"Role" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scrupulous about anything would, in the event of his adopted state's being exposed anew to her old enemy, the Missourian, be able to pose contentedly as a legislator or stay quietly in Washington, his role of guardian of the White House being finished.[89] The anticipated danger to Kansas visibly threatened in the summer of 1861 and the critical moment saw Lane again in the West, energetic beyond precedent. He took up his position at Fort Scott, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... of the "Timbre" ["Le timbre d'argent" (the silver bell), an Opera] to be? I wish it to give you abundantly all the satisfaction that you deserve, and shall only regret that I cannot be present at the performance of it. At my age the role of young composer is no longer suitable—and there would not be any other for me at Paris, as I cannot continue indefinitely that of an old disabled pianist. Thus I have judiciously made up my mind not to trouble myself about my compositions any ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... was one thing for Bulgaria to be the connecting link of Mitteleuropa, with mighty Russia always potentially present to redress the balance. It was quite another matter to be just the link. That this was to be Bulgaria's future role in Mitteleuropa, Germany's new attitude made increasingly plain. The progressive disintegration of Russia through 1917 riveted Teutonic domination on the Balkans and even offered alternative routes ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... to keep himself well to the fore, claiming a share in the triumph with the rest. There was only the thinnest veil of concealment over the pirates' mockery. "Old Washtubs" was ironically encouraged in his role of boon companion. His air of swaggering recklessness, of elderly dare-deviltry, provoked uproarious amusement. When they sat down to supper Mr. Tubbs was installed at the head of the table. They hailed him as the discoverer who had made their fortunes. From their ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... "If the role of an honest woman were nothing more than perilous," said an old lady to me, "I would admit that it would serve. But it is tiresome; and I have never met a virtuous woman who did not ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... man, now unknown, who two hundred years ago filled the role of Don Diegue in 'Le Cid' was not more penetrated with respect and admiration in presence of the great Corneille than the old man who plays Don Buy Gomez is ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... policy, Germany gives America warning of what is likely to happen unless the United States is prepared to declare that the war has reached a point where it is dangerous for neutrals. If the United States is willing to play this role, the Germans will hold their hands from an extra dose of unlimited ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... meagre histories of culture, which, for the most part, resemble a collection of variant readings accompanied by a running commentary the classical text of which has perished, many a little book of which the noisy rabble took scant notice in its day, plays a greater role than all that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the watering-place Miss, which Avice had plainly acquired during her sojourn at the Sandbourne school, helped Pierston greatly in this role of jeune premier which he was not unready to play. Not a word did he say about being a native of the island; still more carefully did he conceal the fact of his having courted her grandmother, and engaged himself to marry that ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... me as I sat, Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word, Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping, Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like, Or as small as we like, or both great ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... order to explain to him in detail and in friendly terms the position of Austria regarding Servia. After going over the historical developments of the last few years, he laid stress on the statement that the monarchy did not wish to appear against Servia in the role of a conqueror. He said that Austria-Hungary would demand no territory, that the step was merely a definitive measure against Servian machinations; that Austria-Hungary felt herself obliged to exact guarantees for the future friendly ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... to Hal Dozier that, if he delayed his entrance for another moment, he might hear something distinctly to his advantage; but his role of eavesdropper did not fit with his broad shoulders, and, after knocking on the door, he stepped in. Pop was putting away the dishes, and Jud was scrubbing out ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... death of a female are the same as those in the case of a male, except that no destruction of property takes place, and of course no weapons are deposited with the corpse. Should a youth die while under the superintendence of white men, the Indians will not as a role have anything to do with the interment of the body. In a case of the kind which occurred at this agency some time ago, the squaws prepared the body in the usual manner; the men of the tribe selected a spot for the burial, and the employee at the agency, after digging a grave and depositing the corpse ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... doubt but that heredity plays a great role in these cases; her quick responsiveness bore witness to this, while, in addition, Lola evidently regarded her as the "flower of her flock," for she had always singled Ulse out for special attentions, generally ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... day a serious young man came to Hull-House with his pretty young