"Amateur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... careful that they are of the most unexceptionable kind, and likely to offend neither the tastes nor prejudices of the society in which you find yourself. At an evening party given expressly in honour of a distinguished lady of colour, we once heard a thoughtless amateur dash into the broadly comic, but terribly appropriate nigger song of "Sally come up." Before he had got through the first verse, he had perceived his mistake, and was so overwhelmed with shame that he could scarcely preserve sufficient presence of mind to ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... in cording up more of a record, such as it was, than any other man of whom history informs us. Time, the tomb-builder and amateur mower, came and leaned over the front yard and looked at Methuselah, and ran his thumb over the jagged edge of his scythe, and went away whistling a low refrain. He kept up this refrain business for nearly ten centuries, while Methuselah continued to ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... could not get on after all those hints! Anyway, you cannot return alone, and I am unable to go with you. Make up your mind to blunder, and do it. There was an amateur visited the studio about three months ago: her absurdities have lasted us for laughing material ever since. As she is getting rather stale, you can take her place. This ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... now that Miss Lind was a commonplace amateur. He had been contrasting her with his sister, greatly to the disparagement of his home life; and he was disappointed to find the lady break down where the actress would have succeeded so well. Consoling himself with the reflexion that if ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... the same opinion; and we both agreed it was a rank exuberance of liberty, that the commonality should be exposed to the risk of being inoculated with anarchy and confusion, from what he, in his learned manner, judiciously called the predilections of amateur pretension. The parties engaged in the project being Mr Absolom the writer—a man no overly reverential in his opinion of the law and lords when his clients lost their pleas, which, poor folk, was very often—and some three or four young and inexperienced lads, that were wont to read essays, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... not very long ago. He had in his younger days done a little administrative work; but he was wealthy, and at a comparatively early age he abandoned himself to leisure. He travelled, he read, he went much into society, he enjoyed the company of his friends. When he died he was spoken of as an amateur, and praised as a cricketer of some merit. Even his closest friends seemed to find it necessary to explain and make excuses; he was shy, he stammered, he was not suited to parliamentary life; but I can think of few people who did so much for his friends or ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... at billiards, and Harry at picquet; he's a dead shot at a button, and can drive his curricle-wheels over a brace of sovereigns." "Radicalism," says Caustic, looking round for a laugh. "He is a great amateur of pictures," observed the Exquisite, "and is allowed to be quite a connoisseur in beauty; but there," simpering, "everyone must claim the privilege of judging for themselves." "Upon my word," said Candour, "you allow poor Charles too little. I have no doubt he has ...
— English Satires • Various
... awkward equivalent, would be a greater mark of pedantry than the use of the foreign words. The proper use of such terms as fiat, palladium, cabal, quorum, omnibus, antique, artiste, coquette, ennui, physique, regime, tableau, amateur, cannot be censured on the ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... 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
... colonies, the painter became an object of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the technical merit of his productions, yet there were points in regard to which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined judgment of the amateur. He watched the effect that each picture produced on such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their remarks, while they would as soon have thought of instructing Nature herself as him who seemed to rival her. Their admiration, it must be owned, was tinctured with the prejudices ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... left hand, his right still holding the tips of the tails, as if to restrain their impatience; when, giving his arm and body a full swing, embracing three-fourths of the circle, he inflicted a tremendous stroke on the back of the unfortunate culprit. This specimen seemed to satisfy the amateur captain, who nodded approbation to the inquiring look of the amateur boatswain. The poor man lost his respiration from the force of the blow; and the tails of the cat coming from an opposite direction to the first four ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... you and I are the two worst amateur detectives that ever tried their hands at the trade. The man in the grey suit has been thirty years in the chemist's service. He was sent to the bank to pay money to his master's account—and he knows no more of the Moonstone than the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... tastes. My eldest brother—great at drawing and painting when he was a lad, always interested in artists and their works in after life—has resumed, in his declining years, the holiday occupation of his schoolboy days. As an amateur landscape-painter, he works with more satisfaction to himself, uses more color, wears out more brushes, and makes a greater smell of paint in his studio than any artist by profession, native or foreign, whom I ever met with. In look, in manner, and in disposition, the gentlest ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... that meeting, widely known for her skill and success as an amateur florist, in conversation with the writer made the following remarks: "I have in my library at least a dozen different works on floriculture, some of them costly, all of which I have read over and over again, often having to pore over a large volume of almost useless matter, in order to ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... CHAPPELL, musical amateur, collector and editor of old English airs, and contributor to the history of English national music; was one of the founders of the Musical Hungarian Society, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Carton unhesitatingly, "just some personal photographs—of no real value except to me. Most of them were amateur photographs, too, pictures of myself in various groups at different times and places that I kept ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... Atlantic one never sees a man in evening dress, except at the rarest intervals; and then there is only one, not two; and he shows up but once on the voyage—the night before the ship makes port—the night when they have the "concert" and do the amateur wailings and recitations. He is the tenor, as a rule . . . . There has been a deal of cricket-playing on board; it seems a queer game for a ship, but they enclose the promenade deck with nettings and keep the ball from flying overboard, and the sport goes very well, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... moths from their beauty and grace, have always been the favorites among amateur entomologists, and rare and costly works have been published in which their forms and gorgeous colors are represented in the best style of natural history art. We need only mention the folio volume of Madam Merian ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... accounts, he was a wholly amiable ne'er-do-well—a wonderful flyfisher, an extremely clever amateur artist, a lover of horses and dogs and children (surely, if we except a chapter of Victor Hugo's, the children in