"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... learn that the amateur gardener whose marrows were awarded the second prize for cooking-apples at a horticultural show is still confined to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... outer garments. Down came a twine, to the lower end of which the boy made fast his garments, one after another. His money and valuables went up in the pockets, for the sharp eyes of the mulatto could not have been eluded by any amateur slight-of-hand. ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... robbers' den in the denouement, and "a lot more excitement all through than there is in Mr. Gillette's play," as Mary modestly informed her caste. It was necessarily cruder, as it was far more ambitious, than the commoner sort of amateur play; but the audience, whether little freshmen who had seen few similar performances, or upper class girls who had seen a great many and so fully appreciated the novelty of this one, were wildly enthusiastic. Every actress, down to Helen, who made a very stiff and stilted "Buttons," ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... vagrant. There can be little doubt about the choice of most, and none about that of a real artist. Art and Religion are very much alike, and in the East, where they understand these things, there has always been a notion that religion should be an amateur affair. The pungis of India are beggars. Let artists all over the world be beggars too. Art and Religion are not professions: they are not occupations for which men can be paid. The artist and the saint do what they ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... Henderson. A guide to the successful propagation and cultivation of florists' plants. The work is not one for florists and gardeners only; but the amateur's wants are constantly kept in mind, and we have a very complete treatise on the cultivation of flowers under glass, or in the open air, suited to those who grow flowers for pleasure as well as those who ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... amateur detective work yourself,' he urged, 'but stay with Ross until proper official inquiries can be made into the case. There is nothing for it but to remain inactive for the present, but gather information quietly where you can. The law out here is a clumsy mover, and you may have ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... The amateur of music would keep a 'Chest' of six Viols in his house, and when his musical friends visited him, they would generally play 'Fancies' (or Fantasias) see H. 4. B. III, ii, 323, in several parts, from two to the full six, according to the number of those present. Amongst a great number of composers ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... The amateur bandsman came to a stop, and another took his place; but the spell fortunately was broken, and she could pull herself together and return to ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... musical comedy presented by that fashionable school for young ladies, but could add nothing of interest to the facts given above, beyond asserting that Mrs. Selim had proved to be an unusually competent and popular director of their amateur theatricals. ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... particularly good. Catfish, chubs, and suckers were landed in numbers sufficient to please the heart of any amateur angler. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... with annoyance, "what does that matter? That's the amateur all over. Of course I play like that because I can't do it any better. If I could play the notes"—she clenched her little hand, with a curious, almost a fierce energy—"if I had any technique—or was ever likely to have any, what should I want with expression? ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cut-up," Cappy began as the trio settled in the smoking room and the waiter brought the coffee and cigars, "I see you're getting to be quite an amateur sailor. Your Dad tells me you won your last race with that schooner yacht of yours ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the old country. I am in good health now; I have been pretty seedy, for I was exhausted by the journey and anxiety below even my point of keeping up; I am still a little weak, but that is all; I begin to ingrease, it seems already. My book is about half drafted: the AMATEUR EMIGRANT, that is. Can you find a better name? I believe it will be more popular than any of my others; the canvas is so much more popular and larger too. Fancy, it is my fourth. That voluminous writer. I was vexed to hear about the last chapter of 'The Lie,' and pleased to hear about the ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of mine read a pugilistic novel called "Rodney Stone" to a famous Australian prize-fighter, stretched upon a bed of mortal sickness. The dying gladiator listened with intent interest but keen, professional criticism to the combats of the novel. The reader had got to the point where the young amateur fights the brutal Berks. Berks is winded, but holds his adversary off with a stiff left arm. The amateur's second in the story, an old prize-fighter, shouts some advice to him as to how to deal with the situation. "That's right. ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... That will be a happy day when a course of training in nursing, though it be but a short one, is considered a necessary part of every woman's education. Miss Nightingale truly says, "There is no such thing as amateur nursing ... Three-fourths of the whole mischief in women's lives arises from their excepting themselves from the rule of training considered needful ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... one well authenticated case—the best authenticated perhaps now known in England—in which a member of a respectable family in Royston turned highwayman—an amateur highwayman one would fain hope and believe—and paid the full penalty of the law, and was made to illustrate the horrible custom of those times by hanging in chains on the public highway! For this we must take ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... say that the mere dilettante and the amateur ruralist may as well keep their hands off. The prize is not for them. He who would successfully strive for it must be himself what he sings,—part and parcel of the rural life of New England,—one who has grown strong amidst its healthful influences, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... little for command, he had not been fond of obeying. He, therefore, sent in his resignation, and half botanizing, half playing the hunter, he made his way toward the north of the Indian Peninsula, and crossed it from Calcutta to Surat—a mere amateur trip ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... But both artist and amateur will revel alike in the beauty of landscape, in the variety of form and colour of the old buildings, and in the costume of the people; and we cannot imagine a more pleasant and complete change from the ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... Scotland Yard," said the latter nervously. He imagined he could detect in Furneaux's glance a mixture of amusement and contempt, amusement at the notion that any amateur should harbor the belief that the two best men in the "Yard" could be egregiously hoodwinked, and contempt of one who so far forgot himself as even to dare attempt such a thing in relation to a police inquiry into ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... Gaston's shack. A path wide enough for a single traveller, and the dark pointed pines guarded it on either side until within ten feet of the house. The house itself sat cosily in the clearing. It was a log house built by amateur hands, but roughly artistic without, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Mysteries. The Strenuous Life. Memories Grave and Gay. Life of Danton. A Pocketful of Sixpences. The Romance of a Proconsul (Sir George Grey). A Book about Roses. Random Reminiscences. The London Police Courts. The Amateur Poacher. The Bancrofts. At the Works. Mexico as I Saw It. Eighteenth Century Vignettes. The Great Andes of the Equator. The Early History of C. J. Fox. Through the Heart of Patagonia. Browning as a ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Freddie feel as if he were being disembowelled by some clumsy amateur. He wished that he had defied the dictates of his better nature and remained in his snug rooms at the Albany, allowing Derek to go through this business by himself. "I-er-we-er-came to meet you, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... at the Station Hotel, and said that they wanted to buy a small craft of some sort that a small crew could run across the North Sea to the Norwegian fiords—the sort of thing you can manage with three or four, you know. They said they were both amateur yachtsmen, and, of course, I very soon found out that they knew what they were talking about—in fact, between you and me, I should have said that they were as experienced in sea-craft as any man could be!—I soon ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... looked upon this wreck of a man with grief and dismay, mingled with a certain inquisitiveness as to what dreary chain of circumstances had dragged him down to such a doleful pass. Villiers felt together with compassion all the relish of the amateur in mysteries, and congratulated himself on his leisurely ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... Indian-clubs, and of light Indian-clubs. We have iron dumb-bells and wooden dumb-bells. We recollect with considerable satisfaction a veritable bean-bag which did good service in the household until it unfortunately sprung a-leak. In an amateur way we have tried both systems, and felt the better for them. We have a dim remembrance of rowing sundry leagues, and even of dabbling with the rod and line. We always look with friendly eye upon the Harvard Gymnasium, whenever it looms up in actual or mental vision. Never yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the occupiers who would, by the accepted rules of the game, have to feed these people from their own food supplies. The fact that the Germans declared from the first that they never would do this and in every test proved that they would not, was hard to drive home to the Admiralty and to many amateur English strategists safely far from the sufferings of ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... has to offer. And so it comes that, taking the population as a whole, there is perhaps less practically known of astronomy in England to-day than there was under the Plantagenets. A very few are astronomers, professional and amateur, and know immeasurably more than our forefathers did of the science. Then there is a large, more or less cultured, public that know something of the science at secondhand through books. But the great majority know nothing of the heavenly ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... pounds. But suspicion of the plausible furniture collector has, I am glad to say, begun to spread, and the palmiest days of the spoliation of the country are probably over. It must not, however, be thought that the peasant is always the under dog, the amateur the upper. A London dealer informs me that the planting of spurious antiques in old cottages has become a recognised form of fraud among less scrupulous members of the trade. An oak chest bearing every superficial mark of age that a clever workman can give it (and the profession of ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... it was warm in the rooms of the City Hall, and Prescott, after awhile, went back to the porch from which General Morgan had made his speech. Many of the enthusiastic throng of spectators still lingered and small boys were sending off amateur fireworks. Going outside, he became once more one of the throng, simply