sister who, he explained, wanted to go somewhere every single evening, "although she could only give the flimsy excuse that the flat was too little and too stuffy to stay in." In the difficult role of elder brother, he had done his best, stating that he had taken her "to all the missions in the neighborhood, that she had had a chance to listen to some awful good sermons and to some elegant hymns, but that some way she ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... soon as Geary arrived at a solution of the problem, as soon as the "deal" began to seem feasible, he commenced to hesitate. It was not so much that the affair was crooked, that his role in it was, to say the least, unprofessional, as it was the fact that Vandover was his old college chum and that, to put the matter into plain words, Geary was swindling his best friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... direct sense of loss, of deprivation. It was not that he had feared open and immediate treachery. If a rage had burned through him, at the sudden and startling sight of his own wife thus secretly masquerading in an unknown role, it was far from being a rage or ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... island of Java as an agent of the East India Company. He has found no important place in the American tradition, partly because Captain John Smith, the Virginia colony's first historian, took care to see that Captain Newport did not have a hero's role. But those of us who would understand the context in which our history first developed will do well to consider ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... from that moment Billy never attempted to butt again. He performed with great docility later on in the Pet's engagement at Skinnerstown; he played a distinguished role throughout the provinces; he had had the advantages of Art from "the Pet," and of Simplicity from Polly, but only Rocky Canyon knew that his real education had come with his first rehearsal with ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... bureaus now desired that Edward Bok should go on the platform. Bok had never appeared in the role of a lecturer, but he reasoned that through the medium of the rostrum he might come in closer contact with the American public, meet his readers personally, and secure some first-hand constructive criticism of his work. This last he was always encouraging. It was a naive conception of a lecture ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... with our allies, and constructive negotiation with potential adversaries. From the Middle East to southern Africa to Geneva, American diplomats are taking the initiative to make peace and lower arms levels. We should be proud of our role as peacemakers. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... if your discourse interests me more than I had anticipated. But you know very well that I lack the fundamental instruction necessary to understand you. You speak of the dynasty of Neptune. What is this dynasty, from which, I believe, you trace the descent of Antinea? What is her role in the story ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... by the fact that the narrator is writing, not for the public at large, but only for the friend, or friends, to whom the letters are addressed. But a series of letters written by one person only is very likely to become monotonous; and more is usually gained than lost by assigning the epistolary role successively to different characters. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... cause. There were also terrible scenes between us, in which I gained nothing; and I then first felt that I had truly loved her, and could not bear to lose her. My passion grew, and assumed all the forms of which it is capable under such circumstances; nay, at last I even took up the /role/ which the girl had hitherto played. I sought every thing possible in order to be agreeable to her, even to procure her pleasure by means of others; for I could not renounce the hope of winning her again. But it was too late! I had lost her really; and the frenzy with which ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... to play politics and was endeavoring to make it clear to both populace and nobles that to whichever side he should attach himself, he would substantially benefit them. He was accustomed to fill a double role and espoused now the cause of one party and again that of the other, to the end that he might be sought after by both. A little while before he had said that he chose the side of the optimates and for that reason wished to be aedile rather than tribune; but now ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... ride, and which really means an exhibition. His place is found in a brick court-yard with the usual central tank, and the airy rooms of the building all opening upon it, and once again comes the feeling of playing a rather ridiculous role, as I circle awkwardly around the tank over very uneven bricks, and around short corners where an upset would precipitate me into the tank—amid, I can't help thinking, "roars of laughter." The Prince is very lavish of his flowery Persian compliments, and says, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Wagner had in his mind in writing the part of Venus, sang that role, but, in spite of all her talent, the first performance was not a success. She wrote to Wagner concerning it, and said, 'You are a man of genius, but you write such eccentric stuff it is hardly possible to sing it.' The public in general, ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... psychological matrix of the piece, and as when Jack Brookfield, in "The Witching Hour," explains the basis of telepathy. But when he aimed nowhere, yet gave us living, breathing flashes of character, as dominate "The Other Girl" and are typified in the small role of Lew Ellinger, in "The Witching Hour," Thomas was