Ravenshoe are the most delightful in fiction), ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this trick of her father's. She knew the processes of his mind and the range of his memories well enough to supply the conclusion of such sentences as the one that had resolved itself into a doleful whistle. As he was an excellent amateur musician, the lugubrious tone of his whistling was the subject of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... intelligence of a college education. It is possible, nay, it is common, to go through college and come out in any real sense uneducated. But it is not possible to pass through college, even as a professional amateur in athletics or as an inveterate flapper, without rubbing off the insulation here and there, without knowing what thought is stirring, what emotions are poignant, what ideas are dominant among the fraction ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... for a week." She does not see that her very affection unfits her for the calm control of the sick-room, and that her inevitable anxiety is incompatible with tranquil judgment. If you tell her that nursing is a profession, and that the amateur can never truly fill the place of the regular, she smiles proudly, and thinks that affection is capable of all things, and that what may be lost in skill will be made up in thoroughness and compensated by watchfulness, such as she believes fondly only love can command. It is ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... well-fed, well-groomed clubmen and brokers in the crowd, a politician or two, a popular comedian with his manager, amateur boxers from the athletic clubs, and quiet, close-mouthed sporting men from every city in the country. Their names if printed in the papers would have been as familiar as the types of the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... one doesn't well understand why. I had always a liking for Greek and Latin and can make shift to read both in a way satisfactory to myself, though I dare say it wouldn't go for much with college examiners. Then, as for my scribbling, well, it has scarcely yet passed the amateur stage. It will some day; simply because I've made up my mind that it shall; but as yet I haven't got beyond a couple of weak articles in weak magazines, and I don't exactly feel sure of my way. I rather think we shall approach most nearly in our taste for poetry. I liked much what you had to say ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The descendants of Aemilius and Gracchus—even generals and consuls and praetors—mixed familiarly with the lowest canaille of Rome in their vilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as amateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on the race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the excitement of gambling, that we read of their staking hundreds of pounds on ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Grand Military Meeting at Sandown Park, two young millionaires figured as amateur jockeys. We understand now the meaning of the expression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... swab; clod, yokel, awkward squad, blanc-bec; galoot[obs3]. land lubber; fresh water sailor, fair weather sailor; horse marine; fish out of water, ass in lion's skin, jackdaw in peacock's feathers; quack &c. (deceiver) 548; lord of misrule. sloven, slattern, trapes[obs3]. amateur, novice, greenhorn (learner) 541. Phr. il n'a pas invente' la poudre[Fr]; he will never set the Thames on fire; acierta errando[Lat]; aliquis in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... has probably carried impressionism in fiction to its furthest limit. I do not know whether she will ever make large captures of the general reader, but she is certainly a very interesting figure for the critic and the amateur of fiction. In Pointed Roofs and Honeycomb, for example, her story is a series of dabs of intense superficial impression; her heroine is not a mentality, but a mirror. She goes about over her facts like those insects that run over water sustained by ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... been Raffles, the amateur cracksman. He had also been Steerforth in David Copperfield—and time after time she had drowned him in the wreck. In stories of buccaneers he was the captain—sometimes Captain Morgan, sometimes Captain Kidd—or else he ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... roofless chateau in Auvergne, and his sparsely braided sleeve, he was an habitue of the Austrian embassy and of the best salons in Paris, and made for himself a conspicuous place in the innermost circle of the court of Compiegne and the Tuileries. He had written a number of light plays for the amateur stage of Parisian society, and his dramatic efforts had been interpreted by players whose high-sounding names might be found ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... I think," was his answer, after a minute's silence; "and your speech smacks of the amateur. You say, 'Let me cease to be your burglar and let me be your butler.' The aspiration is respectable; but a man might as well say, 'Let me cease to write sermons, let me paint pictures.' And truly, sir, you impress me as no expert even ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... course in gymnasium work under a skilled instructor or if he showed any skill devote himself to such sports as basketball, running, baseball or swimming. In addition to these advantages amusements were provided through the year in the form of lectures, amateur shows and music. In the summer, special opportunities were offered for out-door sports. Moreover the Association managed summer camps where for a nominal fee the boys could enjoy the life of the woods. A boy must be poor indeed who could not afford most of these opportunities. And ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... the exigency and the charm that mark that character. She drew naturally, for she had no training, with unusual skill; and it was from her, and not from the two naval artists, that Fleeming inherited his eye and hand. She played on the harp and sang with something beyond the talent of an amateur. At the age of seventeen, she heard Pasta in Paris; flew up in a fire of youthful enthusiasm; and the next morning, all alone and without introduction, found her way into the presence of the PRIMA DONNA and begged for lessons. Pasta made her sing, kissed her when she ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sixteenth 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 of the masque developed into the compositions ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... know it," said Phil. "I'm an easy-going fellow in most ways, but you'll find I'm an old Turk about you, my little duck of a Nell. No amateur brother for me. If you can't get along with your old Phil, without ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... was the original scheme of the race. It would not have been worth while to create a lot of things aimlessly ill made. A journeyman carpenter would not waste his time in doing it, if he knew any better. Given the power to make a man, even an amateur would make him as straight as he could, inside and out. Decent vanity would compel him to do it. He would be ashamed to show the thing and admit he had done it, much less people a world with millions of like proofs of incompetence. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... training? 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 ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... Outside Maggie, that amateur playwright who had tried so desperately to prearrange events, that inexperienced goddess from the machine, stood in a panic of fear and suspense the like of which she had ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... at the foot of the east-side of the pass at about half-past five. Ibrahimawa, the Bornu man whom I have already described as the amateur botanist, had become my great ally in searching for all that was curious and interesting. Proud of his knowledge of wild plants, no sooner was the march ended than he commenced a search in the jungles for ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... requests, the publishers are glad to present the play in separate form, making it more easily accessible to young amateur actors and actresses. ...