because he had caught another glimpse of a face that interested ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... do, McMurdo," cried Sherlock Holmes, genially. "I don't think you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember the amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... altogether unavoidable (though he chose to attribute his reverses wholly to the latter cause), he found himself suddenly plunged from competence into utter destitution. He had hitherto practised painting as an amateur, but now he was forced to embrace it as the only means afforded him of supporting his family, which at that time consisted of a wife and two children. He was not without some share of talent; but unhappily for those who depended on his exertions, he was ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... from Murillo, the great artist. He painted the face of one of the ancients." He laid before his silent auditors another drawer which contained a sheet of card-board on which was a fairly good pastel of an Arab in a burnouse. It had the weak and false drawing which would result in the attempt of an amateur to copy an engraving in color. "This came in broad daylight while I held the clean card-board on my head," ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the adjoining mansion (now converted into a farm house,) exhibit a venerable appearance, and being surrounded by groves of magnificent elms, the whole presents one of the prettiest rural scenes in the island; and to the amateur of sketching, it must prove a treat. The Parsonage too will be admired for its appropriate character and pleasant situation.—Passing a few scattered cottages, our road will be on the pebbly beach ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... after we reached Palermo, when, in the first bewilderment of architects in this paradise of art and color, we were working nobly at our sketches in that dream of delight, the Capella Palatina. He was himself an amateur archaeologist, he told us, and passionately devoted to his island; so he felt impelled to speak to any one whom he saw appreciating the almost—and in a way fortunately—unknown beauties of Palermo. In a little ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... change. In the pure air of his country living he was liberated from the unsatisfactory wranglings, the bitter jealousies, and vexatious interference of his London patrons, whose self-sufficiency and spiritual pride were, like those of many amateur theologians at the present day, in inverse ratio to their knowledge and ability. He had the satisfaction of seeing a son grow up to be worthy of his father. To that son we are indebted for the very interesting biography of Thomas Scott, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... covered with pictures of Swayslands, the dear old place in Kent of Herbert's father—where I spent many happy hours of childhood, and where Mr. Burnand used often to come and coach us all in charades and amateur theatricals. There were also many pictures of Penshurst Place, and of the old village church, whose beautiful chime of bells I so well remember, and where I have 'assisted' at more than one pretty wedding. It all brought back many mingled memories ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... another, a coloured drawing made by Morris—who was rather clever at catching likenesses—of her as she appeared singing in the chapel on the night when she had drawn the page-boy, Thomas, from his slumbers; and the third, also a photograph, taken by some local amateur, of her and Morris standing together on the beach and ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... three other boys came forward with much the same tale. He remembered now that during the holidays he had discovered that Dick was maintaining a sort of amateur menagerie in his bedroom, and that he had ordered the whole of the livestock to be got ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... to amateur observers who may be disposed to find out for themselves whether or not changes now take place in the moon, the following sentence from the introduction to Professor Pickering's chapter on Plato in the Harvard Observatory Annals, volume xxxii, will ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... is of course free to join the syndicate," continued the S. M. "But he, too, is an amateur. He may know how to live well in hotels, he doesn't know how ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... use what is called rubberized silk, others prefer balloon cloth. Ordinary muslin of good quality, treated with a coat of light varnish after it is in place, will answer all the purposes of the amateur. ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... drumming his fingers on an arm rest while Colonel Meadows and Dr. Shalt talked, tried to convince him of the invalidity in his reasoning. There was a simple explanation for the voice; either he had forgotten part of his speech or maybe some amateur radio ham had somehow managed to pick up their signal and was playing a joke. He was too intelligent a man to be frightened by such coincidence. They spoke to him reassuringly all during the ride. At the stage door he thanked them, ...
— The Second Voice • Mann Rubin
... wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy than to the amateur sportsman. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... full of ingenious ideas for a brilliant opening. Among other forms of inexpensive advertisement, he suggested that, for the first day, a band should be engaged to play in the front room over the shop, with the windows open; and he undertook to find amateur bandsmen who would undertake the ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... tripod socket is also provided so that it can be used for hand or tripod work as desired. All complicated adjustments have been dispensed with so that the instrument can be manipulated with ease by the youngest amateur. Full and explicit instructions are sent with each camera. Send 5c stamps for ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Goethe's own testimony, had the instantaneous effect of his gaining for life the confidence of both Jacobis. The sight which equally moved all three was the unchanged interior of the mansion of a citizen of Cologne named Jabach, who a century before had been distinguished as an amateur of the fine arts. But what specially impressed them was a picture by Le Brun representing Jabach and his family in all the freshness of life, and the consequent reflection that this picture was the sole memorial that they had ever lived. "This reflection," Georg ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... Naturally a retired and simple man, he had shown no particular sense of being ruined, further than that he left off washing when the shock was announced, and never took to that luxury any more. Having been a very indifferent musical amateur in his better days, when he fell with his brother he resorted for support to playing a clarionet in a small theatre orchestra. It was the theatre in which his niece became a dancer, and he accepted the task of serving as her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... concerns, and on which the qualities personally proper to me could have had no bearing. Almost the only real incidents, as I see them now, were the visits of a young English friend, a scholar and a literary amateur, between whom and myself there sprung up an affectionate, and, I trust, not transitory regard. He used to come and sit or stand by my fireside, talking vivaciously and eloquently with me about literature and life, his own national characteristics ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Of amateur jockeys and gentlemen riders there have been plenty; among the most successful being Lieut.-Col. Vincent, R.A.S.C., Major Walker, R.A., Capt. Sir Robin Paul, Lieut. Dowling. We much missed Lieut. Stanley Wooten, of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, who has hitherto been such a popular ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... many ways. She had wonderful eyes—large, dark, and full of mute eloquence—and if her mouth was too large, her nose too irregular, and her cheeks too much tanned by rude health, and by exposure to the sun as the village gossips said, I, Henry Kinnish, poetic dreamer, and amateur sculptor, thought she had a symmetry of form and a grace of movement which wrought her whole being into harmony and made her a perfect example of beauty with a plain face; and every one knew that Andrew, the young village blacksmith and rural postman, loved her ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... support or backing easily and readily by the hand, without the assistance of any dissolving or other agent. Thus this invention does away with all sensitive preparations on glass, which latter is both a brittle and relatively heavy material, thus diminishing the bulk and weight of amateur and scientific photographers' luggage when traveling; it produces photographic negatives as fine and as transparent as those on glass, in so much that the film does not contain any grain; and, lastly, it admits of printing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... such as is shown can be purchased ready made up, or it may be made by the amateur by lacing together two pieces of Spanish leather cut to size and punched along the edges so as to allow a lacing of leather thong. It may be filled with hair or elastic felt ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 2 • H. H. Windsor
... confess I have great difficulty in understanding why such an accomplished flash burglar as Birchill, one of the best men at the game in London at the present time, should want the assistance of an amateur like Hill in ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... scrupulous conscientiousness about detail. On the other hand his sense of colour was somewhat imperfect, and his hand was almost totally untrained, so that while he had all the enthusiasm of the true artist, his work always had the defects of an amateur. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... lecture has since told me an equally strange fact. In her native parish there was an amateur choir, which assembled twice a week in the parish church to practise. On the lobby of the gallery wherein the choir assembled, there was a piano, to lead and accompany the voices; as regularly as the piano was played, a Robin Red Breast—an old tenant of the churchyard—would perch on ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... for the whole, he preserves a coolness, a patience defying all obstacles, as regards details. Moreover, in order not to do any injury to perfection, he would rather renounce the enjoyment given by the completion. For the simple amateur, it is the difficulty of means that disgusts him and turns him from his aim; his dreams would be to have no more trouble in producing than he had in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... ninth Earl of Pembroke, an intelligent lover of the arts, and an amateur architect of considerable merit. Walpole says of him, in his account of Sculptors and Architects, The soul of Inigo Jones, who had been patronised by his ancestors, seemed still to hover over its favourite Wilton, and to have assisted the Muses of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation of authorities, researches ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little rat coming here and stealing the detective's badge!" laughed George. "It's a sure thing he'll lead those amateur officers a merry dance while they are in the hills! If I could just get hold of him, I wouldn't mind helping ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... recognized craft in the fishing fleet, and generally Allan sailed with her as faithfully as if his life depended upon the catching of the gray fish. And when