"Player" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fulmen, or empty Noise, when it has not the Sound of the Oaken Plant in it. I know it has been given out by those who are Enemies to the Trunk-maker, that he has sometimes been bribed to be in the Interest of a bad Poet, or a vicious Player; but this is a Surmise which has no Foundation: his Stroaks are always just, and his Admonitions seasonable; he does not deal about his Blows at Random, but always hits the right Nail upon the Head. [The [3]] inexpressible Force wherewith he lays them on, sufficiently ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... musicians to play an even faster dance than before. When that one had fallen exhausted to the ground, Ghitza took on a third and a fourth. Then he began to dance with the maidens. The fiddler's string broke and the guitar player's fingers were numb. The sun went to rest behind the mountains and the moon rose in the sky to watch over her little ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... in her eyes showed that she was all a-tingle with the unusual pleasure the evening was affording her. She laughed and looked and listened, sure that the scene she was enjoying was as good as a play. She had never seen a play, it is true; but she had read of them, and of player folk, until she knew she was fitted to judge of ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Friend the Hostess has it in a Play too, I take it, Ends which you pick up behind the Scenes, when you go to be laught at even by the Player-Women. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... gravely, "am a mathematician by instinctive preference and early training, but I have never been able to cross the 'Ass's Bridge,' the Forty-seventh problem of Euclid. Incidentally, I may mention that I am a golf-player with ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... evening at the famous cafe on the East Side was her initial one. The heat, the bristling lights, the terrific appealing clamour of the gypsy band, set murmuring the nerves of this impressionable girl. And the agility of the cymbalom player, his great height, clear skin, and piercing eyes, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... never been heard of in Rockland as went on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the long room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... give me a little kingdom in his empire). In this, as in most sayings of Chopin regarding Liszt, irritation against the latter is distinctly noticeable. The cause of this irritation may be manifold, but Liszt's great success as a concert-player and his own failure in this respect [FOOTNOTE: I speak here only of his inability to impress large audiences, to move great masses.] have certainly something to do with it. Liszt, who thought so likewise, says somewhere in his book that Chopin knew ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... work is 'a poetical fiction.' In a new edition of 1596 the same editor decides the question in the affirmative. But Dorell, while making this admission, leaves untouched the curious episode of 'W. S.' The mention of 'W. S.' as 'the old player,' and the employment of theatrical imagery in discussing his relations with Willobie, must be coupled with the fact that Shakespeare, at a date when mentions of him in print were rare, was eulogised by name as the author of 'Lucrece' in some prefatory verses to the ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... life's beauties as well as its ills. To him music was one of earth's chief blessings. Of his early passion for the violin and his substitution of the flute therefor, we have already learned. According to competent critics he was possibly the greatest flute-player*1* in the world, a fact all the more interesting when we remember that, as he himself tells us,*2* he never had a teacher. With such a talent for music the poet has naturally strewn his pages with fine tributes thereto. In 'Tiger-lilies', for instance, he ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... with the children restored Pixie's elastic spirits, and brought a revived wish for her friends' society. She leaned out of the window and beheld a game of tennis on in obvious need of a fourth player, waved gaily in response to a general beckoning, and tripped downstairs singing a glad refrain. And then, in the corridor outside her boudoir, behold a pale and tragic Esmeralda summoning her with a dramatic hand. Pixie flounced, and a ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... teachers at home, and for the conviction that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a beautiful and manly mould. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... it's check," commented Sir Hilary, who was something of a chess-player. "Now you're ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... engaged in declamation; 'Twas a Greek tragedy no doubt you read? I in this art should like initiation, For nowadays it stands one well instead. I've often heard them boast, a preacher Might profit with a player for ...
— Faust • Goethe
... great dandy at Cheltenham, Harrogate, Bath, Leamington, and other places. I was a good whist and billiard player; so much so, that in many of these towns, the people used to refuse, at last, to play with me, knowing how far I was their superior. Fancy my surprise, about five years after the Portsmouth affair, when ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... later, magnificent chords sounded through the house. The piano was old, but tuned to the middle of the note, and the keys were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered; they were touched knowingly as by the player's own fingers, and so they sang—and from out among the chords there stole an errant melody. This was not "piano-playing" and not a pianist's triumphant nimbleness—it was music. Art is the language of a heart that knows how ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... the edge of the table and Gallito bent forward and scratched her head, making little clucking noises in his throat the while: "Our guest is a great poker player, Lolita, he understands how to make a bluff, but," again that single grating note of a laugh, "assure him, my Lolita, that ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... slantingly across the road to him, as if by the move of a knight at chess, looking everywhere else, and only perceiving him with glad surprise at the very last moment. He was a great frequenter of tea parties and except in Lent an assiduous player of bridge, for a clergyman's duties, so he very properly held, were not confined to visiting the poor and exhorting the sinner. He should be a man of the world, and enter into the pleasures of his prosperous parishioners, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... is a very