth's chief blessings. Of his early passion for the violin and his substitution of the flute therefor, we have already learned. According to competent critics he was possibly the greatest flute-player*1* in the world, a fact all the more interesting when we remember that, as he himself tells us,*2* he never had a teacher. With such a talent for music the poet has naturally strewn his pages with fine tributes thereto. ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... used against "Buff" Rodigan, of the semi-professional athletic-club team. This play was known as "giving the shoulder," with the solar plexus as the point of attack. The purpose of the play was not to kill the opposing player, but to induce him to relinquish ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... football variety) the world is peopled by three classes, firstly the keen and regular player, next the partial slacker, thirdly, and lastly, the entire, abject ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... so good a place 'Tis worth the scramble and the race! There is the Empress just sat down, Her white hands on her golden gown, While yet the Emperor stands to hear The welcome of the bald-head Mayor Unto the show; and you shall see The player-folk come in presently. The king of whom is e'en that one, Who wandering but a while agone Stumbled upon our harvest-home That August when you might not come. Betwixt the stubble and the grass Great mirth indeed he brought ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... Valois gathered the fruit of his misfortunes. His place at table was laid in all the most distinguished houses in Alencon, and he was bidden to all soirees. His talents as a card-player, a narrator, an amiable man of the highest breeding, were so well known and appreciated that parties would have seemed a failure if the dainty connoisseur was absent. Masters of houses and their wives felt the need ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... it is said, that an evil spirit of God troubled Saul, and that his servants advised him (as a remedy) "to seek out a man who was a cunning player upon the harp." And Saul said, ver. 17, "Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. Then answered one of his servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... a violinist who is exceptional also; he draws the bow over his violin, and low, sweet strains of music come floating to our ears; then the music will suddenly change to the wild ecstasy of joy which will compel you to notice the player. When you look at him, you will know that his soul is not there; your heartstrings will quiver until the music stops; then you will suddenly find that you have forgotten to eat, and that the food is cold.... But you ponder on: ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... represent Munden as writing a sketch of his life,—not to gratify his own vanity, or for the pleasure and entertainment of the public, but solely and purposely to prevent the truthful and matter-of-fact biographer of Liston from making the old player the subject of a biographical work. The veteran actor's vehement protests against being represented as a Presbyterian or Anabaptist, and his brief, but pungent comments on certain passages in the Liston biography, are delightful. Methinks I see the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... by the statue and its history. He examined it, talking fast and well, Eugenie meanwhile winning from him all he had to give, by the simplest words and looks—he the reed, and she the player. His mind, his fancy, worked easily once more, under the stimulus of her presence. His despondency began to give way. He believed in himself—felt himself an artist—again. The relief, physical and mental, was too tempting. He flung ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... does not make this clear, we will explain it still further: if there should be any one, a very excellent player on the flute, but very deficient in family and beauty, though each of them are more valuable endowments than a skill in music, and excel this art in a higher degree than that player excels others, yet the best flutes ought to be given to him; ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... and printed your picture in the Sunday papers last month on a charge of havin' won the, now, pennant for—Well, that's neither here nor there. I come here to make good! A feller with brains can always do that in these big rube towns like New York. Of course a baseball player don't need no brains—you ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... he has won from your uncle from time to time. Possibly, in the firm belief that your money would some day be his, he may have checked your uncle's recklessness, and he has never let Sir John know his position. Sir John was usually an unlucky player, in the long run he invariably lost, and there has hardly been a guest at the Abbey who has not enriched himself. This fact set Martin Fairley scheming. He became 'Galloping Hermit,' the notorious wearer of the brown ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... added to the good—to the discomfiture of the owners of the games. Dealers changed, but our vigilance never relaxed for a moment. Suddenly an altercation sprang up between Officer and the dealer of his game. The seven had proved the most lucky card to John, which fact was as plain to dealer as to player, but the dealer, by slipping one seven out of the pack after it had been counted, which was possible in the hands of an adept in spite of all vigilance, threw the percentage against the favorite card and in favor of ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... his axe upon his shoulder, hoping to find more and better fire-wood than could be found upon his own scanty acres, or the adjoining plain. While in the mountains he came upon a number of aged men, in a beautiful mountain grotto, intently engaged in a game of chess. Wang was a good chess-player himself, and for the time forgot his errand. He laid down his axe, stood silently watching them, and in a very few moments was ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... in casting a fly; also she excelled in several branches of sport. She was a splendid tennis-player, she rode well to hounds, and was very fair at golf. But that morning she had no heart for fishing, and especially in such company. She despised George Sherrard as a prig, fond of boasting of his means, and, indeed, so terribly self-conscious ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... his hand, advanced to the bridge table. Strolling from player to player he made mental photographs of each hand, then took his stand behind Penny's chair to observe the horribly farcical playing of it. Poor little Penny! he reflected. She hadn't had a chance against that dumb-bell across the table from her. Fancy anyone's doubling a little slam bid on ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... what the best modern science asserts—that the brain is but my instrument. If we compare it to a violin then "I" am the unseen violin player behind it. The musician cannot produce violin music without a violin, but also the violin cannot produce a musical note, much less take part in a complex symphony without the musician behind it. If the strings of the violin be injured, or if ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... mystery. But, as in the sixteenth century the harp went out and the bagpipes came into fashion, it may be surmised that it was brought in, with other French novelties, on the return of Queen Mary, perhaps by the Queen herself, or, maybe, some itinerant player of the cornemuse may have accidentally been in her train, and his music set a fashion which has now ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... penetrates, which haunts the working part of every theatre. Poppy smiled as she snuffed it, with a queer mingling of enjoyment and repulsion. For as is the smell of ocean to the seafarer, of mother- earth to the peasant, of incense to the priest, so is the smell of the theatre to the player. Nature may revolt; but the spell holds. Once an actor always an actor. The mark of the calling is indelible. Even to the third and fourth generation there is no rubbing ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... I want to ask you some questions, though. Please sit down." As she creaked into one of the wicker chairs she suddenly changed from the cigarette-rolling chaffing card-player to a woman dignified, reserved, commanding. "Mr. Wrenn, you see, Miss Proudfoot and Miss Croubel are on this floor. Miss Proudfoot can take care of herself, all right, but Nelly is such a trusting little thing—She's ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... you are stage-stricken. You have run away from home in order to turn player, and I should not wonder if this note you want me to give is for the manager of the theatre or one ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