the sea-mood was not on him, he had another all-sufficing occupation. For he was a good amateur painter, and he was surrounded by studies almost irresistible to ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... the happy position now of making a speech for the man who is going to be elected. (Laughter and applause.) It is a great thing for an amateur, when his first nomination has failed, to come in and second the man who has succeeded. New York is here with no bitter feeling and with no disappointment. We recognize that the waves have submerged us, but we have bobbed up serenely. (Loud laughter.) It was a cannon from New York that sounded ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... after we came out here, wasn’t so pleasant”—he looked at his hands ruefully—“but this joke of Mr. Glenarm’s making a will and then going to Egypt to see what would happen,—that was too good to miss. And when the heir arrived I found new opportunities of practising amateur theatricals; and Pickering’s efforts to enlist me in his scheme for finding the money and making me rich gave me still greater opportunities. There were times when I was strongly tempted to blurt the whole thing; ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... David was but she felt reasonably sure she could find out his address in the morning. There was a small boy living next door who was capable of ferreting out almost anything for money. Kate had employed him more than once as an amateur detective in cases of minor importance. So, with a bit of silver and her letter she made her way to his familiar haunts and explained most carefully that the letter was to be delivered to no one but the man to whom it was addressed, ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... supremely attractive. Emotions of tenderness, of sadness, also came to many. Nostalgia was not yet shaken off. This strained condition of nerves, combined with the trail hardships, produced the physical irritation which is inevitable in all amateur pioneer work. Confusions, discordances, arising over the most trifling circumstances, grew into petulance, incivility, wrangling and intrigue, as happened in so many other earlier caravans. In the Babel-like excitement of the morning catch-up, amid the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... Father Lockhart's solitary original tune, harmonized by Mr. A.H. Prendergast, and set to Father Faber's Hymn to St. Joseph, "There are many saints above," is another example of tender sentiment by an amateur that outweighs any technical defect as to ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... stokers and guards. The result was at times amusing, and at times alarming. Our locomotives were so unskilfully handled that they at once degenerated into the merest donkey engines, and played upon us donkey tricks. One of these amateur drivers early in the journey discovered that he had forgotten to take on board an adequate supply of coal, and so ran his engine back to get it, while we patiently awaited his return. Soon after we made our second start it was discovered ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... honest artisan who was madly in love with her. But in spite of their endeavours, they failed to make both ends meet. Hence they gladly accepted the offer of an elderly and well-to-do townsman to send the lad to school and keep him with him. It was the generous freak of an eccentric amateur of painting, who had been struck by the little figures that the urchin had often daubed. And thus for seven years Claude had remained in the South, at first boarding at the college, and afterwards living with his protector. The latter, however, was found dead in his bed one morning. He ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... China; as he readily imparted his most valuable acquisitions to those who were most likely to increase them, this plant soon became conspicuous in the collections of the principal Nurserymen near town, and in the course of a few years will, no doubt, decorate the window of every amateur. ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... remarkable successes in the past, but we can have no confidence that these successes will be repeated unless there are much better reasons for believing in its methods and initial assumptions than any which the scientific man who is an amateur 'empiricist' in his philosophy can offer us. We may note, in particular, that this empiricism, which has been expounded most carefully by Pearson and Mach, coincides with Hegelian Absolutism in leading to ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... the best water colors we could find in Abbott's art store, we converted my bachelor quarters in the Sherman House into an amateur studio, where we daily labored for an hour or so in producing most remarkable counterfeits of the masterpieces in Mr. Walters's gallery as seen through Mr. Larned's text. We were innocent of the first principles of drawing and knew absolutely nothing about ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... being examined every one, save the pastor and the women, was sent from the hall to aid in extinguishing the fire, which had been nearly subdued. MacFearsome was somewhat expert as an amateur doctor, and so was the Reverend William Tucker. Their united opinion was that the hunter's case was a very grave one. They did all that could be done to stop the bleeding and sustain the strength of the wounded man, whose consciousness ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... Celt were, undeniably, intellectual. Chess has already been mentioned more than once in this work as a constant occupation of princes and chieftains. Indeed, they appear to have sat down to a game with all the zest of a modern amateur. A few specimens of chessmen have been discovered: a king, elaborately carved, is figured in the Introduction to the Book of Rights. It belonged to Dr. Petrie, and was found, with some others, in a bog in the county Meath. The chessmen of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... you some brandy," said Max, bethinking himself of a certain silver flask in his suitcase, a prize as it happened, won as an amateur ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... pirates. Fleets of merchantmen, despite the fact that they were accompanied usually by a vessel of war, often were assailed by corsairs, defeated, robbed, and sold as prizes to the Mohammedans. The black flag of piracy flew over whole fleets in the Baltic and in the Mediterranean. The amateur pirate, if less formidable, was no less common, for many a vessel carrying brass cannon, ostensibly for protection, found it convenient to use them to attack foreign craft and more frequently "took" a cargo than ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... one assumed, all criminals must seem strange types to the amateur observer. Come to think of it, she had no standard to measure this man by, and knew no law that prescribed for his kind either dress clothing with an inverness and a mask of polished imperturbability, or else a pea-jacket, a pug-nose, a cauliflower ear, with bow legs and a rolling ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... practiced with this weapon a good deal in the last two or three hours and acquired considerable proficiency for so short a period of experience. Moreover, she was skilled in amateur archery and could pull a bow with a strong right arm. This experience, together with a general systematic athletic training at school, rendered her particularly well adapted ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... was softened down to a picture of domestic comfort. The tapestries and curtains hung in careless folds, the beds admitted of sleep, and the pictures were delicate copies by the pencil of some youthful amateur, whose leisure had been exercised in ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lead to an easy identification of the tree. No detail that will help the student has been omitted and the small size of the volume, about the length and width of the hand, makes it convenient to carry. An ideal volume for expert naturalist or amateur for field work or even ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Here was no amateur in the business of Grievance Committees. His manner was that of a self-respecting man dealing with a fellow-man on terms of perfect equality. There was a complete absence of Wigglesworth's noisy bluster, as also of Gilby's violent profanity. He obviously knew his ground and was ready to hold ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... uses to which the fabric is to be converted, it is no part of our purpose to deal, further than to warn the public not to lend an ear to the all too prurient purity of the amateur moralist; but considering the character of the work now carried on in Soho, no ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... angular face, which appeared to her as if it had been roughly hewn with a chisel, by some one who was a mere amateur, and she could not ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... considered the matter already. Imagine how nervous one may be waiting in the hall and watching with a keen glance for the approach of the physician who is to announce that one is a forefather. The amateur forefather of 1620 must have felt proud yet anxious about the clam-yield also, as each new ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Mr. Lemuel's portrait of me appears in the Academy, people would be saying, 'Who is that?' Miss Gertrude White, as Juliet? Ah, there was an actress of that name. Or was she an amateur? She married somebody in the Highlands. I suppose she ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... theory of it is beyond the average man's comprehension. A large number of factors enter into the production of a correct result, and the attaining of that result involves a high degree of technical skill and a large experience. It is no affair for the amateur. The test should be made by a specialist of recognized standing, and this term does not include many of the commercial laboratories which spring up like mushrooms in these days of ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... how just it is, and it will, perhaps, help to prevent you from always setting the lively, noisy artist, above the quiet and silent citizen. Let this, however, be between you and me. If they could hear us talking, neither artist nor citizen would forgive me, and the amateur still less. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... attractions of the great city, Augustin well knew that he had not been sent there to amuse himself, or to trifle as an amateur with philosophy. He was poor, and he had to secure his future—make his fortune. His family counted on him. Neither was he ignorant of the difficult position of his parents and by what sacrifices they had supplied him with the means to finish his studies. Necessarily he was obliged to ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... magic-lanterns, play their part." How they are to listen to the teas, processions and lanterns, I don't quite understand, in spite of the fact that they (the aforesaid teas, &c.) seem to be "playing their parts." Evidently teas, &c., are amateur Actors. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... of hurting the feelings of others was so great that she did not tell people what she was thinking; she was truthful but not candid. Her drawings—both in pastel and water-colour—her portraits, landscapes and interiors were further removed from amateur work than Laura's piano-playing or my dancing; and, had she put her wares into the market, as we all wanted her to do years ago, she would have been a rich woman, but like all saints she was uninfluenceable. I owe her too much to write about ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... the amateur," they say. And—"A bit too much of a sentimentalist to be taken seriously," some knowing fellow in a kennel coat of the latest style will tell you. Perhaps they do not quite know what they mean. Or perhaps they are influenced ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... was the photograph. If it were at all a likeness, the woman who gazed frankly out upon the onlooker from the card-mount must have been a striking creature indeed. It was an amateur production, for the detectives were baffled in that no professional photographer's signature or studio was appended. Across a corner of the mount, in delicate feminine tracery, was written: "Semper idem; semper fidelis." And she looked it. As many recollect, ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... choir, decided she must come out as a prima donna in his theatre. For the fame and success of this theatre Zustiniani cared more than for anything else in the world—not that he was eager for money, but because he was an enthusiast for music—a man of taste, an amateur, whose great business in life was to gratify his taste. He liked to be talked about and to have his theatre and his magnificence ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... boiling caldrons of metal, laired by day in dens of drunkenness and infamy; breathing from infancy to death an air saturated with fog and grease and soot, vileness for soul and body. What do you make of a case like that, amateur psychologist? You call it an altogether serious thing to be alive: to these men it is a drunken jest, a joke,—horrible to angels perhaps, to them commonplace enough. My fancy about the river was an idle one: it is no type of such a life. What if it be stagnant and slimy here? It knows ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... grounded in my youth by an old gentleman, a friend of my family, and I may say my guardian,' said I; 'but I have forgotten it since. God forbid I should delude you into thinking me a herald, sir! I am only an ungrammatical amateur.' ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... same lovely region, half water, half land, over which we had passed in the morning, floating between patches of greenest grass, and large forest-trees, and blackened trunks standing out of the lake like ruins. We did not go very fast nor very far, for our amateur boatmen found the evening warm, and their rowing was rather play than work; they stopped, too, every now and then, to get a shot at a white heron or into a flock of paroquets or ciganas, whereby they wasted a good deal of powder to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... predicted that it would reappear in the early part of 1759. He did not, however, live to see this fulfilled, but the comet duly returned—the first body of the kind to verify such a prediction—and was detected on Christmas Day, 1758, by George Palitzch, an amateur observer living near Dresden. Halley also investigated the past history of the comet, and traced it back to the year 1456. The orbit of Halley's comet passes out slightly beyond the orbit of Neptune. At its last visit in 1835, this comet passed comparatively close ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... was an amateur prizefighter. He and his friend Bill have a fight in the opening lines of the tale, and Saul wins. This victory is followed by the usual debauch, which lasts until all the drunken crowd are asleep on the floor of the "Lion." No Russian ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... boys giving full details of radio work, both in sending and receiving—telling how small and large amateur sets can be made and operated, and how some boys got a lot of fun and adventure out of what they did. Each volume from first to last is so thoroughly fascinating, so strictly up-to-date and accurate, we feel sure all lads will peruse them ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... an amateur naturalist, knew considerable about the woods and their numerous denizens. Larry was an utter greenhorn, and apt many times to display his gross ignorance concerning the habits of game; as well as ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... "What chance should I have? They say an amateur never can compete with a professed gardener, and ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... a certain amount of variety would be secured by the proposed method which under the existing system we miss. There is, of course, such a danger as that of providing too much liturgical variety. Amateur makers of Prayer Books almost invariably fall into this slough. Hymn-books, as is well known, often destroy their own usefulness by including too many hymns; and Prayer Books may do the same ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... and seventeenth centuries amateur dramatic productions called masques were presented. Sometimes even nobles and members of the royal family took part. These plays were accompanied by music, dancing, and spectacular effects. The literary character ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... breaks up the stiffness of a party, brings the sexes together, and provides the exhilaration of rhythmic motion. Barn frolics at maple-sugar or harvest time accomplish the same end, only less satisfactorily. Musicales and amateur theatricals provide an exhibition of skill, cultivate the aesthetic nature, gratify the dramatic instinct, and furnish opportunity for mutual acquaintance among the people of the community, who meet all too seldom in social gatherings, and at the same time they furnish wholesome entertainment ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... face composed in a deathless simper: "Long, long have been the struggles of man, but civilization has produced me at last. Further than this it cannot go. Nothing shall make me continue my line. In me the end is reached. See my back: 'The Amateur. This perfect style, 8s. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