— The Rescue of the Princess Winsome - A Fairy Play for Old and Young • Annie Fellows-Johnston and Albion Fellows Bacon
... 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, ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... her grandfather, "let us next consider what grounds you have for your belief that wrong is being committed. Are they not confined to mere suspicions? Suspicions aroused by the chatter of a wild, ungoverned child? Often the amateur detective gets into trouble through accusing the innocent. Law-abiding citizens should not attempt to uncover all the wrongs that exist, or to right them. The United States Government employs special officers for ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... Bay, a place celebrated for the size of its mosquitoes and the number of its amateur fishermen, recommends the following as a very good mixture for anointing the face ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... Visitors. Gradual Growth of Gayety. "Danceable Teas". Amateur Benefits. "Youth at the Helm". A Society Woman's View. Social Theories and Practice. Virginian Hospitality. Quieter Sociability. The Presidential Household. Mr. and Mrs. Davis. Formal Levees. Social Ethics. Dissipation. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... The team suddenly let down; went to pieces; played ball that would have disgraced an amateur nine. It was a trying time. Here was a great team, strong everywhere. A little hard luck had dug up a slump—and now! Day by day the team dropped in the race. When we reached the second division the newspapers flayed us. Worcester would never stand for a second division team. Baseball ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... says a garden is a standing source of pleasure? Amend this, I say, by asserting that a garden is a standing source of discomfort and vexation ... A hopeless restlessness, according to my observation, takes possession of every amateur gardener. Discontent abides in his soul. There is, indeed, so much to be done, changed, rearranged, watched, nursed, that the amateur gardener is really entitled to praise and generous congratulations when one of his thousand schemes comes to fruition. We ought in pity to ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... 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. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... did tell Joe, sir," he answered, with a reproachful glance at that amateur. "I met Cap'in Flower that evening again, late, an' he told me himself. I'm sorry to see by this morning's paper that ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... downs, as had been repeatedly hinted to me, had no good name; and the attraction of the music, without rivalling that of the sirens in melody, might have been followed by similarly inconvenient consequences to an incautious amateur. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... greatly rejoiced in the theatre; and, having seen him act with the Amateur Company of the Guild of Literature and Art, I can well imagine the delight his impersonations in Montreal must have occasioned. I have seen him play Sir Charles Coldstream, in the comedy of Used Up, with such perfection that all other performers in the same part have seemed dull by comparison. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... I have? They say an amateur never can compete with a professed gardener, and ours is ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... means of transport, of victualling, of guns and bayonets, of morale—he had allowed himself an hour and a half. How the King must have felt under this harangue, any expert who has had to listen to an amateur laying down the law to him on his own subject may imagine. On finding his military arguments fruitless, M. Venizelos shifted his ground; though, the military habit being too strong, he {54} could not get away from military phraseology: "I was then obliged," he ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... his pocket; took up his hat. "To-morrow," he said after farewells, "I or one of my staff will return to scour the immediate neighbourhood. It has been done, you tell me, but only by amateurs. The skilled detective, sir, will see a needle where the amateur ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... eyes, but Mr. Lewisham, being quite an amateur about eyes, could find no words for them. She looked demurely into his face. She seemed to find nothing there. She glanced away from him among the trees, and passed, and nothing remained in front of him but an empty ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... attain the real outcome of modern wisdom and ingenuity. You have your hundred men honestly at country work; but you don't like the sight of human beings in your fields; you like better to see a smoking kettle. You pay, as an amateur, for that pleasure, and you employ your fifty men in picking oakum, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... long time past I've been making inquiries into your keen interest in amateur theatricals. My information led me to Curtis's, the wigmakers; and they furnished me with this picture, showing you made up as as Henry Courtenay. It seems that, under the name of Slade, you furnished ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... and music was the one talent she had cared to cultivate; she had had good lessons during her second winter abroad, and was an acquisition to the amateur company. Besides, what she cared for more, it was a real pleasure and rest to the curate to come in and listen to her or sing with her. She had learnt what kind of things offended good taste, and she set herself to avoid them ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the press for a long period. "It is," says a distinguished author, "one of those rare pictures painted from life with the exquisite skill of one of the 'Old Masters,' which no seldom present themselves to the amateur." ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... tell you the truth, Mr Stoddart. You seem to me to have been hitherto only a dilettante or amateur in spiritual matters. Do not imagine I mean a hypocrite. Very far from it. The word amateur itself suggests a real interest, though it may be of a superficial nature. But in religion one must be all there. You seem to me to have taken much interest ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... made a bold stroke, designed to shake off the hampering presence of the professionals, and enable Ody's amateur services to be utilized while there was ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the Bank should be improved in a manner to be explained. We should diminish the 'amateur' element; we should augment the trained banking element; and we should ensure more constancy in ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... superior to the captain of an Alexandrian corn-ship, and Paul had already made his force of character so felt that it is not wonderful that he took part in the discussion. Naturally the centurion was guided by the professional rather than by the amateur member of the council, and the decision was come to to push on as far and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... streets by night. In all probability, no one had seen him come up to the chambers; but I was damped directly there; for those who carried the man down would be able to tell whence he came, and hundreds would be glad to play the amateur detective and hunt ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... those unintentionally