expensive country, especially so in the matter of education, and one cannot but reflect whether the result is in proportion to the outlay. It costs a great many thousands of dollars and over four years of time to produce a really good base-ball player, and the time and money invested in the production of a society young woman are not less. No complaint is made of the cost of these schools of the higher education; the point is whether they produce interesting ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... for men's sense and experience of their own bodily qualities—swiftness, energy, power of concentrating sight and hand and foot on a momentary physical act—in the close hair, the chastened muscle, the perfectly poised attention of the quoit-player; for men's sense, again, of ethical qualities—restless idealism, inward vision, power of presence through that vision in scenes behind the experience of ordinary men—in the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... strips of nicely trimmed bamboo, gradually diminishing in size from left to right, were placed; whilst beneath them, seven gourds, also gradually decreasing, were securely fastened to mellow the sound. The instrument was carried by a strap round the player's neck, and was struck by two small wooden hammers softened by ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... little repulsive at times. Musician, dandy, and company-man in practice; veterinary surgeon in theory, he lodged awhile in Mellstock village, coming from nobody knew where; though some said his first appearance in this neighbourhood had been as fiddle-player in a ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... player who is to begin it is just stepped aside on some business; he begs you would stay a few minutes ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... to challenge Masterman Throgton at billiards. His reputation at his club as a cool, determined player was surpassed by few. Throgton had been known to run nine, ten, and even twelve at a break. It was not unusual for him to drive his ball clear off the table. His keen eye told him infallibly where each of the three balls was; instinctively he knew ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... then. We had our two games and on parting I warned Fyne that I was called to town on business and might be away for some time. He regretted it very much. His brother-in-law was expected next day but he didn't know whether he was a chess-player. Captain Anthony ("the son of the poet—you know") was of a retiring disposition, shy with strangers, unused to society and very much devoted to his calling, Fyne explained. All the time they had been married he could be induced only once before to come and stay, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... octogenarian treble, that seemed to come from high up in the head of Uncle Issy, the bass-viol player; "But cast your eyes, good friends, 'pon a little slip o' heart's delight down in the nave, and mark the flowers 'pon the bonnet nid-nodding like bees in a bell, with ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to expectorate in the fireplace. He lost the game and said to one of the party, "Young gentleman, do you know why I lost that game?" "No, sir," was the response. "It was because I got up to spit." Scott was also a good chess player. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... tempest drives across the wave, Marie; With triplets in the treble stave, Marie; The player pounds. With bulging eyes Th' excited vocalist replies; The maddened octaves ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... evening—" The speaker caught himself. A trace of the old shrewdness crept into the grey eyes as he inspected his companion steadily. "I know How pretty well, and when someone intimates to me that he is a grand-stand player, or goes out of his way to pick a quarrel, or meddles with someone else's affairs—" Again the big man caught himself. The scrutiny became almost a petition. "I cut you off short about what went on here yesterday," ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... by St. Paul's where dry divines rehearse, Bell keeps his store for vending prose and verse, And books that's neither ... for no age nor clime, Lame languid prose begot on hobb'ling rhyme. Here authors meet who ne'er a spring have got, The poet, player, doctor, wit and sot, Smart politicians wrangling here are seen, Condemning Jeffries ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... stood with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth watching and criticising the game, pleased that the "childer" were amused. Then he began to be amused himself, and in a few minutes more he was down on his knees taking a hand; Emmeline, a poor player and an unenthusiastic one, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... of mysterious veneration[1135], by figuring to myself a state of solemn elevated abstraction, in which I supposed him to live in the immense metropolis of London. Mr. Gentleman, a native of Ireland, who passed some years in Scotland as a player, and as an instructor in the English language, a man whose talents and worth were depressed by misfortunes[1136], had given me a representation of the figure and manner of DICTIONARY JOHNSON, as he was then generally called[1137]; and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... was therefore, feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Bourbon, who, being a chess player of about his force, they very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prize, the Doctor took it. 'Ah,' says she, 'we do not take kings so.' 'We do in America,' ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... some, and especially a waiter with his hair parted down the middle, who is offering a hare (not cut up) to a guest who seems to have had too much already, are very good indeed. I find it difficult to think that this waiter can be by any one but Tabachetti. The guitar-player is good, or rather was good before he was repainted—so is a lady near him, so are some of the waiters at the other end, and so are the bride and bridegroom; at any rate they are life-like and effective as seen from outside, but the chapel ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... point near the corner of the table, and there Bud halted the two with his lifted hand. Bud was trembling a little—but he was smiling, too. Eddie was frankly grinning, Jerry's face was the face of a good poker-player—it told nothing. ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... taken her place as his counselor and friend? The idea of some personal advantage was, of course, at the bottom of it; but it was clear, not only to sage Mrs. Basil, but even to Harry—since even a moderately skillful looker-on sees more of the game than the best player—that in any contest of wits Solomon would have small chance with his new friend. The opinion of Mrs. Basil was, that some new speculation, in some manner connected with the Crompton sale, had been entered into by the two men, and that ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... are, my friend states, in the high way to Catholicism. Madame Sand herself was a Catholic some time since: having been converted to that faith along with M. N—, of the Academy of Music; Mr. L—, the pianoforte player; and one or two other chosen individuals, by the famous Abbe de la M—. Abbe de la M— (so told me in the Diligence, a priest, who read his breviary and gossiped alternately very curiously and pleasantly) ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... everything had happened ere The prophets to its happening sware; That David was no giant-slayer, Nor one to call a God-obeyer In certain details we could spare, But rather was a debonair Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player: That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair, And gave the Church no thought whate'er; That Esther with her royal wear, And Mordecai, the son of Jair, And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair, And Balaam's ass's bitter blare; Nebuchadnezzar's ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... illness, had not forgotten that the young tribune's eyes had once looked with favor on his daughter. And since love, like life, is but a game, and much may be done by a player who handles his pawns wisely, Eudemius began to conjure up hopes which, in spite of himself, he knew might never see fulfilment. The more he saw of Marius, the more he coveted his strength to prop his dying house. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... often in danger of incurring the displeasure of Alexander, because of his favourite Hephaestion. On one occasion a house was assigned to Evion, Hephaestion's flute-player, which the servants of Eumenes had previously claimed for their master's lodging. Hearing this, Eumenes went to Alexander in a rage, and complained that it was better to be a flute-player than a soldier. At first Alexander agreed with him, and blamed ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... heart that loved me as a player Touches a lyre; content with my poor skill No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still I thought at times: Is there no sweet lost air Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?). Oh, he alone, alone could so fulfil My thoughts in sound ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer artistic love of the physically beautiful, prompts his eloquence upon the game of fives—in which he praises the great player Cavanagh as warmly, and describes his last moments as pathetically, as if he were talking of Rousseau—and still more his immortal essay on the fight between the Gasman and Bill Neate. Prize-fighting is fortunately fallen into hopeless decay, and we are pretty well ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... was at least ten years younger than she was, and so incredibly handsome that he looked like a mask or a most perfect illustration in an American novel rather than a man. Black hair, dark blue eyes, red lips, a slow sleepy smile, a fine tennis player, a perfect dancer, and with it all a mystery. Harry Kember was like a man walking in his sleep. Men couldn't stand him, they couldn't get a word out of the chap; he ignored his wife just as she ignored him. How did he live? Of course there were ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... that, in one mountain town or another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have an equal chance with me—else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever rightfully accused me of dealing against him. Yes, 'tis true, me world is a world of risk." ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the word person in every European language to signify a human individual is unintentionally appropriate; persona really means a player's mask, and it is quite certain that no one shows himself as he is, but that each wears a mask and plays a role. In general, the whole of social life is a continual comedy, which the worthy find insipid, whilst the stupid ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an imprudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... illicit producer of cannabis for the international drug trade, but not a major player; government actively eradicating plantings ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the world or rods to govern and chastise it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt had these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and tinselled robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been thrown in among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother monarchs on the great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to discern the crown jewels of England glowing and flashing in the midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... By implication of the April banquet the leader's personal choice, Shelby, had therefore no trivial chance of capturing the nomination; and in the Boss's opinion the favored pawn owed a decent deference to the master chess-player. So Shelby thought, too; but they split over definition of terms in the same ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... cue, and was easily the master of every man there, though better acquainted, he said, with the foreign game. The late Pope used to play, he said, nearly as well as Mr. Herbert Spencer. Even for a beginner, Miss Willoughby was not a brilliant player; but she did not cut the cloth, and her arms were remarkably beautiful—an excellent but an extremely rare thing in woman. She was rewarded, finally, by a choice between bedroom candles lit and offered by her younger and her elder cousins, and, after a momentary hesitation, ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... a more unbearable suspense before the curtain rises, if it does not enhance the delight with which you follow the performance and see the actor 'bend up each corporal agent' to realise a masterpiece of a few hours' duration. With a player so variable as Salvini, who trusts to the feelings of the moment for so much detail, and who, night after night, does the same thing differently but always well, it can never be safe to pass judgment after a single hearing. ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was to be even more concerned than he. Yet how could evil come to me, even should the American do him in the eye rather frightfully? In truth, I had not the faintest belief that the Honourable George would win the game. He fancies himself a card-player, though why he should, God knows. At bridge with him every hand is a no-trumper. I need not say more. Also it occurred to me that the American would be a person not accustomed to losing. There was ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... your horn, hunter, Come blow your horn on high! In yonder room there lieth a 'cello player, And now he's going to move away! ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... be made; if in another, it is not. Again, a board of college trustees may be considering the abolishment of football. In arriving at a decision, they are confronted with these questions: "Is the game beneficial or detrimental to the player?" "How does it affect the college as a whole?" Those who favor the game will, of course, say that it is a benefit to the player and the whole college; while those who oppose it will maintain that it is ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... his own heart he cared but little about such things. His zeal for religion was sheer hypocrisy and worldly cunning. There was no vice practised in the settlement in which Padre Joaquin did not take a leading part. An adroit monte player he was—ready to do a little cheating upon occasions—a capital judge of game "gallos," ever ready to stake his onzas upon a "main." In addition to these accomplishments, the padre boasted of others. In his cups,—and this was nothing unusual,—he ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... spies upon the other! The most profligate principles of Machiavel sink into obscurity when contrasted with the Imperial Espionage of Napoleon. When no longer moving squadrons in the tented field—whole armies, like so many pieces of chess in the hands of a dexterous player—he sat upon his throne, reclined upon his lounge or smoked in his bath, organized and moved the most difficult and dangerous forces in the ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... childhood suggests itself. For a boy, of eight I was a fair chess-player. A friend and distant relative of ours, Captain Meagher brother of Thomas Francis Meagher, who was a general in the Confederate Army during the American War stayed for a time at an inn in the village of Enniskerry, which was two or three miles away. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... brocaded with scarlet roses. White lace ruffles and fichu. Long train of scarlet velvet, lined in white satin. Hair dressed high and powdered. Gold crown. Shimmering necklace. If a costume as ornate as this is not procurable, let the young player wear a long white muslin dress that just touches below the ankle. A bodice and overdress of white cretonne flowered with red roses. White lawn fichu with ruffles. A long train of scarlet cambric with the glazed side turned outward to represent satin. This is lined in white cambric which should ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... may gain the Advantage of a Pass or Hazard. For I must tell you, in this Game, is required much Cunning, and subtle Contrivance, as in any Recreation whatever, and therefore when you are to Play with an Expert Player, you must muster up all the forces of your Ingenuity and Wit, for the vanquishing of ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... in together and spoiled the prettiest little party that was ever started in Eldara. First was that player piano which Sally got shipped in and paid God-knows-how-much for; the second was this greenhorn I was tellin' ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... years of weary torment the women of the piano-possessing class have been forced to spend over the keyboard, fingering scales. How many of them could be bribed to attend a pianoforte recital by a great player, though they will rise from sick beds rather ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... To welcome destiny: Heaven is our heritage, Earth but a player's stage. Mount we unto the sky. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... rebuke. He moved to the row of seats behind her. She was now nearer to him than she had been yet. He was again content, and more than content. The next performance was a solo on the piano. A round of applause welcomed the player. Ovid looked at the platform for the first time. In the bowing man, with a prematurely bald head and a servile smile, he recognized Mrs. Gallilee's music-master. The inevitable inference followed. His mother ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... to eat, and in the midst of the meal they heard another knock on the door. This time Ned Lowe was there, one of their chums who was a great singer and banjo player. ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... the saloon, and almost any night could be seen at the faro-table fingering his chips and checking off the cards on his tally-sheet. Nobody but strangers would sit down to a game of poker or casino with him: he had grown much too skilful. He was what they called a 'very smooth player:' though I never heard of his being ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... that the audience was not disposed to accept the innovations of the "Beggar's Opera" without protest. To begin with there was no time-honoured prologue, and worse, there was no preliminary overture. They could not understand the dialogue between a player and the beggar, introduced as the author, with which the opera opens. They grumbled loudly. They thought they were to be defrauded of their usual music and they wouldn't allow the dialogue to proceed. Jack Hall who as a comedian was acceptable ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... wish you could come with us, Mr Knowles. We shall miss you very much. Father, when he looked at his chess-board yesterday, heaved such a tremendous sigh, and I knew that he was thinking of you, and wondering if he will ever find any such another player." ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... player slipped into "Old Folks at Home," and the tune went on slowly, lingeringly, as if waiting for something that did not come. Again it was played, this time with the voice ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... crashes in crisp. "Well, say, you fresh agents are goin' to overwork this comedy cut-up act with our bell one of these times. Go on. Shoot it. What you want to wish on us—instalment player-piano, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... observation upon it. It is possible that he may have laid his hand on his heart, and with a winning insinuation in his countenance, expressed to his neighbor that he was a man who made his case his own; yet I will engage, a player in Covent Garden might hit such an attitude a thousand times before ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... music and to see ever so many celebrities. Oh, and let me remember to tell you that M. Thierry, the blind historian, has sent us a message by his physician to ask us to go to see him, and as a matter of course