happiest in his humour, most unaffected in his inventions, most ingenious in his "tricks." The man on the street is his special metier, and his skill in knitting bones together gives one the impression of an organic whole, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... only a small minority who desired an active participation in the war by the United States. Apart from the fact that the traditional American policy seemed to preclude any such intervention in European affairs, it was to the interest of the United States to play with unimpaired power the role of Arbiter mundi, when the States of ancient Europe, tired of tearing one another to pieces, at last longed for peace again. America could not but hope that neither of the two warring parties would come ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... Dunlap; Johnny Drake and Carolyn Swann; and Tracey and Flora," Penny answered. "Although I was thirteen then and really too old for the role, I had the fun of being flower girl for Lois and ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... share of the vices of life, both great and small, I was, without a doubt, possessed of. But I had never been a liar. I had never looked a man in the face and made statements which I had known at the time were absolutely and entirely false. This was my first essay in a new role. ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sing. It was a sentimental ditty treated jocosely, and its frivolity rippled out into the mid-day silence with something of the effect of a monkey's chatter. The khitmutgar on the verandah would have looked scandalised or at best contemptuous had it not been his role to express nothing but the dignified humility of the native servant. He was waiting for his mistress to come out of the nursery where her voice could be heard talking imperiously to her baby's ayah. He had already waited some minutes, and he would probably have waited much longer, for ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... son suddenly roused Anna from the helpless condition in which she found herself. She recalled the partly sincere, though greatly exaggerated, role of the mother living for her child, which she had taken up of late years, and she felt with joy that in the plight in which she found herself she had a support, quite apart from her relation to her husband or to Vronsky. This support was her ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... role to play. She could not break with Mr. Belcher without exposing her motives and bringing herself under unpleasant suspicion and surveillance. She felt that the safety of her protege and his father would be best consulted by keeping peace with ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... the first time in his life Harlan regretted that he had permitted rumor to weave her fabric of lies. For not one of the stories that luridly portrayed him in the role of a ruthless killer and outlaw ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of Orleans did not suspect the role of the mother of vinegar in the production of this article when they were employing empirical processes that had been established by practice. The vats were often infested by small worms ("vinegar eals") which disputed with the mycoderma for the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... enfeebled by disastrous memories; and I am maimed by old follies. Still, I seem to detect in myself something which is permanent and rather fine. Underneath everything, and in spite of everything, I really do seem to detect that something. What role that something is to enact after the death of my body, and upon what stage, I cannot guess. When fortune knocks I shall open the door. Meanwhile I tell you candidly, you brown man, there is something ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... Khaymah. The UAE's per capita GDP is on par with those of leading West European nations. Its generosity with oil revenues and its moderate foreign policy stance have allowed the UAE to play a vital role in the affairs ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... up his criminal bill, see the subtle condescension of his tip grabbing. This Tich, I assure you, is no common mountebank, but a first-rate comic actor. Given legs eighteen inches longer and an equator befitting the role, he would make the best Falstaff of our generation. Even as he stands, he would do wonders with Bob Acres—and I'd give four dollars any day to see him play ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... neighbour on the other side and Major Thomson was able to resume the role of attentive observer, a role which seemed somehow his by destiny. He listened without apparent interest to the conversation between Geraldine Conyers and the young man whom they ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... questioned him eagerly. He gained, almost with the first words, certainty of his own freedom. With Tatsu safely arrived, and the betrothal to Kano Ume-ko an outspoken affair, then had the time come for him—Ando Uchida—to reassume the pleasant role of friend and benefactor. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... Waldeck describe the consequential role the courthouse enjoyed as a social center as they examine the governmental role which made it the centerpiece of Fairfax County. The reader will note that the early Fairfax County officials gained an understanding of the importance of ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... from time to time when Napoleon raised his voice, Bernadotte rose on his hind paws. 