humorous obituary poems which appear in the papers. No professional humorist can hope to equal them because when he writes one he does it with deliberate intent to be funny and invariably he betrays his hand. It is when some poor mourning amateur dips a 'prentice pen in the very blood of his or her heart and writes such a poem that it becomes so pathetically and ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... of complete self-satisfaction. In the light of his later conduct, I grew to understand that smile. He had anticipated a rebuff, and he had been received, as he read it, with consideration. The irony of my politeness he had entirely missed. Instead, he read in what I said the admiration of the amateur for the professional. He saw what he believed to be a high agent of the Government treating him as a worthy antagonist. In no other way can I explain his later heaping upon me his confidences. It was the vanity of a child ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... at my watch and discovered that it was getting well on towards eleven o'clock, and I sought out Hawley for the purpose of thanking him for a delightful evening and of taking my leave. I met him in the hall talking to Euripides on the subject of the amateur stage in the United States. What they said I did not stop to hear, but offering my hand to Hawley informed him of ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... doctors are like the amateur physicians—they always begin with the question of remedies, and they go at this without any diagnosis or any knowledge of the anatomy or physiology of society. They never have any doubt of the efficacy of their remedies. They never take account of any ulterior effects which may be apprehended ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... humours and manners. A fine lady remembers her visiting list, and, perhaps, the dresses and partners of every couple at a crowded ball; she finds all these particulars a useful supply for daily conversation, she therefore remembers them with care. An amateur, who is ambitious to shine in the society of literary men, collects literary anecdotes, and retails them whenever occasion permits. Men of sense, who cultivate their memories for useful purposes, are not ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... music aroused in me no image of the visual type while I remained the amateur that you knew from 1876 to 1898. When that amateur began to reflect methodically on the art of his taste, he recognized in ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... stroll on," she said, but she drove away as swiftly as she could. Her father's worry about obligations disturbed her, and she did not wish to seem too troublesome an amateur to Milt. She would see him in Livingston, and tell him how well she had driven. The spark plugs kept clean enough now so that she could command more ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... little 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, ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the average New York man. He is worried in business, and kept on the keen jump all the year round. Then he has a vacation, say for a couple of weeks or a month, in summer, and he goes off into the woods with his fishing kit, or canoeing outfit, or his amateur photographic set, or whatever the tools of his particular fad may be. He goes to a book-store and buys up a lot of paper-covered novels. There is no use of buying an expensive book, because he would spoil it before he ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... He is a young man of great tact and of small accomplishments. He can warble a song, aid a great lady to organise a social festivity, lead a cotillon, order a dinner, and help to eat it, act in amateur theatricals, and recommend French novels to inquiring matrons. His manners are always easy, and his conversation has that spice of freedom which renders it specially acceptable in the boudoirs of the smart. The experience of a few years makes plain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... he was a near relative. After the War the Montenegrin was so much impoverished that he stole more freely, and the Serb, whose hands had hitherto been remarkably clean, took to the same habits and often in a very amateur fashion. Thus in a Macedonian village where a British army store had been rifled, the officers turned to the local priest, who was indignant with his people and conducted the officers into every house. Nothing was discovered, and the priest proposed that his own ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... the fact that if x equals the greatest efficiency of an army, and the rooted square of stability to the nth rank equals the phalanx, then the rooted square of stability to the nth rank equals x minus the tangential curve of velocity of mobility. This should be plain even to the amateur student of tactics. Blending almost a military expert's appreciation of this cardinal doctrine with his natural selfishness as a leader of cavalry, PHILIP has given to this, the mobile arm, much of the striking power of the original phalanx. This is now placed in the centre, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... or the water pipes busted, or anything, and all she had to do was to screech twice and dad would be on deck, and she must open the door quicker-n scat, and she thanked me, and said she would, and for me to come, too. Say, on the dead, wasn't that a plot for an amateur to cook up? Well, sir, we had to wait so long for the countess to get on the horse chestnut that I got nervous myself, but after awhile there came a scream that would raise your hair, and I told dad the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... right, but I am no sportsman of the turf; that is professional. Amateur sports are ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... from having formed the discreditable habit of emptying all the dregs of the Sergeants' beer mugs into his own inside. However, he was granted military obsequies, which were so successfully performed that an account of them found its way into one of the daily papers. This so delighted the amateur undertakers that Daisy's brother was at once exhumed and re-buried with further pomp and circumstance. Daisy meanwhile, feeling himself of less consequence than the departed hero, began to mope; so to save life and reason he was sent to us "to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... dancing attendance upon her, for it is understood in many houses that luncheon is an open meal for which no formal invitation from a parent is necessary. In the afternoon there is always a bazaar, an amateur concert, an exhibition, a fashionable matinee or a Society tea-party to be visited. For the evening there are dinners, and theatres, and an endless succession of dances, at which the flowers, the suppers, and the general decorations possess as ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... a time and then the expression of his face changed. "Now about this Chinese business," he said; "I can understand the motive that was behind spiriting you away, but when I come to the rather extraordinary means of your escape, Holbrook, I will admit that my abilities as an amateur Sherlock Holmes are too feeble. As I understand it from what you have told us, these two Chinese in this Greensboro place seem to have been strangely affected by the mark on your shoulder. Have you ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... is absolutely of no importance to a good judge, though possibly what is known as the peach fawn is the favourite among amateur fanciers. Red fawns, blue or slate coloured, black, brindled of various shades, and these colours intermingled with white, are most to be met with, however. In some quarters the idea is prevalent that Whippets are delicate in their constitution, but this is a popular ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... and accompanied her—generally Augustinians, who were more of country squires than ecclesiastics. Watch needed no leash—he kept close to his master, except when occasionally tempted to a little amateur shepherding, from which Hal could easily call him off. The great stag-hounds evidently despised him, and the curs of the waggon hated him, and snarled whenever he came near them, but the Prioress respected him, and could well believe that the hermit King had loved him. 