we go. Madame Viardot, the prima donna, and Leonard, the first violin player at the Conservatoire, are to be ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... marriage with an actor, but the dashing jeune premier, like his father before him, carried off his bride by night, and married her at Lichfield before her irate parent could overtake them. Miss Hill was a Methodist by persuasion, and hated the theatre, though she loved her player. She induced her husband to renounce his profession for a time, and to appear only at concerts and oratorios. But the stage-fever was in his blood, and after a short retirement, we find him, in 1771, investing a part of his wife's fortune in ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... and darkness, all the same, as if the light of London fifty miles away were quite enough to travel by, and some to spare. Yoho, beside the village green, where cricket players linger yet, and every little indentation made in the fresh grass by bat or wicket, ball or player's foot, sheds out its perfume on the night. And then a sudden brief halt at the door of a strange inn—the "Bald-faced Stag"—an exchange of greetings, a new ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... the last quarter century has changed from a centrally planned system that was largely closed to international trade to a more market-oriented economy that has a rapidly growing private sector and is a major player in the global economy. Reforms started in the late 1970s with the phasing out of collectivized agriculture, and expanded to include the gradual liberalization of prices, fiscal decentralization, increased autonomy for state enterprises, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... to play a game at chess with a far superior player, then at least one learns something; but impossible to sit at a chess board with a child who throws all into confusion. The national chessboard is very confused in the White House. Cunning is good for, and only succeeds in dealing ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... to get lost, And Echo is constantly asking where Are last year's roses and last year's frost? And where are the fashions we used to wear? And what is a "gentleman," and what is a "player"? Irrelevant questions I like to ask: Can you reap the tret as well as the tare? And who was the Man in the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... little hill by the city of Florence, where the lovers of Giorgione are lying, it is always the solstice of noon, of noon made so languorous by summer suns that hardly can the slim naked girl dip into the marble tank the round bubble of clear glass, and the long fingers of the lute-player rest idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... favorite and most exciting games of the Dakotas is ball-playing. A smooth place on the prairie, or in winter, on a frozen lake or river, is chosen. Each player has a sort of bat, called "Ta-kee-cha-pse-cha," about thirty-two inches long, with a hoop at the lower end four or five inches in diameter, interlaced with thongs of deer-skin, forming a sort of pocket. With these bats they catch and throw the ball. Stakes are set as ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... be doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its account in it. Taking this view of the case—and I cannot be satisfied to take any lower one—I cannot make a sorry face about "the poor player." I think it is a term very much misused and very little understood—being, I venture to say, appropriated in a wrong sense by players themselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... attention. And to show that he wasn't what he should be, when he got to Augusta his servant sued him for his wages; and having nothing but his chivalry, which the servant very sensibly declined to accept for payment, he came out like a man, and declared himself nothing but a poor player. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... is hard to counterfeit. In the reflective portions and exquisite minor play which largely occupy its progress, and in the princely superiority of its chief figure, there can be little acting in the conventional sense. There is a quality which no false ware can imitate. The player ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... about half the size of the billiard-tables in England, and the pockets were twice as large. The four balls, with which they played, were not much bigger than those generally used at bagatelle. The queus were uncovered at the top with leather; and the player had the satisfaction of hearing the sharp twang of his bare-headed queu as each time it struck the little ivory ball. No chalk was in the room. The Danes possess no word in their language expressive of that convenient mineral. In Denmark, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... brief interval, became a duel between two men: Winn, with his headlong, thirsty method of attack, and the champion player of Davos, Mavorovitch, who was known as the most finished skater ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... hour later, Ford and the piano-player entered Sowell Street dragging the piano behind them. The amateur detective still wore his rain-coat, but his hat he had exchanged for a cap, and, instead of a collar, he had knotted around his bare neck a dirty ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... are round, thin plates of metal, Mr. Sears, with handles on one side to hold them by; and the player clashes them together, at certain parts of the music—as you would slap the palms of ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... and tennis." Mr. North cast wildly about in his mind for an inspiration. What did the young beggar do, anyway, that would meet with the approval of this socialistic Amazon? "Cards, too. He's an inveterate—I mean, enthusiastic, card-player." ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... concerning some matters in which we had both been engaged. He had suffered grievously for many days, and it was plain to all his friends that he had not long to tarry with us. A right skilful player upon the organ was Master Jenkins, and a man beloved of all. He had written much music for the Glory of God and the edification of his Church, wherein his life seemed mirrored, for his music appealed to men's hearts and led ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... a chessboard whereon the pieces move diversely: the knights leaping sidewise, and the bishops darting obliquely, and the rooks charging straightforward, and the pawns laboriously hobbling from square to square, each at the player's will. There is no discernible order, all to the onlooker is manifestly in confusion: but to the player there is a meaning in ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the evening the Poet returned home. He had been at a concert, had heard a celebrated violin player, and was quite enchanted with his wonderful performance. It had been a complete gush of melody that he had drawn from the instrument. Sometimes it seemed like the gentle murmur of a rippling stream, ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... of them were sitting by the fire playing draughts, or, as they called it, "the dam-brod." The dam-brod is the Scottish laborer's billiards; and he often attains to a remarkable proficiency at the game. Wylie, the champion draught-player, was once a herd-boy; and wonderful stories are current in all bothies of the times when his master called him into the farm-parlor to show his skill. A third man, who seemed the elder by quite twenty years, was at the window reading a newspaper; and I ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... is no softie!" he exclaimed, seeming to feel that Frank needed defending. "He was a famous athlete at Yale College. He made a great reputation as a baseball and football player." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... tengus are fond of trying the strength of their noses, and how far they can bend them up and down without breaking. They have two favorite games of which they sometimes give exhibitions. The player has long strings of iron cash (that is, one hundred of the little iron coins, with a square hole in the centre). Several of these he slides on a rope like buttons on a string, or counters on a wire. Then he lifts them off with the tip of his nose. Sometimes his nose bends so much under ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... the art of playing the piano as an example of the kind of action we are in search of, we observe that a practised player will perform very difficult pieces apparently without effort, often, indeed, while thinking and talking of something quite other than his music; yet he will play accurately and, possibly, with much expression. If he ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... could aver that he had heard a single note; but it was impossible to mistake his figure, and that had been seen, time after time, gliding in from the adjoining field, making the tour of Simon's house, and exhibiting all the gesticulations of a violin-player. Many affirmed, too, that the fiddler was followed by a swarm of fluttering lights causing an odd noise, like nothing so much as the multitudinous clacking of little hammers. If the Dwarf and his luminous retinue encountered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... you did it.... I couldn't. Once a player, always a player—money or no money, and there's a great deal more money in it than there used ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... are some who will object, as a thing taken for granted, the greater licentiousness of a player's life; but this, before it can be admitted in argument, must be proved, and the proof of it would be very difficult indeed. From a long and attentive consideration of the subject, founded upon a perfect knowledge of the private characters of the stage, and the general complexion of society ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... you to get relief from everything that tries you, as far as you can. Treat yourself like an invalid, as you are. Then change your way of life entirely: go out a good deal in the air, read, and talk, and sing, and play on the piano—you used to be a good player, I remember. Let the housework and the sewing be done by somebody else, except what you can do without a strain upon yourself. Then I should be a little careful about my dress, to have it becoming and all that, and I would invite in a little company ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... stopped. And as they were released from the spell of the music the people began clamoring for the violin. "Fifty guineas," "sixty," "seventy," "eighty," they bid in hot haste. And at last it was knocked down to the famous player himself for one hundred guineas in gold, and that evening he held a vast audience of thousands breathless under the spell of the music he drew from the old, dirty, blackened, ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... he's a musician," said Chirpy Cricket. "But I must say I don't care much for his music. He's not what you might call a steady player. And his notes are not shrill enough for my liking. Perhaps he lacks training. I'd be glad to take him in hand and see what I could do with him. Tell me! Does he ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... millionaire. He had married much above himself in every way. He had achieved a certain popularity and was conscious of intellect. But at the present moment two or three sovereigns in his pocket were the extent of his worldly wealth and his character was utterly ruined. He regarded his fate as does a card-player who day after day holds sixes and sevens when other men have the aces and kings. Fate was against him. He saw no reason why he should not have had the aces and kings continually, especially as fate had given ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... did not make this inquiry because he was heartless, but the foremost thought with those who provide amusement for the public—whether they be managers or actors—is that "the show must go on." For that reason sickness, and even the death of loved ones, often does not stop the player from appearing on the stage. And, in a measure, this is no less so with those who help to make ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... just Heaven has long decreed Shall on a day make sin and folly bleed: When man's ill genius to my presence sent This wretch, to rouse my wrath, for ruin meant; Who in his idiom vile, with Gray's-Inn grace, Squander'd his noisy talents to my face; Named every player on his fingers' ends, Swore all the wits were his peculiar friends; Talk'd with that saucy and familiar ease Of Wycherly, and you, and Mr. Bayes:[2] Said, how a late report your friends had vex'd, Who heard you meant to write heroics next; For, tragedy, he knew, would lose you quite, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... one of them speak a tragical speech, describing the death of old Priam, King of Troy, with the grief of Hecuba his queen. Hamlet welcomed his old friends, the players, and remembering how that speech had formerly given him pleasure, requested the player to repeat it; which he did in so lively a manner, setting forth the cruel murder of the feeble old king, with the destruction of his people and city by fire, and the mad grief of the old queen, running barefoot up and down the palace, with a poor ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lady visitor the problem is comparatively simple. I should mention that it is a perfectly legitimate manoeuvre to get your bath put down to