'Fuori, traditore!' cried Napoleon at last, forgetting in the excess of his wrath that he had to sustain his role as a Frenchman to the end; and Bernadotte promptly flew under the sofa, but quickly darted out again with a joyful bark, as though to announce that the performance was over. All the spectators laughed, and ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... soon feel a responsibility. Everybody knows that women are no better than men. They are no angels floating in an ethereal atmosphere. It is the fashion sometimes to call them "angels," but I observe they are no longer angels when they get aged. I don't know a more unpleasant role to play than that of an aged angel. If it is said that woman can't know enough to vote, I can only reply that God made them to match men. But no standard of education was ever fixed for the ballot; ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... including variety testing, race improvement and the trial of the breeding ability on one side, and natural selection on the other. This analogy however, points to the importance of the selection between elementary species, and the very subordinate role of intraspecific selection in nature. It strongly supports our view of the origin of species by mutation instead of continuous selection. Or, to put it in the terms chosen lately by Mr. Arthur Harris in a friendly ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... preparing their weapons, or training, or guarding the village and the women. With the end of the feuds, the chief occupation of the men disappeared, and but few of them have found any serious work to take up their time. Thus civilization, even in its role of peace-maker, has replaced ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... his eyes glowing as he put the note down and faced himself in the glass. The pleasure of meeting her again under such conditions made him forget, for the moment, the role she was to play—a part he particularly detested. Truly he was the most fortunate and distinguished of men—to be thus taken by the hand and lifted from nameless obscurity to the most desired position beside ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... good ship Sully, Captain Pell commanding, on the 1st of October, 1832. Among the other passengers were the Honorable William C. Rives, of Virginia, our Minister to France, with his family; Mr. J.F. Fisher, of Philadelphia; Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston, who was destined to play a malign role in the subsequent history of the telegraph, and others. The following letter was written to his friend Fenimore Cooper from Havre, on ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... drama dwarfs the actors. Even the French Emperor could not sustain the role which he aspired to play, and, failing to discern the signs of the times, was whirled aside by the forces which he claimed to control. Is it surprising that Pitt, more slightly endowed by nature, and beset by the many limitations which hampered the advisers of George III, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... adroitness, it may be seen, Shirley was inveigling himself into the heart of the affair, in his favorite disguise as that of the "innocent bystander." His innate dramatic ability assisted him in maintaining his friendly and almost impersonal role, with a success which had in the past kept the secret of his system ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... to Benares was all in daylight, and occupied but a few hours. It was admirably dusty. The dust settled upon you in a thick ashy layer and turned you into a fakeer, with nothing lacking to the role but the cow manure and the sense of holiness. There was a change of cars about mid-afternoon at Moghul-serai—if that was the name—and a wait of two hours there for the Benares train. We could have found a carriage and driven to the sacred city, but we should have lost the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for as long as may prove necessary," said Bentley grimly, conquering a feeling of terror as he already saw himself in the role of an ape, a role previously played in which he had suffered the torments of the damned, "and anything is preferable to the wholesale carnage which Barter is doing. In seventy-two hours he has wrecked the morale of Manhattan. I shall try to get it back. Tyler, will you make every effort ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... for this hatred within the culture to be directed outward, toward an external group, so that the culture itself may survive its crisis. War is the result. War, to a logical mind, is absurd. But in terms of human needs, it plays a vital role. And it will continue to until Man has grown up enough so that no hatred ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... through their indecision in allowing themselves to be caught like rats in a trap, to fulfil with honour a role of great importance in the history of the war—a role unknown to the world, and without which this book would probably not have been written. Mr. Naude—who, by the way, was well known in town as beadle of the Dutch Reformed Church on Church Square immediately opposite the Government ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... his way to take a look-see at highly publicized Russia. Originally, the C.I.A. men had wanted him to be slightly pro-Soviet, but he hadn't been sure he could handle that convincingly enough. More comfortable would be a role as an averagely anti-Russian tourist—not fanatically so, but averagely. If there were any KGB men aboard, he wanted to dissolve into mediocrity so far ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... had in it at the same time something of insolence, all were there; the very "Yes, miss," and "Very good, sir," rose automatically and correctly to his untrained lips. Cinderella rising resplendent from her ash-strewn hearth was not more completely transformed than Heiny in his role of Henri. And with the transformation Miss Gussie Fink had been left behind ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... nothing more sensational than the confessions of a hen-roost robber, I suspect," said Mrs. Aylett, more wearily than was consistent with her role of attentive hostess. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... cases put on a serious face and began speaking with killing irony on the theme of weakness of character, of the animal delight of intoxication, and on such subjects as suited the occasion. One must do him justice: he was captivated by his role of mentor and moralist, but the lodgers dogged him, and, listening sceptically to his exhortations to repentance, would whisper ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Lynde, taking the slipper from Preston's hand and gently setting it back on the writing-table. "It was not an actress; and yet she played a role—in a blacker tragedy than any you ever saw ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... abandoned his air of coquetry. His cue was now for a waiting part; he could not guess the role he would be ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... the role of the Cid. "I shall grab every shopkeeper in France and Navarre.—Oh, an idea! I was about to start; I remain; I shall take commissions from the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... the King, with an unpleasant smile. "Indeed! against what? Your tone is a trifle peremptory—but you are interesting, most interesting! Kalonay in a new role, Kalonay in love! Most interesting! Warn me against what?" he ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... took his place by one of the tables and looking gently around with his keen, pleasant eyes, began the slow, impressive reading of the special prayers assigned to the seamen's service. Faith and Hope had never seen him in this role before, and the former felt her eyes fill, while the latter suddenly put out a hand and clasped her twin's in a little ecstasy of admiring appreciation. Neither had even looked towards young Allyne, nor Chester Carnegie. The latter, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... vegetation of the neighborhood, and the substitution of the more succulent herbs for the flesh-meats to the use of which, he understood from me, the Altrurians were opposed. In the course of his preparation for the role of chef, which he had played both in France and America, he had made a specialty of edible fungi; and the result was that Anatole was set to mushrooming, and up to this moment he has discovered no less than six ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... scholar of repute and conspicuous as the first convert to Mohammedanism in the country in which he lived. Timour went into the army when he was a mere boy. There were great doings in those days, and he took an active part in them. From the start he seems to have been cast for a prominent role in the military dramas and tragedies being enacted upon the world's wide stage. He inherited a love of learning from his grandfather and a love of war as well as military genius from some savage ancestor. He rose rapidly. Other men acknowledged his superiority, and before he was ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... remember all that it owes to Byron. England, too, will, I hope, one day remember the mission—so entirely English yet hitherto overlooked by her—which Byron fulfilled on the Continent; the European role given by him to English literature, and the appreciation and sympathy for England which he awakened amongst us. Before he came, all that was known of English literature was the French translation of Shakespeare, and the anathema hurled by Voltaire against the "drunken savage." It is since ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... is usually a platform on the open street where an actor may be seen changing his role with his costume, now wearing the mask of one and then of another of the contending chieftains, and changing his voice, always in a falsetto key, to produce ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... was likewise enchanted, and so was Miss Maria Pearson; but Wilmet could not quite fathom the tone of the elder and graver sister, or decide whether it were her own dissatisfaction that made her think Miss Pearson had not expected to see such a role bestowed upon ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... position in which I suppose I properly belong, and I dare say it is for my best spiritual and temporal good. Here I am the old-maid aunt. Not a day, not an hour, not a minute, when I am with other people, passes that I do not see myself in their estimation playing that role as plainly as if I saw myself in a looking-glass. It is a moral lesson which I presume I need. I have just returned from my visit at the Pollards' country-house in Lancaster, where I most assuredly did not have it. I do not think I deceive myself. I know it is the popular opinion that old maids ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... though he were in the witness box; but then, as his father was a lawyer, possibly Gusty often experimented on himself, since he meant to either take up the same pursuit in life, or give his magnificent voice a chance to earn him a living in the role of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... the most important of the herbs whose seeds, rather than their leaves, are used in flavoring food other than confectionery. It plays its chief role in the pickle barrel. Immense quantities of cucumber pickles flavored principally with dill are used in the restaurants of the larger cities and also by families, the foreign-born citizens and their descendants being the chief consumers. The demand ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... evident that diplomacy was now—unless in a sharp crisis—the only role to play. How many of these people there might be he could not tell. The present gathering he estimated at about a hundred and fifty or a hundred and seventy-five; and moment by moment more were coming down the slope, looming through the vapor, each carrying a cresset ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... seeks, by the magic music of his words and phrases, so to move and draw after him the sand of human nature on which that house is built, that it may no longer stand but fall and be banished utterly. Mr. Cecil Chesterton, on the other hand, only happy in the role of the new David, gives fearless battle to the modern Goliath, caring no whit if at times the struggle go against him and he find himself hard pressed at the Old Bailey, but gleefully and dauntlessly springing at his monstrous assailant, in the hope that some day a lucky stone from his sling will ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... between this battle and another which was waged, in 1813, by the great Shawnee warrior Tecumseh, at Moravian Town, on the Canadian Thames. Like Brant, Tecumseh was allied with a force of white men, and, like the chief of the Mohawks in the struggle on the Chemung, Tecumseh played the leading role in the battle of the Thames. In each engagement the fight was against an army much stronger in numbers; in each the defeat was not without ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... wuz Pixley, an' "Surely," Ye said, "he's a kite that wall sail." An' so ye hung till him securely, Enactin' the role of a tail. But there wuzn't the ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... needless to say that a girl like Adrienne Lecouvreur flung herself with all the intensity of her nature into every role she played. This was the greatest secret of her success; for, with her, nature rose superior to art. On the other hand, it fixed her dramatic limitations, for it barred her out of comedy. Her melancholy, morbid disposition was in the fullest ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... was a thin, straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point. I besought her indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her—at least, as much of it as seemed wise. I appeared in the role of her son's ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... was provided with a very conventional aunt—the kind of woman you meet with everywhere; most frequently in church squabbles and hotel parlors, however. Mrs. Corwin was this lady's name, and she was to enact the role of chaperon to Miss Andrews. With Mrs. Corwin, by force of circumstances, came a pair of twin children, like those in the Heavenly Twins, only more real, and not so Sarah Grandiose ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... the box-room. This overland route had been revealed to us one day by the domestic cat, when hard pressed in the course of an otter-hunt, in which the cat—somewhat unwillingly—was filling the title role; and it had proved distinctly useful on occasions like the present. We were snug in bed—minus some cuticle from knees and elbows—and Harold, sleepily chewing something sticky, had been carried up in the arms of the friendly cook, ere the clamour ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... ears of the mayor that Garrison was in the hands of the mob. Thereupon the feeble but kindly magistrate began to act afresh the role of the twig in the mountain stream. He and his constables struggled helplessly in the human current rushing and raging around City Hall, the head and seat of municipal law and authority. Without the aid of private citizens Garrison must inevitably have perished in the commotions which presently ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... at 16 years of age. Mentally I was developed at a very early age, but I kept my inner life quite dark, always playing the innocent. Nobody at home believed me to know anything about life. They were at times very surprised when I fell out of the role I had planned for myself. Up till I was 17 years of age nothing to do with other people's morals was ever discussed before me. I looked so pure, and do now, that people are always careful in front of me. My father ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and nobody knows them better than Waring Ridgway," she told him jauntily. "But you needn't play that role to the address of Aline Harley. Try ME. I'm immune to romance. Besides, I'm engaged to you," she added, laughing at the inconsequence the fact seemed to have for both ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... heard him in this role, listened with renewed attention. The remembrance of Aubin, so dramatic with his bass voice, then of Faure, so seductive with his baritone, distracted ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... mind and doesn't want Fenton and me after all?" I asked myself. To my surprise, I realized that it would be a genuine disappointment not to be wanted by Sir Marcus Lark. The Mountain of the Golden Pyramid had nothing to do with this. It was borne in upon me that I had begun to enjoy the role of conductor; and certainly I was learning lessons in high diplomacy which might be ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... power of life and death. Native defect and force of habit render it a matter of course that a small population should eat or starve at his pleasure; possibly his resolution in seasons of strike is now and then attributable to awakening of insight and pleasure in prolonging his role of hunger-god. Dagworthy appreciated his victim's despair all the more that it made present to him the wretchedness that would fall on Emily. Think not that the man was unashamed. With difficulty he could bring himself to meet Hood's look. But self-contempt may well consist ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... such pamphlets can of the calumny, detraction, and critical misunderstanding Pope endured, for the most part patiently, from the publication of his Essay on Criticism to the year of his death. "Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past," (Epistle to Arbuthnot, l. 358) he exclaimed in his role ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... daughter of M. Rastoil, the president of the civil tribunal of Plassans. Though twenty-six years old, and now very yellow and shrewish-looking, she still adopted the role of a young girl, and had hopes of securing a husband. La Conquete ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... were to be fitted and the untrimmed hats loomed larger than the intricate questions in various states of litigation that came under her supervision. In a week she was to pass from this realm of worldly detail, and would assume the larger role of wife, better equipped by freedom and the good uses she had made of its opportunities. Still the hats and gowns must not be ignored by any high-flown philosophy. She was about to hitch her wagon to a star, to be a whole woman, the head of a home and all that; but what ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... and his face bore the marks of a sleepless night, but he had undertaken a role and he purposed to play ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... pleasing and even exquisite melodies in it. That it has held its present place on the stage for the past forty years is due principally to its excellent libretto, which is full of comical and ingenious situations. The principal role is given to Carlo Broschi. He is no other than the famous {34} singer Farinelli, who as a matter of fact did heal a Spanish King from madness, though it was not Ferdinand IV, but his predecessor Philip V, the husband ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... human world as a stage may be paralleled in the animal world. Animals, like human beings, have all a definite role to play in the drama of life. Each is given certain equipment in form, colour, voice, demeanour, ambitions, desires, and natural habitat. Some are given much, others but little. Many have succeeded well ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... duke, as the head of the house, in his dressing room. It was balanced on the right by Ecce Homo, and on the left by the Sistine Madonna, but it was popularly supposed that he worshipped the duke. The pair acted the role of devoted husband and wife successfully, being in fact sincere in their habit of playing into each other's hands for their own selfish purposes; and people who wished for an excuse to tolerate them because they were amusing, might say of them quite truly: ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of action—but why this seemingly unnecessary caution on Drake's part? And now, after we had gained admission, what excuse would Hartnett offer for the intrusion? Surely he would not follow the bull-headed role of a common policeman! ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... the streetS Asserts a joyless goal— Re-echoed clang where traffic meets, And drab monotony repeats The hour-encumbered role. Tinsel and glare, twin tawdry shams Outshine the evening star Where puppet-show and printed lie, Victim and trapper and trap, deny Old truths that always are. So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! The syren warns the shore, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... hundred miles by six hundred miles, containing two million square miles, and has to-day a population of perhaps eighty million. It is thus two-thirds the size of the United States and quite as thickly settled. In the western Sudan the Niger plays the same role as the Nile in the east. In this chapter we follow the ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... realized my despair over the violence in a strike quite as definitely as if she had been told about it. Perhaps that sort of suffering and the attempt to interpret opposing forces to each other will long remain a function of the Settlement, unsatisfactory and difficult as the role often becomes. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... only say of Artaserse that La Panormita was the Aspasia of the piece, and Belviso the Berenice, her foster-sister and companion. My role was that of the Messenger, and only gave me one long speech, recounting the miraculous preservation of Artaspe and Spiridate, sons of King Artaserse and lovers of the two ladies; the treachery, discovery, and violent end of Dario—in fact, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... a one." It was Hume's role now to impress the other by his unshakable confidence. He had studied all the possibilities. Wass was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... for the role of OEdipus; I know you have the wit and beauty of a sphinx, but don't propound conundrums. Speak ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... "The role I am playing, dear Pepe, is not a very dignified one; but to give an annoyance to the Orbajosans I would walk on ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... because of a minute wine stain on the cuff. It sniffed critically at its coat and trousers, and flung them to the other end of the room. It arrayed itself finally in a brand-new suit of grey flannel, altogether inexpressive of his role. He could not but feel that its behaviour compromised the dignity of the character he had determined to represent. It is not in his best coat and trousers that the book-dealer sets out on the dusty quest ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... and is itself partly deceived by, partly convinced of, the solemnity of its own public acts, the adventurer, who took the comedy for simple comedy, was bound to win. Only after he has removed his solemn opponent, when he himself takes seriously his own role of emperor, and, with the Napoleonic mask on, imagines he impersonates the real Napoleon, only then does he become the victim of his own peculiar conception of history—the serious clown, who no longer takes history for a comedy, but a comedy ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx |
