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Acting   Listen
adjective
Acting  adj.  
1.
Operating in any way.
2.
Doing duty for another; officiating; as, an acting superintendent.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Acting" Quotes from Famous Books



... was impossible to make some understand the difference between acting from principle and wounded pride. The version given by Mrs. Tarleton was variously modified as it passed from mouth to mouth, until it made Mrs. Bates almost as much to blame as herself, and finally, as the coldness continued until all intercourse ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... to endow him with an intuition excluding all doubt, and with an instinct ever ready in performance. Thus for everything he found ample time, because no particle of his time was lost. He was a living, palpitating, breathing, vocal, acting temple of the Holy Ghost, and this Divine indwelling was, in a manner, visible to all. At the altar, during the holy sacrifice which he daily offered, it seemed to transfigure his countenance so as to impress his heavenly citizenship upon all beholders. In administering the sacrament, ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul

... Notwithstanding the numerous errors of philosophy and human reason, the present age still cherishes reasoning and philosophical tastes; and the most determined practical politicians sometimes assume the air of acting upon general ideas, regarding them as sound methods of obtaining justification or credit. The doctrinarians thus responded to a profound and real necessity, although imperfectly acknowledged, of French minds: they paid equal respect to ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Hell; there hide thy Head lower than Darkness. Wou'd thou hadst been acting Incest, Murder, Witchcraft, when thou cam'st to pray: Thou hadst in any thing sinn'd less ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous

... Norwegian and gave a grunt of disgust. "Can't you let the lad alone?" he demanded, in Norwegian. "He's not hurting you any, is he? What's the use of acting as if you owned ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer

... release those two highwaymen; they must appear as prisoners in court. I shall hear down in the town tomorrow morning what coach has been stopped, and I have no doubt that they have on them the proceeds of the robbery. Your son was consorting with and aiding them, and acting as a receiver of stolen goods, and as you have heard horses here before it is probable that when his room is thoroughly searched we shall come upon a number of articles of the same sort. I am sorry that I ever meddled in the matter; but it is too late for that now. ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... acknowledge that he is acting. out of season. But why does he call us to move, Without coming and consulting with us? He has removed our walls and roofs; And our fields are all either a marsh or a moor. He says, 'I am not injuring you; The laws require ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... they see you averse to usurp authority over them, grow the readier to surrender themselves into your hands; and fear you less on the score of their freedom, when they find you acting towards them with consideration and kindness. It was the display of these qualities that moved the Capuans to ask the Romans for a praetor; for had the Romans betrayed the least eagerness to send them one, they would at once have ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... the sun on the marble steps of the villa, the lamb on her lap. A yellow bowl of milk stood on the floor, close to the little white head that dangled from her blue knee. Daphne, acting on Assunta's directions, curled one little finger under the milk and offered the tip of it to the lamb to suck. He responded eagerly, and so she wheedled him into ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... saw my brother so happy in his life. Jeff always was hard to please as a boy. I used to think it was merely a critical disposition, but later I discovered that it was his extreme distaste for all artifice, acting, intrigue—all absence of genuineness. Only those boys and men interested him whom ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... invaded by the single word 'question'—the parliamentary call for a vote—rising from the seats of different Senators. One blank in the resolve remained to be filled—the date of its adoption. It was done. The acting President of the Senate, Mr. King, of Alabama, then directed the roll to be called. The yeas and nays had been previously ordered, and proceeded to be called by the Secretary of the Senate, the result showing a majority of five on the side ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... machine which plants from ten to fifteen thousand forest trees seedlings a day is now being used at the Letchworth Park Forest and Arboretum, in Wyoming County, N. Y., according to officials of the Forest Service who are acting as advisers in the work. Previously the planting had been done by hand at the rate of 1,200 to 1,500 trees ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... and put them where she pleased. "Got coffee, haven't you? Well, I'm not going to stir a step. You're a fine lot of birds!" she added bitterly, "You've all pulled me out of a whole lot of scrape—oh, any number of times—and now you're broke, you go acting like ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... York he would have made an effort to hunt up Horace Kelsey, the gentleman he had assisted while he was acting as bridge tender. The gentleman had told him to call whenever he was in the city, and he had no doubt but what he could raise a loan when he stated how he ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield

... seemed to restore all Elinor's good humour, acting as an antidote to the three which had preceded it. The correspondence which we have taken the liberty of reading, will testify more clearly than any assurance of ours, to the fact that our friend Elinor now stands invested with the dignity ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... have gaiety,—which they have not. You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.' BEAUCLERK. 'But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.' I, however, continued to think the compliment to Garrick hyperbolically untrue. His acting had ceased some time before his death; at any rate he had acted in Ireland but a short time, at an early period of his life[1180], and never in Scotland. I objected also to what appears an anticlimax ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... aback by this outburst, especially as he found all the company against him. He had often laughed at Granny de Neuville's active hatred against him when he had done her nothing but good. It never occurred to him that he was acting a similar part. Most men would have been furious at the disrespectful manner of their son, but Raften was as insensitive as he was uncowardly. His first shock of astonishment over, his only thought of Sam was, "Hain't he ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... enforced by the government. To-day the leading Czech politicians are in prison, the gallows have become the favourite support of the incapable administration, and Czech regiments have been decimated for acting spontaneously up to our national Czech programme. The rights of the Czech language have been ruthlessly violated during the war, and the absolutist military rule has reigned throughout Bohemia and other non-German and non-Magyar parts of the monarchy as in ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... other, they are sure to learn one from another, even if there be no one to teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day. An infant has to learn the meaning of the information which its senses convey to it, and this seems to be its employment. It fancies all that the eye presents to it to be close to it, till it actually learns the contrary, and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... their artful leaders, who fight and curse one another with so much sincerity. Amidst these intestine struggles, or, perhaps, when they have ceased, and our hearts are calm, we perceive the eternal force of nature acting on humanity; then the heroic virtues and private sufferings of persons engaged in an opposite cause, and acting on different principles than our own, appeal to our sympathy, and even excite our admiration. A philosopher, born a Roman Catholic, assuredly ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... the Art of Acting. It treated in a pleasant way, and with keen insight, of Edmund Kean, Charles Kean, Rachel, Macready, Fan-en, Charles Matthews, Frederic Lemaitre, the two Keeleys, Shakspere as actor and critic, natural acting, foreign actors on our stage, the drama of Paris in 1865, Germany in 1867, and Spain in 1867, and of his first impressions of Salvini. Another piece of work done by him was the furnishing, in 1867, of an explanatory text to accompany Kaulbach's ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... people themselves should make and unmake their own "ministers," and in all ways live as close to the bone as they could. The Puritans were not opposed to any of these beliefs; only they were not so set upon proclaiming and acting upon them in season and out of season; they contended that the idolatry of ritual, since it had been several centuries growing up, should be allowed an appreciable time to disappear. It will easily be understood that, at the bottom of these religious ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... the triumphant approach of an Eastern despot, but for the mild and venerable air of the amiable old Pope, who looked as if more humbled than exalted by the pageantry around him. It might be acting, but if so, it was the most admirable acting I ever saw: I wish all his attendants had performed their parts as well. While the Pope assists at mass, it is not etiquette for him to do anything for himself: one Cardinal kneeling, holds the book open before him, another carries his handkerchief, a third folds and unfolds his ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... years old, Thomas Edison was a newsbutch on a road running out of Detroit. As the train left Detroit one morning, Edison, as usual, went back into the first-class coach with the morning papers. Near the front sat two young fellows, acting very gay. They hailed everybody who passed in the aisle, and they hallooed out the window at folks and objects as the train rolled along. They were on a lark, and wanted everybody ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... measured by their passion for imitative art; namely, for sculpture, or for the drama, which is living and speaking sculpture, or, as in Greece, for both; and in national as in actual childhood, it is not merely the making, but the making-believe; not merely the acting for the sake of the scene, but acting for the sake of acting, that is delightful. And, of the two mimetic arts, the drama, being more passionate, and involving conditions of greater excitement and luxury, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... Acting on the professor's advice the aeroplane was grounded at a point some distance from the summit of the mountain, on a small flat plateau. The warmth was perceptible, and some few stunted bushes and trees clung ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... silent and watched him. Little by little he recognized that this was not acting. This was real. He ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... leaves, and now forming the current of a deep and rapid stream. She remembered that Tuesday night at dinner she had said suddenly that she wished to go, but she could not remember the first flush of that desire. It was not the wish to act toward Robert Le Menil as he was acting toward her. Doubtless she thought it excellent to go travelling in Italy while he went fox-hunting. This seemed to her a fair arrangement. Robert, who was always pleased to see her when he came back, would not find her on his return. She thought this would be right. She ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... on, a sound no acting could have counterfeited—a wild choking, a frenzy of protest made by compressed lungs and windpipe. The choking went on and then grew fainter; at last it died away. Phoebe lay soaked in sweat, her hands clutching ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... exceedingly clever bit of acting, and the good doctor capitulated at once, discrediting, for the first time in his life, the intuition ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... makes you look like a—what Sissy just now called you." The smaller sister's eyes fell, as though seeking corroboration from the middle of the board, where Sissy had been so lately acting as "candle-stick"—lately, for the incident had ended (no game being enticing enough to hold these two long in an unnatural state of neutrality) in Split's washing Sissy's face vigorously in the snow, and Sissy's calling her elder sister "nothing but an old Indian!" as she ran ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... led us (which includes the War Babe and James the Acting Adjutant) to the village-by-the-stream, where, just across the stone bridge, he indicated on the wall of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various

... evident to any one who studies the works of many earnest men of science, produced during the first half of the nineteenth century, that at that time many a genuine investigator of nature was conscious of some factor acting within the living body other than in the lifeless mineral. It was termed "vital force." It is true this vital force is not represented as being what has been above characterized as the vital body, but underlying the conception was a dim idea of the existence of such a body. Vital ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... Constitution, between the steps which the Government might justly take in self-protection, and measures which could be regarded as coercion of the State of South Carolina as such. These latter would be unlawful. Buchanan, instead of acting on or declaring his intentions, entertained Congress, which met early in December, with a Message, laying down very clearly the illegality of secession, but discussing at large this abstract question of the precise powers of the Executive in resisting secession. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... And that was no good to him. What he needed was a plain and honest, a ... he hesitated for a word and repeated, "a Honest opinion;" for he only wanted to do the right thing, what was straight and above board. And at last out it came: did "doc." think it would be acting on the square, and not taking a low-down advantage of a female, if he omitted to mention to "the future Mrs. O" that, up till six months back, he had been obliged to ... well, he'd spit it out short and say, obliged to report himself to the authorities ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... before the reception of this note; that the funeral was attended by the officials of the colonial and city governments; and that while he, the writer, her friend and mine, had not reached Melbourne in time to see the body, he had at least had the sad privilege of acting as one of the pall-bearers. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a known and established fact. The connection between minds without material means of any kind, has often been demonstrated by the very simple method of one person acting as a sender, while the other acts as a receiver. The sender thinks of a certain subject selected before-hand. He may write it down on slate or paper. This often helps him to keep his mind concentrated ...
— The Secret of Dreams • Yacki Raizizun

... I said seriously. "I am acting for Sir Peter, and I assume the responsibility without consulting him. Where is ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... Acting within their own homes, who can sum up the entire amount of good which the frontier wife, mother, sister, and daughter have accomplished in their capacities as emotional and sympathetic beings? ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... from a purely military stand-point, exclaimed: "These men are contraband of war; set them at work." Here was a solution of the entire problem; here was a blow delivered at the backbone of the Rebellion. He claimed no right to act as a politician, but acting as a loyal-hearted, clear-headed soldier, he coined a word and hurled a shaft at the enemy that struck him in a part as vulnerable as the heel of Achilles. In his letter to the Lieut.-Gen. of the Army, Winfield Scott, 27th of May, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... clerk in the post office at Little Rock and later as State Superintendent of Schools. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback, who moved north for education and opportunity, returned to enter politics in Louisiana, which honored him with several important positions among which was that of Acting Governor. ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... Gang, I looked at N.V. to see how wrathy he must be, but he only smiled sarcastically, as I have often seen him do in court; and shaking his head at me waved his hand as if putting Governor Wade quite off the map. Just then my team began acting up—they had not been unhitched and were thirsty and hungry; and I went over to straighten them out, leaving the Ring and the Gang laboring with Magnus, who was sweating freely—and then I went over ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... degrees south, and the captain, exerting himself on this occasion in order to get clear of it, he had the misfortune to fall down the after-ladder, and thereby dislocated his shoulder, which rendered him incapable of acting. This accident, together with the crazy condition of the ship, which was little better than a wreck, prevented her from getting off to sea, and entangled her more and more with the land, so that the next morning at daybreak she struck on a sunken rock, and soon after bilged and ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... like sonic grand strain of music, there is power and meaning in its slightest modulations. Her gestures embody the very spirit of the character; she has so perfectly attained that rare harmony of thought, sound and action, or rather, that unity of feeling which renders them harmonious, that her acting seems the unstudied, irrepressible impulse of her soul. With the first sentence she uttered, I forgot Rachel. I only saw the innocent Roman girl; I awaited in suspense and with a powerful sympathy, the developement of the oft-told tragedy. My blood grew warm with indignation when the words ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... theatrical talents; but his looks and gestures, when he is made to believe that he is exposed to a terrific storm, convey a very natural expression of terror. He regards the imaginary flashes of lightning with an aspect of dismay, which, if simulated, would be a very good specimen of acting. In many other experiments performed upon him, the effects seem to be such as are quite beyond the reach of any scepticism with regard to his sincerity. He cannot pronounce his own name—does not know, or at least cannot tell, the name of the town in which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various

... waved his hand as a signal to him to commence his song, and gave him the note on the piano. Monsieur de V—— started in all right and sang his song with due sentiment, and very well. I even think as far back as the sixth row of seats they were conscious that he was singing. His acting and gestures were faultless. All Frenchmen ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... mansion was good. You were at the wars; it was possible that you might, or might not return. He said this to Humphrey, who has all along been acting as his factotum in the business; and recollect, at the time that Mr. Heatherstone commenced the rebuilding of the mansion, what prospect was there of the restoration of the king, or of your ever ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... Acting upon the suggestion of one of his educated friends, Banneker now undertook to extend his calculations so as to make an Almanac, then the most comprehensive medium of scientific information. Banneker continued the work required to complete ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... quiet young gentleman—a real gentleman, although apparently acting just as a clerk—had been in and out of the room. He had given Dale a half smile, and it had been welcome as a ray of sunlight on the darkest day of winter. Instinct told Dale that this nice young man sympathized ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... one—for the monarchy; and though a dull average of popularity for that ancient institution suited his book for the present, he did not wish, in view of certain eventualities, to see it greatly increased, and still less did he wish the King to discover that by acting in opposition to his ministers he might gain ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... arouse to active life within ourselves spiritual and psychic forces which are centered in various parts of the body. Hence the whole organism of man is woven through and through with such correspondences; our thoughts, emotions, sensations, the forces we use, colours and sounds acting on different planes are all correlated among themselves, and are also connected with the forces evolving present about us, in which we live and move. We find such correspondences form the subject matter of many Upanishads and other occult treatises; ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... interrupted Brent, "is—if you know anything about it? Not about acting, but about the practical side of the thing—the profession? A pretty stiff proposition, ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... an ever recurring wonder to see educated people, who call themselves nurses, acting thus. They vary their own objects, their own employments many times a day; and while nursing (!) some bed-ridden sufferer, they let him lie there staring at a dead wall, without any change of object to enable him to vary his thoughts; and it never even occurs to them, at least to move his bed ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... willingness omnipotence lets itself be controlled by feebleness, and Jesus suffers Himself to be constrained by those whom, unknown to themselves, He was gently and mightily constraining. 'He made as though,' unfortunately suggests to an English reader the idea of acting a part, and of seeming to intend what was not really intended. But there is no such thought ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... experienced driver, kept a tight hand on the rein. Old Martin came dashing after him, standing up lashing his horse, and shrieking out at the top of his voice, "On! on! old nagger; no tumble down on oo knees!" while still farther off Jack Pemberton, Archie, and the other horsemen were seen acting as a rearguard, they, even if so inclined, not considering it respectful to pass the carriages. Ellen, on hearing her father's shouts, again applied her whip to her horse's flanks and galloped forward, much to the lieutenant's satisfaction. The major and ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... dressed in Sundayclothes, has a cafe on the street, and towards the countryside a kitchen-garden. Charles at once set out. He muddled up the stage-boxes with the gallery, the pit with the boxes; asked for explanations, did not understand them; was sent from the box-office to the acting-manager; came back to the inn, returned to the theatre, and thus several times traversed the whole length of the town from the theatre ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... gun, mounted on this carriage, is especially adapted for service with the reserve of a battalion on the offensive, acting either alone or in regiment. Its use will enable the commander to reduce the reserve, thereby increasing the strength of the fighting-line, and yet his flanks will be better protected than formerly, while he will still have a more powerful reserve. If the fighting-line ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... the remote and preparatory factors which give the mind of crowds a special receptivity, and make possible therein the growth of certain sentiments and certain ideas. It now remains for us to study the factors capable of acting in a direct manner. We shall see in a forthcoming chapter how these factors should be put in force in order that they ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... reasons for believing in Christ's absolute perfection. ("Defence," p. 220.) I opened my chapter (chapter VII.) above with a distinct avowal of my wish to confine the perusal of it to a very limited circle. Mr. Rogers (acting, it seems, on the old principle, that whatever one's enemy deprecates, is a good) instantly pounces on the chapter, avows that "if infidelity could be ruined, such imprudencies[17] would go far to ruin it," p. 22; and because he believes that it ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... Church all their strength to punish heresy and schism. Thus the Albigenses [Footnote: See p. 493.] in Southern France, the Lollards [Footnote: See p. 491.] in England, and the Hussites [Footnote: See p. 506.] in Bohemia, were extirpated or punished by the civil authorities, acting either in accordance with the then universal idea of how heresy should be dealt with, or in obedience to the commands of the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... would not yield. I have said that there had been no hypocrisy in her misery during those weeks last past; and I have said so truly. But there had perhaps been some pretences, some acting of a part, some almost necessary pretence as to her weakness. Was she not bound to account to those around her for her great sorrow? And was it not above all things needful that she should enlist their sympathy and obtain their aid? She had ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... beginning to understand in our day that exact localization is one of the first elements of reality. The speaking or acting characters are not the only ones who engrave on the minds of the spectators a faithful representation of the facts. The place where this or that catastrophe took place becomes a terrible and inseparable witness thereof; and the absence of silent characters ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... cities at an early period in their history. Richard of Devizes, in 1189, called Winchester the "Jerusalem of the Jews", and, writing of the massacre and plunder of the Jews in London and other cities, said: "Winchester alone, the people being prudent and circumspect and the city always acting mildly, spared its vermin". The Jews settled in Winchester between the years 1090 and 1290, landing at Southampton and making their way up the Itchen until they came in sight of the old capital of the ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath

... dear Therese,' continued he; 'could you endure to behold me an outcast, and stigmatized with a parent's curse, when a little forbearance on your part would make all right? I know I have been hasty in acting as I have done, but now I cannot remedy my error. To-morrow I will write to my father, describe your rank and merits, and request his consent to our immediate union. The moment his permission arrives, I will cast myself on the palatine's friendship, and reveal what has passed.' ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... and ill-directed vigour of Marston, the fresh and charming, if unkempt grace of Dekker, the best known and most remarkable members of a crowd of unknown or half-known playwrights. A third division will show us a slight gain on the whole in acting qualities, a considerable perfecting of form and scheme, but at the same time a certain decline in the most purely poetical merits, redeemed and illustrated by the abundant genius of Beaumont and Fletcher, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... may be harvested in dissipation and ruin in mature life. It is, then, a very serious thing to be passing through one's "teens," and the wise youth will welcome any guide who will show him a safe path. May I claim the privilege of acting for a little time in ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen

... must not, so genius cannot, be lawless; for it is even this that constitutes its genius—the power of acting creatively under laws ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... herself the usual life of a Malay girl—the usual succession of heavy work and fierce love, of intrigues, gold ornaments, of domestic drudgery, and of that great but occult influence which is one of the few rights of half-savage womankind. But her destiny in the rough hands of the old sea-dog, acting under unreasoning impulses of the heart, took a strange and to her a terrible shape. She bore it all—the restraint and the teaching and the new faith—with calm submission, concealing her hate and contempt for all that new life. She learned the language very easily, yet understood but ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... passing between the tall trees already mentioned, they get caught in the meshes of the nets. The moment they strike these—several of them coming "butt" against one at the same instant,—a trigger is pulled by the men—who are below concealed under screens—and this trigger, acting on a string, causes the net to drop, with the fluttering victims safely secured in ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... them immense service in stock-jobbing. During a crisis a few months since he had saved the situation by acting boldly. But to look for gratitude from a money-dealer is as vain as to try to touch the heart of the wolves of the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... Guise in 1538; Henry, aggrieved by James's failure to meet him in conference on Church matters, and otherwise annoyed, sent 30,000 men into Scotland in 1542; disaffection prevented the Scottish forces from acting energetically, and the rout of Solway Moss took place; the king, vexed and shamed, sank into a fever and died at Falkland; in this reign the Reformation began to make progress in Scotland, and would have advanced much farther but that James had to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... present knowledge, that the smell given out by the rubbing of pieces of silica (quartz, flint, etc.) is due to particles of silica (oxide of silicon) volatilised by the heat of friction, which are capable of acting specifically ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... machine for drying the negatives and prints. During this short stay out of the line I paid two visits to the old Somme battlefield. The first in company with Capt. H. Liddell, who had for some time been acting as Assistant-Brigade-Major. We rode to Grevillers and went on from there on foot to Hexham Road and Eaucourt L'Abbaye. I had visited the ground before with Lieut. Odell in June, when we were staying at Monchy-au-Bois. A good deal ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley

... of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the declaration that the worship of the Church of Rome was idolatrous. Catholics were disabled from prosecuting a suit in any court of law, from receiving any legacy, and from acting as executors or administrators of estates. This horrid bill, which outlawed the whole Catholic population, had repeatedly miscarried, but, under influence of the panic which Oates and his confederates ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... victim of the Star Chamber was William Prynne, whose work Histriomastix, or the Player's Scourge, directed against the sinfulness of play-acting, masques, and revels, aroused the indignation of the Court. This volume of more than a thousand closely printed quarto pages contains almost all that was ever written against plays and players; not even the Queen ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... to answer his correspondence, however, a curious drama rose before his eyes. One day, ten years ago, while acting as Deputy-Governor, he had had before him a criminal case in which a young Chinese girl was alleged to have caused her lover's death by poison. The girl was the daughter of a small merchant named Tai-K'an, who sold all his possessions in order ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... attributable to the injurious pigments they employed to heighten their complexions; common rouge containing either red oxide of lead or the sulphuret of mercury, and white paint being often composed of carbonate of lead, all of which were capable of acting detrimentally ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... somewhat tired of acting my part in this little farce every night and morning, but when I have undertaken anything of this sort I am ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... 1816, the actual land on which the Manorhouse is built. After their arrival in 1825, he employed the fortune of which he had thus obtained control, and regarding which he represented himself to his wife as only acting for her, in adding to this land and in many investments along a wide range of the border counties. Her suit estimates the properties at L38,000. The home property was made a prize stock farm—one of the first if not the actual first of the kind in Canada. Cattle-breeding ...
— The Manor House of Lacolle - a description and historical sketch of the Manoir of the Seigniory - of de Beaujeu of Lacolle • W.D. Lighthall

... belong to the past generation, but to the acting, working, living present. Our juniors are the rising generation, and no one belongs to the past except those who have laid aside the burden of life—light to some, wearisome to others—forever. They are the only ones who have any excuse for ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... and have a temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, fermentation soon takes place. Some of the results of fermentation in the alimentary tract are acids, gases and bacterial poisons. These deleterious substances are absorbed into the blood stream and go to all parts of the body, acting as irritants. We do not know why they cause adenoids in one child and catarrh in another. It is easy enough to say that children are predisposed that way, which is no information at all. It seems that all of us have some weak ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... militia-men, however excellent they might be as marksmen, into a fair field against regular troops, could end in nothing but defeat. When two lines oppose each other, very little depends upon the accuracy with which individuals take aim. It is then that the habit of acting in concert, the confidence which each man feels in his a companions, and the rapidity and good order in which different movements can be executed, are alone of real service. But put these raw militia-men into thick woods, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... man is forced to cling to the underwood for support, the elephants still plough their irresistible course. In descending or ascending these places, the elephant a always describes a zigzag, and thus lessens the abruptness of the inclination. Their immense weight acting on their broad feet, bordered by sharp horny toes, cuts away the side of the hill at every stride and forms a level step; thus they are enabled to skirt the sides of precipitous hills and banks with comparative case. The trunk is the wonderful monitor of all danger ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... with the belief in such effects,—we never having been en rapport with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to mesmerism, and superior to it,—the power that in the old days was called Magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... few scratches on this fourth sheet of paper - so. It leaves no mark. But it has the remarkable property of becoming red in vapour of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulphocyanide. Keep back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See - the scratches I made on ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... other hand, O how deplorable and remediless is the condition of those souls who have no cause of this kind stated within their own consciences, who are not pursued by Satan and sin, but rather at peace with them, amicably agreeing with them, acting their lusts and will! You who have no bonds upon you, to restrain you from sin, neither the terror of the Lord persuadeth yon, nor the love of Christ constrains you, you can be kept from no beloved sin, nor pressed to any ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... maiden aunt, when the idle wind got hold of it. There is an almost humorous ingenuity in the pains Nature has taken to secure the propagation of some of the meanest of her plant-children. The most worthless little vagabond seeds have wings or fans to fly with, or self-acting bomb-receptacles that burst and empty their contents (which nobody wants) upon the liberal air, or claws or prickers to catch on with to anything that goes. And once they have caught on, they are harder to get rid of ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... Mr. Polwhedlyan, that sate for a Cornish borough, and was a very Fat Man, thinking himself directly concerned, shook his head with great gravity of countenance. But the old Villain was but Play-acting again, and could but see that the Game was up; for as the Lords were filing back to the House, he calls after them, "God bless you all! I bid you an everlasting farewell, for in this place we shall never meet again." He said "God bless you!" with a kind of fiendish yowl quite horrible to behold; ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... through the collar of Judge Sleepyhorn's coat, and brushed Mr. Snivel's fashionable whiskers. Madame Ashley, successor to Madame Flamingo, shrieks and alarms the house, which is suddenly thrown into a state of confusion. Acting upon the maxim of discretion being the better part of valor, the Judge and the Justice beat a hasty retreat into the house, and secrete themselves in a closet at the further end of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... low condition of the crown, had laid a scheme for restoring his own authority, by acting as umpire between the parties, by moderating their differences, and by reducing both to a dependence upon himself. He possessed all the talents of dissimulation requisite for the execution of this delicate ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... distinguish the laymen from the clergymen. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been laywomen. The "laity" means all the people, men, women, and children. A woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit he is a layman, but you never say a laywoman. You say: a woman. Abraham Lincoln said, "All these things are done and suffered, that government of the people, for the people, and by the people should ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... Europe—a change as extraordinary in itself as it is wonderful in its modes, and likely to lead to something far more important—is one of the most respectable members of the European commonwealth, though standing somewhat below the first rank, even while acting on terms of apparent equality with the other great powers. The kingdom of Prussia is of origin so comparatively recent, that there are those now living who can remember others who were old enough to note its creation, in 1700. The arrangements for the conversion of the electorate of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... expressed (1658.) account for the transverse effects of electrical currents? are two such currents in relation to each other merely by the inductive condition of the particles of matter between them, or are they in relation by some higher quality and condition (1654.), which, acting at a distance and not by the intermediate particles, has, like the force of gravity, no relation ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... wonder, Bab!" she said. "The idea of your Familey acting so outragously! And look here" She bent over me and whispered it. "Don't trust Carter too much. He is perfectly in fatuated with Leila, and he will play into the hands of the enemy. ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... up?" he panted. "What else lies before me? I am a poor specimen of a human being now, and unfitted for another encounter of any kind. This was my own fault, though. That poor devil I just sent to its doom was merely acting in self-defence. But the survival of the fittest is the law of the wilderness just as in the ways of so-called civilization. That bird had what I needed; and ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... Mrs. Riddel—is much obliged to her for her polite attention in sending him the book. Owing to Mr. B.'s being at present acting as supervisor of excise, a department that occupies his every hour of the day, he has not that time to spare which is necessary for any belle-lettre pursuit; but, as he will, in a week or two, again return to his wonted leisure, he will then ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Upon the king telling him that he should have distrained, the mayor remarked that one of his predecessors in office, Sir Edward Bromfield, was still a defendant in a suit in the King's Bench brought against him by Richard Chambers for acting in that manner, and was likely to be cast. "No man," said Charles peremptorily, "shall suffer for obeying my commands." Thus encouraged the mayor himself made a house-to-house visit the next day, accompanied by the sheriffs, for the purpose of collecting the money. Throughout ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... duties of medical officer and commander of the baggage column, of the impending assault, and directed him to close up the camels and meet it. The Arab Sheikhs, who in the absence of officers were acting as orderlies, had scarcely brought the news to Fleming, when the Dervish attack developed. The enemy, some 300 strong, rushed with great determination upon the baggage, and the escort of 120 Arab irregulars at once broke and fled. The situation became desperate; ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... firm connection with England, and to rally round France the European coalition but lately in arms against her. He maintained and made peace ingloriously; he obtained it sometimes by meannesses in bearing and modes of acting; he enriched himself by his intrigues, abroad as well as at home; his policy none the less was steadfastly French, even in his relations with the court of Rome, and in spite of his eager desire for the cardinal's hat. He died ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... famous postscript "unmounted men preferred,"[2] which was affixed to the acceptance of the help proffered by the Australian Colonies, shows that at first the power of mounted troops acting not as the eyes and ears of an army, but as a mobile and supple "mailed fist," was not understood. In ten weeks, however, the tune changed, and it was "preference given ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... of muscles. Then, in still another instance, two separate nerves are required to control the action of one small group—the palate group. The distribution is as follows: Single muscles, 3; muscles in pairs, 114; groups of muscles, 10; nerves acting alone, 17; nerves acting with others ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... feature in the Biblical narrative, which, at first sight, wears the appearance of mythical treatment: it is the familiar way in which God is represented as coming and going, speaking and acting, after the manner of men, especially in such passages as these: "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gen. iii. 8); or, "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... acting wisely," he cried, "and yet you are only fools. In the prisons of Kiobeh you keep the enemies of Islam, and while you are pondering over the mysteries of the Koran, the infidel dogs are murdering your wives and children. Arise, believers of Islam, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... ever happened to notice me. I might therefore put on any sort of disguise as a beggar and take my place on the road as she goes to chapel, and somehow or other get your note into her hand. I have hoard Spanish girls are very quick at acting upon the smallest sign, and if I can manage to catch her eye for a moment she may probably be ingenious enough to afford me an opportunity of passing the ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... huge battery of ultra-violet rays then," continued the hollow droning of the man who had been hanged, "which, as the scientist had explained to me while in prison, acting upon the contents of the syringes, by that time scattered through my whole body, was to renew the spark of life within the dead thing hanging there. Through a tube, and by means of a valve entering the glass vase in the top, the scientist then admitted a dense white gas. So thick ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... were great mountains of copper, with an occasional sprinkling of silver. There was a profusion of evergreens, small tin lamps dripping with oil, and sloping tallow candles shedding grease upon the board. Little ragged boys, acting as waiters, were busily engaged in handing round pulque and chia in cracked tumblers. There was, moreover, an agreeable tinkling produced from several guitars, and even the bankers condescended to amuse their guests with soothing strains. The general dress ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... crew knew very well that Jack was acting contrary to orders, but anything was to them a change from the monotony of a man-of-war, and they, as well as Mesty, highly approved ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... born at Caernarvon Castle (but not, as tradition states, in the Eagle Tower, not then built), April 25, 1284; crowned at Westminster Abbey, August 6, 1307, by the Bishop of Winchester, acting as substitute for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The gilt spurs were borne by William le Mareschal; "the royal sceptre on whose summit is the cross" by the Earl of Hereford (killed in rebellion against the King) and "the ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... men liable to serve to the free discretion of the officers, and to substitute for it the drawing lots on the part of all the men liable to service—certainly not to the advantage of the military esprit de corps, or of the warlike efficiency of the individual divisions. The authorities, instead of acting with vigour and sternness, extended their pitiful flattery of the people even to this field; whenever a consul in the discharge of his duty instituted rigorous levies for the Spanish service, the tribunes made use of their constitutional ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... in company with his mother, for a month; then, when he went to live at home again, he spent at least half his days at Redford, acting as Deb's 'own man' indoors and out—her real legal adviser, her real station manager, her confidential major-domo, the doer of all the 'dirty work' connected with the administration of her estate; and never—although she exposed him to almost every sort of temptation—never once stepped off the ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... fuse with anybody who is in favor of intervention, either for slavery or against slavery. Lincoln and Breckinridge might fuse, for they agree in principle. I can never fuse with either of them, because I differ from both. I am in favor of all men acting together who are opposed to this slavery agitation, and in favor of banishing it from Congress forever; but as Democrats we can never fuse, either with Northern abolitionists, or Southern bolters and secessionists."—Douglas, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... laughed Dave, "but acting, very likely, on the advice of a lot of old admirals who are through themselves, and who expect the youngsters to know as much as the very admirals. Why, Belle, when I was a few years younger, and first began to dream about going to the Naval Academy I had a mental picture of a very jolly life, ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... thinking is equal to His actual power of acting; that is to say, whatever follows formally from the infinite nature of God, follows from the idea of God (idea Dei), in the same order and in the same ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... great praise for the way I acted, for the whole thing was acting. I was cold, and as haughty and aloof as she was herself, but I used every art I knew of to draw her out and make ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... Robinson Treaties, made by the late Hon. William B. Robinson, of the City of Toronto, with the Indians of the shores and islands of Lakes Superior and Huron in the year 1850, and that made by the Hon. William Macdougall, for the surrender of the Indian title, to the great Manitoulin Island, both acting for and on behalf of the Government of the late Province ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... homestead I was seeking. Several times I rose triumphant, feeling sure that "now indeed I do know where it is," and proceeded at once to the bush she had pointed out with so much simulated reluctance, parted the branches, and looked in, only to find myself deceived again. Her acting was marvelous. With just the properly anxious, uneasy manner, she would steal behind a clump of leaves into some retired spot admirably adapted for a chat's nest, and after a moment sneak out at the other side, and fly away near the ground, exactly as all bird-students have seen bird mothers ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... name, one of his pupils, being beloved by Napoleon I. became the mother of Count Walewski, a minister of the second French empire. Drifting to Zelazowa- Wola, Nicholas Chopin lived in the house of the Countess Skarbek, acting as tutor to her son, Frederic. There he made the acquaintance of Justina Krzyzanowska, born of "poor but noble parents." He married her in 1806 and she bore him four children: three girls, and ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... been spoken twice,—and if the subsequent words were only an excuse for it! There was a painful idea in her mind that such might possibly be the case, and that if so, the man could never be forgiven, or at least ought never to be spoken to again. Acting on this suggestion from within, she absolutely refused to tell her father what had happened when Patience urged her to do so. "He'll come and see papa himself,—if he means anything," said Clary. Patience ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... whether such legislation should be Federal, or rather whether the Constitution should be so amended as to make Federal legislation possible. Practically this would meet with a very much wider opposition than is commonly supposed. The writer, acting as chairman of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniformity of Legislation appointed under laws of more than thirty States of the Union and meeting in Detroit, Michigan, in 1895, brought this matter up under a resolution of the ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... feel any desire to work either. A dull anger disturbed him; he was irritated by the ironical accent of the countess who saw in him a man different from other men, a strange being who was incapable of acting like the insipid young men who formed her court and many of whom, according to common gossip, were her lovers. A strange woman, provoking and cold! He felt like falling on her, in his rage at her offence, and beating her with the same scorn that he ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... had been built as a defence against them. An advance of the King's dominions had made Tillieres a neighbour of France, and, as a neighbour, it was said to be a standing menace. The King of the French, acting in concert with the disaffected party in Normandy, was a dangerous enemy, and the young Duke and his counsellors determined to give up Tillieres. Now comes the first distinct exercise of William's personal will. We are without exact dates, but the time can be hardly later than 1040, when William ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman



Words linked to "Acting" :   performance, overacting, reenactment, roleplaying, impermanent, business, self-acting, byplay, act, long-acting, impersonation, dumb show, personation, playing, playacting, pantomime, stage business, mime, skit, activity



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