somebody else if you can do it; and the crack lady-player usually wraps herself in an unobtrusive bath-wrap, shrouds her head, modestly conceals her face, slips into a friend's room to borrow some Creme-Limon and, after an interval, rushes noisily out of the friend's room to her bath, which, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... than a man's body, and usually about five palms in height. The end was covered with tanned deerskin, firmly stretched. The sides were often elaborately carved and tastefully painted. This drum was placed upright on a stand in front of the player and the notes were produced by striking the parchment with ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... ball and almost grasped it, but the pigskin oval slipped from him and next instant—to the horror of the Ridgley watchers—was seized by a swift-footed son of Wilton who had come tearing downfield as if some weird instinct had informed him that Ned was to make the fatal error. Before any Ridgley player could overtake him he was lying between the goal posts with a satisfied grin on his features. The game was scarcely thirty seconds old and the score was 6-0 in favor of the invaders! A moment later the Wilton captain ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... Lawn Tennis, by A. Wallis Myers, an English player of distinction, has interesting chapters on play in other countries than America, England and France. An anecdotal volume this, with moments on the Riviera and matches played in ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... cake-woman, with whom he had formerly quarrelled, but who now, when she learnt his success, was obsequiously civil to him. I did not see that he manifested superior skill, but still he was successful; and in his last great stake with a young, but not inexpert player, he won the game, though the chances were three to two against him. "Surely," thought I, "fortune rules the destinies of man in the moon as ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... fire. What! How! Where! And Luga, was she lost to him in that no-man's land of a fourth dimension? He closed his weary wet eyes. Then pricked by a sudden thought he sat up in jealous rage. No-man's land? Yes, but the entire orchestra of fifty-two men were with her—and he hated the horn-player, for had he not intercepted poisonous glances between Luga and that impertinent jackanapes? In his torture Pobloff groaned aloud and wondered how he had reached his home: he could remember nothing after the ebon music had devoured ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... merely. I do not think them inoperative now. So much novel-reading cannot leave the young men and maidens untouched; and doubtless it gives some ideal dignity to the day. The young study noble behavior; and as the player in "Consuelo" insists that he and his colleagues on the boards have taught princes the fine etiquette and strokes of grace and dignity which they practise with so much effect in their villas and among their dependents, so I often see traces of the Scotch or the French novel in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... told, when his speeches had been ill-received, and he was going home with his head covered, and in the greatest distress, Satyrus, the player, who was an acquaintance of his, followed and went in with him. Demosthenes lamented to him, "That though he was the most laborious of all the orators, and had almost sacrificed his health to that application, yet he could gain no favour with the people; but drunken seamen and other unlettered ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... shared the general enthusiasm. For that matter there was a little jealousy awakened lest there might be too much generous abandon in the royal approval of the great player. Perhaps this feeling arose in the minds of those who, dating from Puritan days, had a conscientious objection to all plays and players, and waxed hotter as time, alas! proved how, in contrast to the honourable reputation of the English Queen of Tragedy, Sarah Siddons, the character ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... instrument, and the snapping time grew faster, until the dancers gasped, and men with long boots encouraged them with cries and stamped a staccato accompaniment upon the benches or on the floor. It was savage, rasping music, but one player infused into it the ebullient verve of France, and the other was from the misty land where the fiddler learns the witchery of the clanging reel and the swing of the Strathspey. It is doubtless not high art, but there is probably no music in the world that fires the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... You don't know that there's a place called the World's End? I'll swear you can keep your countenance purely; you'd make an admirable player. . . . But look you here, now—where did you lose this gold bodkin?—Oh, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... liked to arrange his hair in flowing locks instead of in a club after the {148} military fashion. "A Querpfeifer und Poet, not a soldier," the indignant father growled, believing the Querpfeif, or Cross-Pipe, was only fit for a player in the regimental band. Augustus William, another son, ten years younger than Fritz, began to be the hope of parental ambition. He took more kindly to a Spartan life than his elder brother. There were violent scenes at court when Frederick the younger was asked to give up his ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... A player was bein' wheeled this way once, and the "outs" was down onto their marrow-bones tryin' to find the ball, when a splash! was heard. The wheel-barrer man had run his cart into a goose pond, and made ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... it was accomplished. Bertha was glad. Richard made jokes about the people who were sitting in the garden, also about the fat bandmaster who was always skipping about while he was conducting, and then about the trumpet-player whose cheeks bulged out and who seemed to be shedding tears when he blew into his instrument. Bertha could not help laughing very heartily. Jests were bandied about her high spirits and Doctor Friedrich remarked that she must surely be going to ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... regard to a business letter, but a letter from his minister was another thing. The idea of replying to a letter from him never occurred to Mr. Hardy. And when Thursday night came he went down to a meeting of the chess club and had a good time with his favourite game: for he was a fine player, and was engaged in a series of games which were being played for the ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... together. It was then that I began to think that I could probably play on her nature as I did on my violin, and then, with a player's frenzy, to realize that I had been doing it from the first; that we had vibrated in harmony like two ends of a chord. Then I saw no more the spirit behind her eyes. I saw only the beautiful face in which the color came and went, the burnished hair ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... himself, and having within the last few days reindulged in open cordiality to the young guest, he was especially communicative that evening. He talked much on Darrell, and with all the affection that, in spite of his fear, the poor flute-player felt for his ungracious patron. He told many anecdotes of the stern man's tender kindness to all that came within its sphere. He told also anecdotes more striking of the kind man's sternness where some obstinate prejudice, some ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... command thy servants to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp," they said to the king, "and it shall come to pass that, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, he shall play with his hand, ...
— David the Shepherd Boy • Amy Steedman
... a little, mean dwelling; and we paused outside and listened. The player went on; but in the midst of the finale there was a sudden break, then the voice sobbing: "I can not play any more—it is so beautiful, it is so utterly beyond my power to do it justice. Oh! what would I not give to go ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... to the claims of the few pupils he had, that they fell away from him one by one—and, after a bit, he lost his post as organist to the village church as well. This smote him deeply, for he was passionately fond of music, and was, moreover, a fine player,—and it was at this stage of his misfortunes that he met by chance Bruce-Errington. Philip, just then, was almost broken-hearted—his father and mother had died suddenly within a week of one another,—and he, finding the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... a spear, hit the slippery fish with such precision and force as to impale it. He will harpoon a turtle as it rushes away from the boat, 5 feet beneath the surface, with the coolness of a billiard-player, and with unerring accuracy "taking off" for the speed of the boat and the refraction of the water. All the ways and habits of fish, and their favourite feeding-grounds, are to him as pages of an ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... as children make pretence to be in this humour or that for sport, and will affect to be frighted till they really fear and weep, so Elliot scarce knew how deep her own humour went, and whether she was acting like a player in a Mystery, or was in good earnest. And if she knew not rightly what her humour was, far less could I know, so that she was ever a puzzle to me, and kept me in a hundred pretty doubts and dreads every day. Alas! how ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... boys always said that generally Easy Allen, as they called him, was only a very ordinary football player. He ambled cheerily about the field, and seemed to enjoy the game so much that he did not bother trying to do anything remarkable. But let something arouse him to a sense of responsibility, a goal for the other side, a knockdown that stirred his temper, then look out! He would put his head ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... the strange developments that are evidently taking place in the game at home. Was this match, we want to know, a single-wicket game between the Sussex player and H. WILSON? If so how did he beat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... the pale, silent girl showed an interest in my favourites, the roses, and turned to me for a favour. Countess Diodora gave the required permission for the lesson, which was to be given and taken while the others were playing lawn-tennis on the adjacent grounds. Flamma was a bad player, anyhow, so she might take ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... greater powers of these pieces came into play between 1450 and 1500, but the period of transition was prolonged to a much later date in some cafes, and the Portuguese Damiano may be regarded as the founder of the modern school. The player of to-day on consulting the elementary directions given in this book (p. 159, et seq.), will see how greatly the present play exceeds in complexity and scientific interest the moves that excited the enthusiasm of Jacobus ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... best woman Bridge player I have ever met," he said. "She seems to be developing into something rather out of the ordinary. Hasn't ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... lids, that burned till all her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little biniou man from the Cote-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence that her little slippered feet echoed ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... without knowing his real parentage, learned all that a knight was expected to know, and became especially expert as a hunter and as a harp player. One day he strolled on board of a Norwegian vessel which had anchored in the harbor near his ancestral home, and accepted the challenge of the Norsemen to play a game of chess for ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... of the national soul. For not all music can be played upon any instrument, and human nature for most of us is like a harp on which can be rendered the music written for the harp but nor that written for the violin. The harp strings quiver for the harp-player alone, and he who can utter his passion through the violin is silent before an unfamiliar instrument. That is why the Irish have rarely been deeply stirred by English literature, though it is one of the great literatures of the world. Our history was different ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... strolling player pure and simple. He was an actor by profession, and jack of all trades through necessity. He could play any part from Macbeth to the hind leg of an elephant, equally well or bad, as the case might ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... in the mysteries and fascinations of the game. Wood proved himself a consummate player, a master of "raise" and "bluff," but for awhile the luck ran against him, and he made ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Bachelor Bill leading off the ball to the tune of "Drops of Brandy," with a young lady to whom, because she had been a strolling player, the Ladies Patronesses of Fiddler's Row had thought proper to behave with a very cavalier civility. The good Bachelor had no notion, as he expressed it, of such tantrums, and he caused it to be circulated among the finest of the blowens, that he expected all who kicked their heels at his ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