'He had just the virtues ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... such good callus, that I believe someone with steam-heated hot-house beds at his disposal may by experimentation succeed in propagating some of these trees by cuttings, particularly from herbaceous growth of the year, in August. As an amateur plant physiologist I foresee what the more scientific plant physiologists ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... and Schmucke produced one brilliant result. Schmucke being a German, harmony was his strong point; he looked over the instrumentation of Pons' compositions, and Pons provided the airs. Here and there an amateur among the audience admired the new pieces of music which served as accompaniment to two or three great successes, but they attributed the improvement vaguely to "progress." No one cared to know the composer's name; like occupants of the baignoires, lost ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... appearance without introduction, had taken a studio, put her card upon the door, and showed very considerable talent as a painter in oils. Her fellow professors of the brush, it is true, showered abundant criticisms upon her pictures, allowing them to be well enough for the idle half-efforts of an amateur, but lacking both the trained skill and the practice that distinguish the works of a ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... equipped for the chase, who had been all silent spectators of her performances? From the king to the last of the train, all bowed to her, and all laughed without restraint, as they passed the abashed amateur of cheese making. But she, to speak Homerically, wished in that hour that the earth might gape and cover her confusion. Lord Westport and I were about the age of mademoiselle, and not much more decorously engaged, when a turn brought us full ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... insisted upon in the invitations. The stage represents a reception-room; the end of a conservatory, or ball-room, being seen through a large archway. In the upper right hand corner of the stage is a small stage built with curtains and foot-lights, for an amateur vaudeville performance, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... am not rash enough to suppose that I could do it. I merely observed that it seemed—to my inexperienced eyes—an easy matter. A few strokes of yellow paint here, for sand, and a few strokes of blue paint there, for sky. But I am not even an amateur, and so my opinion ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... feeling that censorship could not stifle of the failure of the campaign to crush France. They called for the man who had won victories and the Kaiser gave them von Hindenburg, whom fortune favored when he sent armies inspirited by his leadership against amateur soldiers in veteran confidence, while the weather had stopped the Allied offensive in ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... positively horrible—as in that grand Glenallan tragedy which is as appalling as the OEdipus or The Cenci. None of these great men would have tolerated for a moment being talked to (as the muddle-headed amateur censors talk to artists to-day) about "wholesome" topics and suggestions "that cannot elevate." They had to describe the great battle of good and evil and they described both; but they accepted a working Victorian compromise about what should happen behind the scenes and what ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... and so natural in every attitude, that it was a delight to make the negatives. I was afraid he would become impatient, and made fewer exposures than I might otherwise have done. I think he expected very little from this amateur performance; but, by that happy element of accident which plays so large a part in photographic success, the results were better than I had hoped for. When I brought him the prints, a few days later, he expressed pleasure and asked, "Why didn't you ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... much lower range. They are intent on only amateur productions, from penny readings upwards, to those superintended by the elite of the neighborhood, when the seats rise in price to five ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... generally expected that the Lords Lytton and Esher, who had taken a prominent part in the same movement, would have been added. This expectation was not fulfilled. Instead, Lord Willoughby de Broke, who had distinguished himself as an amateur actor, was selected along with Lord Newton, whose special qualifications for the Committee, if he had any, were unknown to the public. Finally Lord Ribblesdale, the argute son of a Scotch mother, was ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... equipment of the monk in Daudet's tale, an amateur distiller is gauging his output with an instrument used for testing the fluid in his motor car's radiator. "Yesterday," reports P. D. P., "he confided to me that he had some thirty ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... tries to detach them in a hurry will probably succeed only in extricating a bare half of what is inside. And like as not he will break the fibers he does get out so that their value will be sadly decreased. The trade has its tricks, you see. Furthermore an amateur generally has fragments of husks and leaves scattered through his cotton, all of which have to be removed and make extra ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... eyes. She was talking to several people who were gathered about her, and never smiled. It was impossible to imagine that she could ever smile. Her name was Lady Mildred Burnington, and she was an admirable amateur violinist, married to Admiral Sir Hilary Burnington, one of the Sea Lords. Max Elliot was in the distance, talking eagerly in the midst of a group of musicians. A tall singer, a woman from the Paris Opera Comique, stood by him with her right hand on his arm, as if she wanted to interrupt him. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... is a great amateur of knighthoods. On days of great festivities his face is, as it were, illuminated with the lustre of his stars; and the crosses on his coat conceal almost its original colour. Every petty Prince of Germany has dubbed him a chevalier; but Emperors and Kings have not been so unanimous in distinguishing ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and with no autumnal grace to mellow their decay. Long before this period, however, the nursery artist has marked them for his own, and with crimson lake and Prussian blue stained their pictures in all too permanent pigments, that in some cases resist every chemical the amateur applies with the vain hope of effacing the ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... of criminals," was the retort. "No, Wensdale, you are obsessed by the finger-print heresy, quite regardless of the fact that none but an amateur ever leaves such a thing behind him, and the amateur is ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... months!" she repeated, scornfully. "You are speaking the language of an amateur. No; one has to work faithfully year after year; to grasp the possibilities, and pass on to greater possibilities. You imagine what it must feel like to touch the notes, and know that you are keeping the listeners spellbound; that you are taking them into a fairy-land of ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... known, too, at the Cliff Castle and the Black Tor that he was treating both, but the Edens never mentioned the Darleys, nor the Darleys the Edens, the amateur surgeon saying nothing at either place; and the wounds got better day ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... stir about invasion and amateur rifle-clubs, other matters do get talked about—as, for instance, the astronomer-royal's communication to the Society of Antiquaries on the place of Caesar's landing at his invasion of Britain. The learned functionary settles it to his own ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... adherents as a satisfactory explanation of the letters, had not the aspiring statesman in course of time fallen under the ban of the law for defrauding widows of their pensions, the campaign against Wogan & Co. having so completely exhausted the virtue of the amateur who planned it as to leave no residue to ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... singularity of this event, the possibility that it never happened. In the same spirit he deals with the little that can be quoted of the Teutonic society. His ideal picture of it is completed in small touches which even an amateur can detect as dubious. Thus he will touch on the Teuton with a phrase like "the basis of their society was the free man"; and on the Roman with a phrase like "the mines, if worked by forced labour, must have been a source of endless oppression." The simple fact being that the Roman and ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... suspended over the fountains of the bars (the hotel-keepers are quite classic in their ideas) announcing superb lunch and egg-noggs on Christmas Day. This invitation is sure to meet with a large response from the amateur epicures about town, who, ever on the qui vive for a banquet gratis, flock to the festive standard, since it has never been found a difficult matter to give things away, from the time old Heliogabalus gastronomed in Phoenicia up to the present hour. A splendid hall in one of the principal hotels, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... 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 ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... to "Paul Pry," had helped to paint the scenery, had assisted in the bill-posting. The latter, so he told me, he had found one of the most difficult of accomplishments, the paste-laden poster having an innate tendency to recoil upon the amateur's own head, and to stick there. Wearying of the stage proper, he had joined a circus company, had been "Signor Ricardo, the daring bare-back rider," also one of the "Brothers Roscius in their marvellous trapeze act;" inclining ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... involve the present disposition of the Etruscan antiquities in the upper rooms of the casino, where these, the most precious witnesses of that rather inarticulate civilization, must in any arrangement exhaust the most instructed interest. Just when the amateur archaeologist, however, is sinking under his learning, the custodian opens a window and lets him look out on a beautiful hill beyond certain gardens, where a bird is singing angelically. I suppose it is the same bird which sings all through these papers, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... back with you—mother can be the first to say how-dy to them," ventured Polly, looking like a stage-struck amateur at her first appearance ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... as we lay at anchor. The sweet murmurings of the water running by, cleft by my sharp bow, and gliding in wavelets along the smooth sides only a few inches from my ear, and sounding with articulate distinctness through the tight mahogany skin; and then there was the muttering chatter of the amateur fisherman, who was sure to be at ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... rolling and pitching about in his pannier like a raw amateur in a howdab on an elephant's back, and after contemplating him for a few moments Langdon caught up ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... from 1731. It was laid down according to the design of William Kent, under the direction of Lord Burlington, the amateur architect of Burlington House. The stone was given by Sir Edward Gascoigne from Huddlestone. Some of the gravestones were also used for the work. The work cost L2500, which was collected by subscription. The pavement, ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... knew a lot about baseball that was planted in him by sheer instinct. And now he did something that was against orders and entirely different from what any other amateur outfielder would have thought of doing. It smacked more of big league baseball, where thinking is quick. He crept in, inch by inch, almost, while Tom Binns pitched two balls and a strike, until he was not more than thirty feet behind the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... size, it has been possible further to simplify the construction, and at the same time to reduce the price, thus making of the new form a genuine amateur apparatus. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... But you have money. You will give liberally to the Red Cross. You will volunteer to nurse in the hospitals. With your sad story of ill treatment by us, with your high birth, and your knowledge of nursing, which you acquired, of course, only as an amateur, you should not find it difficult to join the Ladies of France, or the American Ambulance. What you learn from the wounded English and French officers and the French doctors you will send us through the ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... nice imagination of a WELLS to carry it off. Also he fails to deal with the humour of the position, whether in the madhouse, the court of justice, the manager's office or the palace, an elementary mistake which the most amateur conjurer will always avoid. It is rather the author's misfortune than his fault that his incidental picture of war, introduced only as a new field of operation for his prodigy, is rendered almost fatuous by the actual ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... essentially since. Whatever has been done in that line in recent times is to all intents and purposes due to stimulation from abroad and, in so far, artificial. So far, none of the more ambitious native efforts have been on the program of the stage of Reykjavik to be performed by the very estimable amateur players ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... ashes; stooping all night over 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 ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... do. I propose to escort you to a place of safety, and to keep you there till my operations are concluded, and the possibility of interference entirely removed. You spoke just now of murder. What a crude notion that was of yours! It is only the amateur who practises murder—' ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... As the amateur miners plied their picks with diligence, the toll of a bell was suddenly heard. John Wright, who was furthest in the mine, stopped with ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... six months to the day after her coming to California, she read in a San Francisco paper—a mere tucked-away paragraph to fill up a corner—that the Italian amateur aeronaut, Prince di Sereno, had arranged a sensational flight from Naples to Algiers in his new aeroplane, an improvement on a celebrated older make. The machine had just been named the Vittoria in honour of the brave and beautiful lady whom ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... all other marks that 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 more ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... however, notice this report on account of its grammatical and entomological mistakes. It is because of the evil effects it may, and probably will, have on amateur silk culturists, that I notice it; for most assuredly, failure will be the result of all attempts to produce silk cocoons by feeding the caterpillars of the different moths on the food prescribed by ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... shown in the illustration was made of plain-sawed white oak. The copper lighting fixtures were made by the amateur as were the hinges and the drawer pulls. The doors are fitted with art-glass panels. The following stock list ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor
... greater because he can confine himself to the essentials. The excellence of a banjo in respect to power and tone depends mainly upon the rim and the neck, that is, supposing the parchment head to be of proper quality; but then the preparation of the heads is a business of itself, and the amateur is no more expected to make the head than to make the strings. So again, all the minor accessories, such as pegs and tail pieces, brackets and bridges, are kept in stock for his benefit, and he may justly claim all the credit if his ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... The amateur should, however, train her eye to approximate measurements. She should learn to estimate the size of saucepans and other cooking utensils, and also of serving dishes. Measure by cupfuls the capacity of several ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... Bickley, and in clearing away the deep dust from what seemed to be the bottom of the step, which was perhaps four feet in height, by accident thrust my amateur spade somewhat strongly against its base where it rested upon the ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... think, though it remains to be seen," he said enigmatically. "It will show the stuff that's in you, besides, and it will be a better claim upon the Intelligencer people than all the lines from all the senators and magnates in the world. The thing for you is to do Amateur Night at ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... situation now when we are trying to tidy up our social life. Health, that was necessary in war time, is surely equally important in peace? Even the prostitute, the professional and the amateur, will benefit: restrict the opportunities of this easy way of getting money and presents from men and other ways of living and obtaining presents must be resorted to. Thus there will be a finer chance of reformation than ever there was before. To urge moral ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... of the size, and the rig.... All that." He was elaborately the expert, sure that an amateur could never understand. Sally might have retorted with baffling words about seams and camisoles and voile; but she was shrewd in mystic silence. "You'd have to see the ships.... Then I could point it all out to you. I mean, a gunboat ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... early building period, President C. C. Moore turned aside from his other cares long enough to appoint J. B. Levison Chief of the Music Department. A better choice could hardly have been made. For more than two decades Mr. Levison, an able amateur in music, and a business man of high standing, had been identified with all of San Francisco's larger efforts in its musical life. But Mr. Levison's grasp of the importance of such a post was more comprehensive than President Moore's, for he refused the position. Fortunately, however, he had his ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... say, "my day is over; the horse is worn out. I used to keep poets at my expense, and I used to buy pictures and books from the Jews—and my geese were quite as good as those of Mukhan, and I had genuine slate-coloured tumbler-pigeons.... I was an amateur of all sorts of things! Except that I never was a dog-fancier, because of the drunkenness and the clownishness! I was mettlesome, untamable! God forbid that a Telyegin should be anything but first-class in everything! ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... promises that his Investigator shall keep no secrets and observe nothing withheld from the eye of the reader. So faithful is the author to this undertaking that he practically keeps his expert hanging about with the unenlightened crowd, while another character, in light-hearted amateur enthusiasm, does all the work. But of course, in a tale of this kind, the only thing that really matters is the one question of spotting the criminal, or who killed Cock Robin. Naturally I am not going to spoil your fun over this by any officious whisperings. As you probably ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... neglect essential detail and are not always rightly informed. They confuse one with a flood of scientific terms describing minute anatomical parts and fail to explain the simple yet absolutely essential points over which an amateur has trouble, wheat often only a few words ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... clubs of the adjacent thoroughfare of cooperative palaces, Pall Mall. The furniture was battered and dingy; the sofa on which Logan sprawled had a certain historic interest: it was covered with cloth of horsehair, now seldom found by the amateur. A bookcase with glass doors held a crowd of books to which the amateur would at once have flown. They were in 'boards' of faded blue, and the paper labels bore alluring names: they were all First Editions of the most desirable kind. The bottles in the liqueur case were antique; ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... you know where I can find a little bit of wire?" asked Marjorie, running from the shed, where an amateur circus ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... furnished in the manner most dear to the hearts of boys. The polished floor was strewn with soft rugs, and the walls were hung with pictures and amateur photographs. In the corners and over the mantels were fencing foils and masks, fishing rods, baseball bats, creels, and several pairs of crossed canoe paddles which ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... witticism at the Tuileries. The old Vendeen did not let such a happy chance slip; he told his history with so much vivacity that a king, who never forgot anything, might remember it at a convenient season. The royal amateur of literature also observed the elegant style given to some notes which the discreet gentleman had been invited to recast. This little success stamped Monsieur de Fontaine on the King's memory as one of the loyal ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... declared they must have a siesta, even if they had to doze on their stools, for neither of them ever could accustom himself to the Roman fashion of throwing one's self on the ground, and sleeping with their faces to the earth. Von Bluhmen, a fiery amateur of sketching, walked off to take a 'near view' of the aqueduct, and the two artists ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... talk suddenly swung over to amateur theatricals? Lady Cynthia was a terrible puller ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... looked at him blankly, and then he recognized the amateur radio call cards the other was displaying. "Oh, a ham. Well, no, but I have a ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... said he. "You have an excellent touch; and I know what I am talking about when I speak of music. Cramer, of the Opera, said only the other day that he had rather hand his baton to me than to any amateur in England. Halloa, it's Charlie ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Coates, "the Amateur of Fashion," known as "Romeo" Coates, sometimes as "Diamond" Coates, sometimes as "Cock-a-doodle-doo" Coates (1772-1848), was the only surviving son of a wealthy West Indian planter. He made his first appearance on the stage at Bath ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... process is not an account of what actually took place in Burke's preparation, but it will give to the student the method by which great speakers may have proceeded; we do know that many did follow such a scheme. No amateur who wants to make his speeches worth listening to should omit this helpful step of outline or brief making. Whether he first writes out his speeches in full, or composes them upon his feet, every speaker should prepare an outline or brief of his material. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... vilia, solidago, lactuca, helianthus, erigeron, brickellia, malvastrum, ptelea or a desert hop-tree, polygonum, sphedra, lupines, castilleia, lathyrus, verbena and a score of others. I merely name those I saw on one day's drive to and from Grand View, so that the botanist, amateur or professional, may know the rich treat there is in store for him. For, under the peculiar climatic conditions here, many of these more common ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... rendered by amateur actors at the Front, all scenery being dispensed with. If you must dispense with one or the other, why not leave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... as giving a softness and harmony not genuine; but as it was the practice of Giorgione and Correggio, "in order to learn the effect of the colours, of the masses, and of the work as a whole," he recommends it to the painter. He expects, however, from the amateur an impartiality almost impossible to attain, when it is expected to reach such a point that "all schools, all masters, all manners, and all classes of pictures will be a matter of indifference to him." We fear ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... character of a Prince who takes upon himself to lecture the Actors on their own art. There is no subtler touch in SHAKSPEARE's irony than his putting these instructions to players in the mouth of a noble amateur. Of the revival, as a whole, one may truthfully say, Ca donne a penser, and, indeed, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... after a fight is no particular satisfaction to you. Well, then, give my Chouan a reprieve, for which I will be responsible, and let me see him. I assure you that aristocrat has become essential to me, and he can be made to further the success of our plans. Besides, to shoot a mere amateur in Chouannerie would be as absurd as to fire on a balloon when a pinprick would disinflate it. For heaven's sake leave cruelty to the aristocracy. Republicans ought to be generous. Wouldn't you and yours have forgiven the victims of Quiberon? ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... air, nourishment, orderly surroundings, and to be let judiciously alone; those are the conditions which the amateur nurse must further, according to her own judgment and, her knowledge of the friend she ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... that, but he was suspicious. It was barely possible that the officiating clergyman had connived at the theft of the license from his desk, so the pawnbroker, who doubtless possesses the instincts of an amateur detective, resolved to get the license into the hands of Nan Brent direct. Before doing so, however, he wrote to the man named in the license and sent his letter to the address therein given. In the course ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Carlton, delightedly, as he hurried forward. "It looks as though my chance had come at last." But as he approached the stranger he saw, to his great disappointment, that he had nothing more serious to deal with than one of the international army of amateur photographers, who had been stalking the Princess as a hunter follows an elk, or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a prominent politician, or a Lord Mayor's show, everything being fish that came within the focus ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... his old friend, determined on having one more old fashioned beaver hunt, such as they were accustomed to a score of years before. They did not mean it should be child's play and they admitted no amateur hunters and trappers: all were veterans of years' standing, and, when the party was fully made up, ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... nourished classes, after they have left school, look upon their amusements as the main business of life, give to them the industry and concentration which should be bestowed upon science, letters or industry, and swell the ranks of the amiable and incompetent amateur. It is argued that schools are converted into pleasant athletic clubs, and that boys, instead of learning there to work, merely learn to play. Now this is a serious indictment; it is a good thing to learn to play, but it is not the only thing a school should teach. Riding, ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... We've been like a couple of babes playing 'Here we go round the Mulberry Bush.' Now I'm going right along to Scotland Yard to ask them to take me by the hand and show me the way I should go. I guess the professional always scores over the amateur in the end. Are you ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... us,—Tom Rendel and me,—one morning soon after we reached Palermo, when, in the first bewilderment of architects in this paradise of art and colour, 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 anyone whom he saw appreciating the almost—and in a way fortunately—unknown beauties of Palermo. In a little time we were fully acquainted, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right; only the property in the design should have been specially ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... "it is disappointing not to be able to lay your hands upon the thief. That is where I suppose you must find the interference of an amateur like Mr. Quest a little troublesome sometimes. He gets back the property, which is what the private individual wants, but he doesn't secure the thief, which is, of course, the real end of the case from your point ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... abscess on her pupil's head with an inky penknife, her object was entirely laudable: her heart was in the right place: a statesman interfering with her on the ground that he did not want the boy cured would have deserved impeachment for gross tyranny. But a statesman tolerating amateur surgical practice with inky penknives in school would be a very bad Minister of Education. It is on the question of method that your expert comes in; and though I am democrat enough to insist that he must first convince a representative body ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... companionship of sorrow. The experiment has been made in many forms, but no one has yet been nourished by the fruit of the tree of knowledge who has eaten of that fruit alone. In the art of living, as in all the arts which illustrate and enrich living, the amateur and the dilettante have no real position; they never attain to that mastery of knowledge or of execution which alone give reality to a man's life or work. Mastery in any art comes to those only who give themselves without reservation or stint to their task; mastery in the supreme ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... of a small general store purchased for him by his father. The son has been taught photography by Mr. Jensen, and has an excellent camera obtained from Paris. He is quite an enthusiast. In his shop a crowd is always gathered round the counter looking at the work of this Chinese amateur. There are a variety of stores for sale on the shelves, and I was interested to notice the cheerful promiscuity with which bottles of cyanide of potassium and perchloride of mercury were scattered among bottles of carbonate of soda, of alum, of Moet and Chandon ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... amateur slayer. For, even as the knife-thrust missed its mark, he had resorted to the second ruse, and before Standish could turn around far enough to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune |
