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verb
Play  v. i.  (past & past part. played; pres. part. playing)  
1.
To engage in sport or lively recreation; to exercise for the sake of amusement; to frolic; to spot. "As Cannace was playing in her walk." "The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play!" "And some, the darlings of their Lord, Play smiling with the flame and sword."
2.
To act with levity or thoughtlessness; to trifle; to be careless. ""Nay," quod this monk, "I have no lust to pleye."" "Men are apt to play with their healths."
3.
To contend, or take part, in a game; as, to play ball; hence, to gamble; as, he played for heavy stakes.
4.
To perform on an instrument of music; as, to play on a flute. "One that... can play well on an instrument." "Play, my friend, and charm the charmer."
5.
To act; to behave; to practice deception. "His mother played false with a smith."
6.
To move in any manner; especially, to move regularly with alternate or reciprocating motion; to operate; to act; as, the fountain plays. "The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs play."
7.
To move gayly; to wanton; to disport. "Even as the waving sedges play with wind." "The setting sun Plays on their shining arms and burnished helmets." "All fame is foreign but of true desert, Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart."
8.
To act on the stage; to personate a character. "A lord will hear your play to-night." "Courts are theaters where some men play."
To play into a person's hands, to act, or to manage matters, to his advantage or benefit.
To play off, to affect; to feign; to practice artifice.
To play upon.
(a)
To make sport of; to deceive. "Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight."
(b)
To use in a droll manner; to give a droll expression or application to; as, to play upon words.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Play" Quotes from Famous Books



... pontiffs of some lines live long and those of others die early, the inference is not that the life of a god incarnate is unhealthy but that in special cases special circumstances interfere with it, and on the whole there are good grounds for suspecting foul play. But it is interesting to note that most Europeans who have made the acquaintance of high Lamas speak in praise of their character and intelligence. So Manning (the friend of Charles Lamb) of the ninth Grand ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... infancy, the high-sounding name of 'Theory of the Earth.' Starting from a small number of facts, badly observed, connecting them by fantastic suppositions, it pretended to go back to the origin of worlds, to, as it were, play with them, and to create their history. Its arbitrary methods, its pompous language, altogether seemed to render it foreign to the other sciences, and, indeed, the professional savants for a long time cast it out of the ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... ride to the battle [155]; and were it not for a huge Danish monk, who took refuge here to escape mutilation for robbery, and who mistakes the Virgin for a Valkyr, and St. Peter for Thor,—were it not, I say, that we now and then have a bout at sword-play together, my arm would be ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "Did you play football at college? You are so tall. Fairy's tall, too. Fairy's very grand-looking. I've tried my best to eat lots, and exercise, and make myself bigger, but—I am ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... opened a sort of lid and found one of the double cylinders within, and on the upper edge a little stud like the stud of an electric bell. He pressed this and a rapid clicking began and ceased. He became aware of voices and music, and noticed a play of colour on the smooth front face. He suddenly realised what this might be, and stepped back ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... head, he ran to the door, which opened into the lobby and then into the street, from which place he came, helping himself along by the wall to the settee, upon which he sank, and after lying down and laying his leg out carefully, he began to play double parts, that of surgeon and patient. For, after feeling the leg and shaking his head, he said to himself, "Ah, we'll soon put that ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... move on the page. In her eyes another light than the firelight seemed to play. Her breast rose, and in her thick white throat a little inarticulate ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... set. The time for the new life had come. Up to this moment he had been passive, he had used his life as an instrument on which others might play. From henceforward his should be ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... consent, I'll be bound," said Mr. Merrick. "The manager is too fearful of a damage suit to play ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... people crowding to the show, among them Silvio, who manages to make an appointment with Nedda while she is collecting the money. The curtain of the little theatre rises, disclosing a small room barely furnished. The play to be performed is almost an identical picture of the real situation in the unfortunate little troupe. Columbine, who is to poison her husband, Punchinello, is entertaining her lover, Harlequin, while Taddeo, the clown, watches for Punchinello's ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... wrote to the other colonies that North Carolina was ready to join them against the King and Parliament. When England put into operation the famous Boston Port Bill and that sturdy little New England City was on the verge of starvation, Joseph Hewes, a merchant of Edenton, who was later to play a prominent part in Revolutionary events in North Carolina, joined with John Harvey, of Perquimans, in collecting supplies and provisions from the patriotic people of Albemarle, which they sent in the sloop Penelope to their distressed compatriots in far ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... forward, and after a prelude, the beauty of which astonished all those around the queen's person, for they had no idea that he could play in tune, sang in a clear melodious voice the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... into bread when grown, and that Utopian scheme was a failure. More wise in their generation were the men of Birmingham: they went not for country estates, nor for apple orchards or turnip fields. The wise sagaciousness of their leaders, and the Brums always play well at "follow my leading," made them go in for the vote, the full vote, and nothing but the vote. The possession of a little plot on which to build a house, though really the most important, was not the first part of the bargain by any means at the commencement. To get a ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... simple way. Listen. You must plan to kill yourself; play your part well. Send for Asie and offer her ten thousand francs for two black beads of very thin glass containing a poison which kills you in a second. Bring them to me, and I will give you fifty thousand francs ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... a man play when he trembles for his life lest he step upon a lord?" cried the angry manager. "They should be horsewhipped off the stage, and"—his eyes falling upon ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... game and they ought not to butt in. But Maxwell only smiled. He was a Napoleon, that boy was. He just waved us aside. "I'll run this little thing the way we do at Muggledorfer," he explained. "You fellows can play a few lines of football pretty well, but when it comes to surrounding a Freshman and making a Greek out of him, I wouldn't take lessons from old Ulysses himself." And so we left him alone and held each other's hands and smoked and cussed—and ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... was altogether too risky for him to enjoy it. A person sitting on a powder barrel could scarcely be expected to enjoy the sight of a group of children playing with matches in close proximity. An explosion, sooner or later, might be considered certain. But the children continued to play and day after day went by, and no blow-up took place. Galusha sat upon his barrel pondering apprehensively and—waiting. There were times when, facing what seemed the inevitable, he found himself almost longing for the promised summons from the Institute. An expedition ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... irregular disorders which involved the greatest care and the absence of all exciting causes. The attendance of McKinstry and Cressy at a "crazy quilting party" had brought on "blind chills;" the importation of a melodeon for Cressy to play on had superinduced an "innerd rash," and a threatened attack of "palsy creeps" had only been warded off by the timely postponement of an evening party suggested by her daughter. The old nomadic instinct, morbidly excited by her discontent, caused her ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... puffs and I blows, What's under the water, Why, no man knows!' Says Farmer Giles, 'My wind comes weak, And a good man drownded Is far to seek.' But Farmer Turvey, On twirling toes Up's with his gaiters, And in he goes: Down where the mermaids Pluck and play On their twangling harps In a sea-green day; Down where the mermaids, Finned and fair, Sleek with their combs Their yellow hair.... Bates and Giles- On the shingle sat, Gazing at Turvey's Floating hat. But never ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... of an act of mean and petty malice worthy of a spiteful old woman,—a piece of paltry cruelty which could not at all conduce to his success in the war, or produce any effect except to degrade his country, and exasperate ours;—this, surely, is quite incredible. "Pizarro," says Elvira in Kotzebue's play, "if not always justly, ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately

... spirit of controversy to that negative religion may, by degrees, encourage light and unthinking people to a total indifference to everything positive in matters of doctrine; and, in the end, of practice too. If continued, it would play the game of that sort of active, proselytizing, and persecuting atheism, which is the disgrace and calamity of our time, and which we see to be as capable of subverting a government, as any mode can be of misguided ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... roar of voices in the Public Gardens! What is it? A band playing in the distance? Who ordered a band to play? German officers shout harsh commands. "Back!" "Stand back!" "Stop this pushing of the crowd!" "Mein Gott! Those women and children will ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... sex. His subdued behaviour, ascribed to the course of nature, so completely reassured the family, that they enjoyed to the full his recovered amiability and delightful qualities. He was unfailingly attentive to his wife and children, escorted them to the play, reappeared in society, and did the honors to his son's house with exquisite grace. In short, this reclaimed prodigal was ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... for she was too happy to leave them. Sometimes, though, on bright moonlight nights, the three girls would paddle across to the big village and gather with the rest of the village girls in front of the chiefs house, and dance and sing and play the game called n'jiajia; and then, perhaps, instead of going home across the lagoon in the canoe, they would walk around on the inner beaches of Pingelap and Tugulu. And long ere they came to the house they could see the faint glimmer of the fire within, beside which Ninia ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... golden threads, play'd with her breath; O modest wantons! wanton modesty! Showing life's triumph in the map of death, And death's dim look in life's mortality: Each in her sleep themselves so beautify, As if between them twain there were no strife, But ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... eight by four feet, pinned together at the corners, was made. Under one end of it a pair of wheels twenty-six inches in diameter were placed in boxes, and the other end was fastened to an extension of the axle outside of the forward driving wheels, it having been found by experience that a play of about one inch on each side on the pedestals of the front wheels of the pilot or engine was necessary in order to get around the curves then in the tracks. For years afterward there was very little change in constructing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various

... Town, with every capacity for spending an income the receipt of which was denied to him, the young man flattered himself that he should find resources in his wit and invention; and accordingly he commenced as writer for the stage. His first play, a comedy entitled Love in Several Masks, was performed at Drury Lane in February 1728, just before the youthful dramatist had attained his twenty-first year. In his preface to these 'light scenes' he alludes with some pride to this distinction—"I believe ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... it was impossible to attack him, or to throw reinforcements into Mons. The Prince soon found, too, that Alva was far too wise to hazard his position by a superfluous combat. The Duke knew that the cavalry of the Prince was superior to his own. He expressed himself entirely unwilling to play into the Prince's hands, instead of winning the game which was no longer doubtful. The Huguenot soldiers within Mons were in despair and mutiny; Louis of Nassau lay in his bed consuming with a dangerous fever; Genlis was a prisoner, and his army cut to pieces; Coligny was murdered, and Protestant ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... thought she was in danger, why, I don't see how she can help but feel sorry for being so sharp with her tongue. But then all girls think of is candy-pulls, dancin' and such things as dress. Nope, it don't pay for a feller to play the hero any more. You wouldn't ketch me adoin' it, for ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... his seat). That's all very well, Jack; but ye see, pard, you've known the old man for nigh on a year, and it's twenty-five since I met him. No, Jack; you don't play any ole man on to me to-night, Jack. No, you and me'll just drop out for a pasear. Jack, eh? (Taking ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... sure about it, but I declare till I die I will never forget the wonder and the delight in her face. I tell you I wept that night, but not at the play. And how she criticised the actors; even Booth himself didn't escape," continued Harry; "and so I say it's a beastly shame that you should spend your whole life in the backwoods there and have so little of the other sort of thing. Why ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... patted the pretty head that rested on her with such filial tenderness. "There! there!" she said, "Go back and play with Tommie, my dear. We may be as fond of each other as we like; but we mustn't cry. God bless you! ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... And break it with a deep-divorcing vow? I know thou canst; and, therefore, see thou do it. I am possess'd with an adulterate blot; My blood is mingled with the crime of lust: For if we two be one, and thou play false, I do digest the poison of thy flesh, Being strumpeted by thy contagion. Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed; I ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... is good, God is good! He wants His children to be happy! The white clouds chase each other across the blue dome of heaven, the birds in the azaleas and in the orange-trees twitter, build nests and play hide-and-seek the livelong day. The balmy air is flavored with health, healing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... carpentry to gunnery or hand-to-hand blows; and he was, moreover, one of a nation, every citizen of which was not merely permitted to carry arms, but compelled by law to practise from childhood the use of the bow, and accustomed to consider sword-play and quarter-staff as a necessary part and parcel of education, and the pastime of every leisure hour. The "fiercest nation upon earth," as they were then called, and the freest also, each man of them fought for himself with the self-help and self-respect of a Yankee ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... the science of medicine; but even when that day arrives the art of education will still remain the inspiration and the guide of all wise teachers. The laws that regulate our physical and mental development will be reduced to order; but the impulses which lead each new generation to play its way into possession of all that is best in life will still have to be interpreted for us by the artists who, with the wisdom of years, have not lost ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... comment, suggestion passed from, lip to lip. One or two men even went so far as to drop in at the tent assigned to the lonely accused and after expressing interest and sympathy and a desire to see that he got "fair play and a fresh start," they ventured to inquire if Nevins knew why Mr. Loring had been so much astonished, if not overcome, by the mention of the name of Nevins' sister-in-law. Nevins didn't know, but at that moment he would have given his hopes of mercy to find out. He was writing to his wife when ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... try to better themselves, that they ought to be active, and what they call normal; that when they have done their work as energetically as possible, they should amuse themselves energetically too, take hard exercise, shout and play, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... nakedness of its bed, the whole stream carried to work in the mills, the dry stones and crags of it festering unseemly in the evening sun, and the carcass of a sheep, brought down in the last flood, lying there in the midst of the children at their play, literal and ghastly symbol, in the sweetest pastoral country in the world, of the lost sheep of ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... shown it to her, and the scene it recalled at the churchyard stile, when Malcolm had begged for the tip of a curl to carry with him always as a talisman; as a token that he was really her knight, as he had been in the princess play, and that he would come to her on ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Buschman is the most orderly, the most industrious of us all," said Fritz Kober, as he nodded lovingly to his young friend. "He does not drink, or smoke, or play; and, I can tell you, he sews like a woman. He mended a shirt for me to-day. A ball had passed through it at Rossbach, making a hole in the left sleeve. I tell you, the shirt looks as if a ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... I addressed, without prostitution and without avarice, and that's what made me hasten to learn all I could of the birth, of the dignities, of the posts, of the alliances, of the reputation of each, so as to play my cards well, and secure ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... saved from the brink of public shame by so signal an interference of grace, that he resolved no more to hazard his good name and his peace of mind upon such perilous rocks. The dearest desire at his heart was to have his daughter under his roof,—to fondle, to play with her, to watch her growth, to win her affection. This, at present, seemed impossible. But if he were to marry,—marry a widow, to whom he might confide all, or a portion, of the truth; if that child could be passed off as hers—ah, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and rules. It is not easy to draw a sharp line between Perceptional Intuitionism and Dogmatic, just as it is not easy in other fields to distinguish sharply between knowledge given directly in perception, and knowledge in which more or less conscious processes of inference play a part. Do I perceive the man whom I see, when I look into a mirror, to be behind the mirror or in front of it? Do I perceive the whereabouts of the coach which I hear rattling by my window, or does reasoning play its part in ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... But that risk must be faced simply, as one of the unpalatable possibilities of life. That Royal would take some step against which she must, in honour bound, protest; that Nina should engage herself to him, and Nina's parents consent; that no fortuitous circumstance should play into Harriet's hands, and that she should be obliged to antagonize him openly. was unthinkable on this peaceful, golden afternoon. The canvas was too big, the cast of characters too large, there must be some shifting ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... evergreens used up, we'll get some more, and make wreaths for all the tents." He worked for about ten minutes; then began to yawn. "Where's my pipe? I'm going to have a smoke. How can you have patience with that nonsense, Frank? What's the use of a wreath, anyhow, after it's made? Girl's play, I ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and persevering that she must have loved me at last—only you never gave me fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear thy words, but they do them not." Lydia, on the contrary, heard to profit. She listened, reflected, and "inwardly digested," the truths of the Gospel. She heard with seriousness ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... tallow candle, that I had extravagantly put among some evergreens—our poor decorations for Christmas Eve—sputtered low and threw ghostly, branching shadows across the lodge. I slipped from the sick man's side, heaped more logs on the fire and stretched out between robes before the hearth. In the play of the flame Hamilton's face seemed suddenly and strangely calm. Was it the dim light, I wonder. The furrowed lines of sorrow seemed to fade, leaving the peaceful, transparent purity of the dead. I could not but associate the branched shadows on the wall with legends ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... done: prudence forgotten, Jermin was there; and by a sort of instinct, had his man by the throat before he could well see him. One of the men now made a rush at him, but the rest dragged him off, protesting that they should have fair play. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... society not herd them in slums? Does it not drive the girls to prostitution and the boys to crime? Does it educate them for free-spirited manhood and womanhood? Does it even give them during their babyhood fit places to live in, fit clothes to wear, fit food to eat, or a clean place to play? Does it even permit the mother to give them a ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... appears before hell, clad in a priestly robe and with a banner in His hand, with which He beats the devil and puts him to flight, takes hell by storm, and rescues those that are His. Thus it was also acted the night before Easter as a play for children. And I am well pleased with the fact that it is painted, played, sung and said in this manner for the benefit of simple people. We, too, should let it go at that, and not trouble ourselves with profound ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... captain. "I too love the game. I shall be pleased to have you play with me at some ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... France, and was full of a project the value of which had, so he said, been amply proved by experiment. To me at first sight it seemed no better than lunacy. I could not for some time even bring myself to consider it seriously. This project was to play a new system at Monte Carlo. It was a system founded on one which, devised by Henry Labouchere, had been—such was Beckett's contention—greatly improved by himself, and he and a companion had been playing it with absolutely unbroken success. The two, with ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... parents to care for you, and brothers and sisters to love you! Why, look at this beautiful world in which you live, with its golden, light to cheer you by day, and its still night to wrap you in sleep when you are too tired to play; its fruits, and flowers and fields of grass and grain; its horses to draw you and cows to give you milk; its sheep to furnish wool to cloth you, and meat for your food; its sun, moon and stars to comfort you; bubbling springs to quench your thirst; wood to burn that you ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... put down, disrated, from his committee. We saw seeds then sown that blossomed and bore bitter fruit at Charleston in 1860. Now we propose to try a similar experiment. I hope and trust in God that we shall not witness similar results. I love justice and fair play, and I think I know enough of the American people to know that ninety-nine hundredths of the men who elected this administration in 1868 will disapprove this act." Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Logan and Mr. Tipton were the only Republican senators who joined with Mr. Wilson ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... to one of the Shaker communities describes the men and women as engaging in the most preposterous play of making-believe; performing upon imaginary instruments as they marched in procession; going through the motions of washing their faces and hands as they surrounded an imaginary fountain; and, finally, plunging ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... Adelaide Cowperwood on occasion, a clerk in the city water office, who speculated much as to the strange vicissitudes of life. She had great interest in her brother, who seemed destined by fate to play a conspicuous part in the world; but she could not understand him. Seeing that all those who were near to him in any way seemed to rise or fall with his prosperity, she did not understand how justice and morals were arranged in this world. There seemed to ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... boiled or fried? Though we breed strife 'twixt England, and America, and France, If we're chopped up, or boiled, or brained where is our great advance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you chuck away a chance Of peace in pig-stye, or at sea, to play ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various

... said he wearily, "old Geoff sure does play square—even to a worm like me—well, I guess! No, don't go yet, I want yer to hear me try to explain the kind o' dirty dog I been—I guess he won't want t' call me 'brother' after that; no, siree, he'll ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... the girls seated than there was a scramble in one corner, an excited scuffling of feet. "I've got it!" a boy screamed. He stood on his chair and held up a live mouse by its tail. There was a shout of applause and then—"Play catch!" ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... stirrups and gazed about him over the rotting buildings of the play-city, the scrawny acres that ended in the hard black line of the lake, the vast blocks of open land to the south, which would go to make some new subdivision of the sprawling city. Absorbed, charmed, grimly ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... were scarce visible, the sand dust flying in every direction, and concealing the greater portion of them beneath its dun cloud; and this sort of play was continued for nearly half an hour. It was not intended for play, however, for when it at length came to a termination the spectators under the tree could perceive that a large cavity had been hollowed out in the sand, of such extent, as to diameter and depth, that more than half the flock, ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... they come, what is best for us to do. If they get here before your father and Evans, we must not give them any idea that we expect other guests, nor must we say that we suspect them of foul play. We must give them rope enough with ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... in the shade"! Can I play tennis in the rain with BELLA, Holding aloft, while through the flood I wade, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various

... it's a honey trick whin they gather in an you, an' you can't be layin' out wid yer fists. It plays the divil wid the spines av thim. Will ye have a drop av drink—cold water, man—near, an' a sponge betune whiles? For there's manny in the play—makin' up for lost time. Come on," he added to the two settlers, who stood not far away, "for ye began the trouble, an' we'll settle accordin' to a, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 'Pizarro', by Kotzebue, was first played at Drury Lane, 1799. Southey wrote of it, "It is impossible to sink below 'Pizarro'. Kotzebue's play might have passed for the worst possible if Sheridan had not proved the possibility of making it worse" (Southey's 'Letters', i. 87). Gifford alludes to it in a note to 'The Maeviad' as "the translation so ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... to drink in it, and she pours it out into a mug as fast as the man wants it to drink. There is also some bread, which she breaks and gives him as fast as he wants it. There is a little child standing by, and the man stops now and then to play with her. ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott

... companionship Gave to the fortunate side When came that fair birth on our nether world, Its sole star since, who, as the laurel leaf, The worth of honour fresh and fragrant keeps, Where lightnings play not, nor ungrateful winds ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... same meeting remarked: "Many soils contained from 1-1/2 to 2 per cent of available potash, and a still larger quantity locked up, in the shape of minerals, which only gradually came into play; but the quantity of potash carried off in crops did not exceed 2 cwt. per acre, if so much. Now 0.1 per cent of any constituent, calculated on a depth of six inches, was equivalent to one ton per acre. Therefore, if a soil ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... thing in this tragedy of Carmagnola is that the interest of love is entirely wanting to it, and herein it differs very widely from the play of Schiller. The soldiers are simply soldiers; and this singleness of motive is in harmony with the Italian conception of art. Yet the Carmagnola of Manzoni is by no means like the heroes of the Alfierian tragedy. He is a man, not merely an embodied passion or mood; ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... interested in children, and as proof of it I will tell you my plan. There are two acres of land on the south side of the park. I fenced it off for an artificial pond, but gave it up. There is a spring of good water there, with plenty of shade trees for the children to play under. I will give this ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... arrival, a fire broke out in the suburb of Haga, which consumed thirteen large houses, and turned more than two hundred poor people out of doors. This gave me an opportunity to see how fires are managed here. It was full half an hour after the alarm-bell was rung before the first engine began to play; the water had to be hauled from the canal, and the machine, of a very small and antiquated pattern, contributed little towards stopping the progress of the flames. The intervention of a row of gardens alone saved the whole suburb from destruction. There must ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... however, certain elements came into play which forced him to modify several of their methods, and to have recourse to others which they had seldom or never employed. The majority of the countries hitherto incorporated had been near enough to the capital—whether it were Assur, Calah, or Nineveh—to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... at the envelopes. "That one is from my cousin," she said. "She always uses pink paper, and that one is from a little girl I used to play with before we came to live at Sherwood Hall. I know, because her paper is always pale green, but THIS one—" she held up the envelope with a little cry of delight, "THIS one ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks

... going away, All for the sake of a holiday. Jack's a dull boy without his play; So, Hurrah, again, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest do occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... able to appreciate education and refinement; to judge from the course of his later life, one would have said that he had sought money only as a means, the end he really aimed at being the satisfaction of instincts which could only have full play in a higher social sphere. No doubt the truth was that success sweetened his character, and developed, as is so often the case, those possibilities of his better nature which a fruitless struggle would have kept in the germ or altogether crushed. His excellent wife influenced him profoundly; ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... free element beneath me swam, Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; Which language cannot paint, and mariner Had never seen; from dread Leviathan To insect millions peopling every wave: Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands, Led by mysterious instincts through that waste And trackless region, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... cabinet: Council of Ministers is appointed by the monarch every four years and includes many royal family members elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; note - a new Allegiance Commission created by royal decree in October 2006 established a committee of Saudi princes that will play a role in selecting future Saudi kings, but the new system will not take effect until after Crown Prince Sultan ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... connatural to the agent. Now, since human power is finite, operation is proportionate thereto according to a certain measure. Wherefore if it exceed that measure, it will be no longer proportionate or pleasant, but, on the contrary, painful and irksome. And in this sense, leisure and play and other things pertaining to repose, are pleasant, inasmuch as they banish sadness which results from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... with the opposition lords left the door of government open to men like Walsingham, who were determined to give full play to the new forces in English politics. Discontented reactionaries were reduced to impotent silence, or driven abroad to side openly with the enemy. Pius V's bull excommunicating and deposing Elizabeth (1570) shattered in a similar way the old Catholic party. The majority acquiesced in ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... of honour. The most notorious breach of the constitutional decencies was the celebrated episode nicknamed the "Double Shuffle." Whatever apologists may say, John A. Macdonald sinned in the very first essentials of political fair-play. He had already {319} led George Brown into a trap by forcing government into his hands. When Brown, too late to save his reputation, discovered the sheer futility of his attempt to make and keep together ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... stage fright. Learning from Dr. Linton, however improving it might be to her touch, was hardly conducive to self-complacency, and, after having suffered much vituperation for her imperfect rendering of a piece, it was decidedly appalling to have to play it in public, especially with the horrible possibility that at any moment her master might happen to pop in to view the exhibition and arrive in time for ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... nothing to see, Nothing to do, Nothing to play with, Except that in an empty room upstairs There was a large tin box Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, Of the Declaration of Independence, And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada; ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... talents and opportunities. You can also do a little charity work in keeping me straight, for you see, Amarilly, I am going to Paris for two years to study, and I will have an incentive to work and not play too hard if I know I have a little sister over here in school who would be sorry if her brother went wrong and didn't get to be a great artist. So for your ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... and had afterwards gone off with some other person. I give you this fact on good authority—Sir Felix mentioned it to his son as the reason why he had not married. You may wonder why the son, knowing that his parents had met each other at Knowlesbury, did not play his first tricks with the register of that church, where it might have been fairly presumed his father and mother were married. The reason was that the clergyman who did duty at Knowlesbury church, in the year eighteen hundred and three (when, according to his birth certificate, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... "None o' that! Play straight, my lad! No hush-money transactions. Keep to the law, Stoner, keep to the law! Besides, there's others than you can find all this out. What you want to do is to get in first. See Tallington as soon ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... his portrait drawn by a highly idealizing hand, does his best afterwards to look like it. Many of Wordsworth's later poems seem like rather unsuccessful efforts to resemble his former self. They would never, as Sir John Harington says of poetry, 'keep a child from play and an old man from ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... sure-enough good show," exploded Ellison. "You got yore nerve, boy. Wait around till the prettiest girl in Texas can see you pull off the big play—run the risk of havin' her trampled to death, just so's you can grin an' say, 'Pleased to meet you, ma'am.' When I call you durn fool, I realize it's too weak ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... What a dazzling Perfection was here, he thought! A second Una unarmed, and strong in the courage of innocence! But he was acting a special part, and he determined to play it well and thoroughly. So he gave her no reply, but turned with a stiff air ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... pa ought to be 'rested," said the young colored man. "Lettin' boys play with gun!" He examined the revolver with an interest in which there began to appear symptoms of a pleasurable appreciation. "My goo'ness! Gun like 'iss blow a team o' steers thew a brick house! Look at 'at gun!" With ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... supper; a young pretty girl was helping her; and two men, travel-worn and bearing the marks of poverty, sat over the fire holding their heads. Norton entered into conversation here again. It was very amusing to Matilda, the play of face and interchange of lively words between him and these people, while yet she could not understand a word. Even the men lifted up what seemed to be heavy heads to glance at the young master of the place; and the women looked at him and spoke with unbent brows and pleasant ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner

... is furnished with exquisite taste. Mr. Vansittart is continually bringing home artistic treasures to add to its embellishment. Mrs. Vansittart has a carriage and a fine pair of horses. She seldom, however, drives into town except to the play, or to dine. A great many gentlemen of distinction and rank come to the house, who treat Mrs. Vansittart like a queen, and a few ladies; clever, literary ladies, ladies holding peculiar views—very rarely the consorts ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... tossing her head, "he needn't begin the sulky game with me. Two can play at that, as he ought to know very well. I've set my heart on having a handsomer establishment than the purse-proud Mrs. Gileston, and, what is more, I will be gratified. Mr. Tompkins is worth two dollars to her husband's one, and yet she sweeps about the street with the air of a duchess, ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... Lady Alicia will have no part to play in the action of this narrative, her little story must be accepted as a perhaps ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... frankly; "and I will not play at cross-purposes with you. If this young man really loves his art, and his art alone, as he pretends, could he do better than reward me—as you call it—for my assistance? The word has a cruel signification, but you did not mean ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... daughter. I saw her at the Casino the other day. She was joshing some little old rooster who was trying to play tennis and she had him a mile up in the air. She 's beautiful, too. That's more than you can say of most of ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... No sooner was our artillery come (all the grounds and beds for it had been ready beforehand), than as evening fell, it began to play in terrific fashion." ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... no, child, 'tis a standing maxim in conjugal discipline, that when a man would enslave his wife, he hurries her into the country; and when a lady would be arbitrary with her husband, she wheedles her booby up to town. A man dare not play the tyrant in London, because there are so many examples to encourage the subject to rebel. O Dorinda! Dorinda! a fine woman may do anything in London: o' my conscience, she may raise an army of forty thousand ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar

... much too numerous for the size of the apartments. They have two assemblies on the plan of those of London, in Fishamble Street, and at the Rotunda; and two gentlemen's clubs, Anthry's and Daly's, very well regulated: I heard some anecdotes of deep play at the latter, though never to the excess common at London. An ill-judged and unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the Italian Opera, which existed but with scarcely any life for this one winter; of course they could rise no higher than a comic ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... the philosopher had invited, at his club, a youthful stranger to join him in a game of billiards. The young man, who was a proficient, ran out in two breaks, leaving his rival a hopeless distance behind. When he had finished, Spencer, with a severe air, said to him: "To play billiards in an ordinary manner is an agreeable adjunct to life; to play as you have been playing is evidence of a misspent youth." A man who was not an egotist and a philosopher, however much he disliked the outcome of the game, would have attempted some phrases of commendation. ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... that door again and declare the world was filled. But that is what is happening now. The doors close. That immense swarming and multiplying of little people is over, and the forces of social organization have been coming into play now, more and more for a century and a half, to produce new wholesale ways of doing things, new great organizations, organizations that invade the autonomous family more and more, and are perhaps destined ultimately to destroy it altogether and supersede it. At least it is so ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... to have horses that can make a rapid dash. The race-horses are trained not only to stand with their hoofs touching a line, but to draw all four feet together, so as at the first spring to bring into play the full action of the hind-quarters. In Chile I was told an anecdote, which I believe was true; and it offers a good illustration of the use of a well-broken animal. A respectable man riding one day met two others, one of whom was mounted on a horse, which he knew to have ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... chastity' it made its exit. Granville afterwards revived it as Once a Lover and Always a Lover. Heroick Love, a tragedy (1698), had great success. The Jew of Venice (1701), is a piteously weak adaption of The Merchant of Venice. A short masque, Peleus and Thetis accompanies the play. The British Enchanters, an opera (1706), is a pleasing piece, and was very well received. At the accession of Queen Anne, Granville entered the political arena and attained considerable offices of state. Suspected of being an active Jacobite he was, under ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... human lives as easily as the manufacturer marks off five thousand dollars for depreciation. And so five thousand homes are saddened that another flag may fly over a few feet of fortified masonry. What a grim joke for Europe to play upon humanity." ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... further fight, from the field. But very different was the fortune of the day in the cavalry combat. Gonzalo Pizarro had drawn up his troop somewhat in the rear of Carbajal's right, in order to give the latter a freer range for the play of his musketry. When the enemy's horse on the left galloped briskly against him, Pizarro, still favoring Carbajal, - whose fire, moreover, inflicted some loss on the assailants, - advanced but a few rods to receive the charge. Centeno's squadron, accordingly, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... listen when dey'd talk 'bout runnin' off an' such.) I'd stay 'roun' de old folks an' make lak I was a-playin'. All de time I'd be a-listenin'. Den I'd go an' tell Marster what I hear'd. But all de time I mus' a-had a right smart mind, 'cause I'd play 'roun' de white folks an' hear what dey'd say an' den go tell de Niggers.—Don't guess de marster ever thought 'bout ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... he said, "strike one blow for the dead Buckingham. . . Nay, man, take it not so to heart; it is a hazard we all must play some time. And who knows, forsooth, but that in the cast I win a fairer land than ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... coup de thtre: an event which is quite unforeseen by the audience and alters the whole course of a play. See note, ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... foster-brother; and he seemed to be in no way behind his beloved mistress in the art of listening; for no one could prick up his ears more sharply than Anubis. He knew, too, what was to be his reward for exposing himself on a roof to the shafts of the pitiless African sun, for Katharina, his adored play-fellow and the mistress of his ardent boy's heart, had promised him a sweet kiss, if only he would bring her back some more exact news as to Orion's perilous journey. Anubis had told her, the evening before, all he had heard in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... not eat. At last, as the morning was breaking, he consented to eat, and he went away to make ready for the fight. He was assured he would perish that day, and that before the sun set he would be in Sheol with Samuel, bat he did not play the coward and nee. He fought as the king he was, but the Philistines were too many for him; the curse from the Lord was upon the Israelites, so that they feared and fled. Jonathan, with Abinadab and Melchishua, his brothers, were around Saul to the last, but they were slain. The men-at-arms ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... a commander-in-chief. So that Cleopatra had great obligations to her for having taught Antony to be so good a servant, he coming to her hands tame and broken into entire obedience to the commands of a mistress. He used to play all sorts of sportive, boyish tricks, to keep Fulvia in good-humor. As, for example, when Caesar, after his victory in Spain, was on his return, Antony, among the rest, went out to meet him; and, a rumor being spread that Caesar was killed and the enemy marching into Italy, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... Toussaint. Never will I intermit my enmity to our invaders; never will I live for any other object than the liberties of our people. But the time may be come for us to pursue our common object by different paths. I cannot go and play the ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... pitying rather than condemning her, and wondering what would result from her presence under one roof with the rigid Petronilla. Not on Aurelia's account did Basil droop his head now and then, look about him vacantly, bite his lip, answer a question at hazard, play nervously with his dagger's hilt. All at once, with an abruptness which moved his companion's surprise, he made an inquiry, seemingly little relevant ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... darkness of earth and heaven she was burning fiercely upon a disc of purple sea shot by the blood-red play of gleams; upon a disc of water glittering and sinister. A high, clear flame, an immense and lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from its summit the black smoke poured continuously at the sky. She burned furiously, ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... the lady, "I don't see much in him; at first I thought he was rather interesting. He reminded me somewhat of Brand in Ibsen's play, or something of that sort; but really, how tiresome he is, with his short, cutting remarks, which come plump into the middle of a ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... quietly in her easy chair. Upon the floor near her was her little one playing—piling his blocks one upon another, then throwing them down and laughing in childish glee. He was all absorbed in his play. The mother gazed upon him with her eyes beaming. Presently she began to call him, "Baby, come to Mama! Baby, Baby, come to Mama!" but he played on unheeding. Again she called, but he paid no attention; his mind was ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... to brighten his eyes. Enid suggested it to him and he went out and got it. It helped him play his scenes. It gave him the glittering expression he needed ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... back to his lottery sheet. "Go treat yourself if you wanta play doctor. Go on, scram—before I toss you out in ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... together as from a dream, and stepped before the pair. Broken and husky at first, his voice trembled in spite of himself, but thereafter there was no hint of the powerful emotions at play within him. Only as he joined their hands, his eyes rested an instant with infinite tenderness on Easter's face-as though the look were a last farewell-and his voice deepened with solemn earnestness when he bade Clayton protect and cherish her until death. ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.

... bolder now, uncalled before her stood, But as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck, Fawning; and licked the ground whereon she trod. His gentle dumb expression turned at length The eye of Eve, to mark his play; he, glad Of her attention gained, with serpent-tongue Organic, or impulse of vocal air, His fraudulent temptation thus began. "Wonder not, sovran mistress, if perhaps Thou canst who art sole wonder! much less arm Thy looks, the Heaven of ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... along, you see. Trust the dullest woman to play Oedipus when love sets the riddle. So there was nothing to do save clap my mask into my pocket and follow her, sheepishly enough, toward one of the salons, where at Dorothy's solicitation a gaping footman made a light ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... did indeed! In 'Phedre,' which I first saw, she was not aided at all by her troupe; they were evidently ill at ease in the Greek dress and in Greek manners; while she had assimilated herself to the whole. It is founded on the play of Euripides, and even to Rachel the passion which she represents as Phedre must have been too strange to be natural. Hippolytus refuses the love which Phedre offers after a long struggle with herself, and this gives cause for the violent ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... 'Quiet and retirement are good for a man sometimes. And I need a job. I can tend bar, salt mines, lecture, float stock, do a little middle-weight slugging, and play the piano.' ...
— Options • O. Henry

... still had Frenchmen in her suite; she wrote to her husband and imagined that she would be allowed to visit him at Elba, but she perfectly understood all the difficulties of the double part she was henceforth called upon to play. She felt that whatever she might do she would be severely criticised; that it would be almost impossible to secure the approval of both her father and her husband. Since she was intelligent enough to foresee that she would ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... garland and a torch, and like a drunkard, reeled into the assembly with a girl playing the flute before him. At this, as one may expect in a disorderly popular meeting, some applauded and some laughed, but no one stopped him. They next bade the girl play, and Meton come forward and dance to the music; and he made as though he would do so. When he had obtained silence he said: "Men of Tarentum, you do well in encouraging those who wish to be merry and amuse themselves while they may. If you are wise you ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... honest toilers subjected to pitiless task-masters or to the yoke of social injustice; lonely women uncomplainingly sacrificing their lives for unworthy men; sad-faced children, the victims of circumstances, of cold-blooded parents, or of the worst criminals—these things play a large part in almost all of Dickens' books. In almost all, moreover, there is present, more or less in the foreground, a definite humanitarian aim, an attack on some time-consecrated evil—the poor-house system, the cruelties practised in private schools, or the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... perfect freedom from affectation or self-consciousness, delight us throughout; and when to these qualities are added the marvelous vigor of expression and force of passion with which he shakes his audience from the middle of the play on, one feels as if there were nothing more to ask of acting. No description, in fact, can do justice to the perfect consistency and harmony of his conception, or to the marvelous delicacy of his points, which are yet as penetrating as they are subtle, and which never fail of their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... is not carried out in large factories with tall, towering stacks, powerful steam engines, &c. Machinery may be used in certain branches of the trade for all I know, but, speaking generally, working jewellers sit at their bench, play their blow-pipe, and with delicate appliances and deft hands put together the precious ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... the strongest law of the Peacestead was, that no angry blow should be struck, or spiteful word spoken, upon the sacred field; and for this reason some have thought it might be well if children also had a Peacestead to play in. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... not be forgotten as a member of our circle, and never can be by those who were in it. His vivacity did much to relieve us from the depression that brooded over us. He and Clara Van, as he had taken to calling her as a sort of play upon caravan,—for was she not a whole team in herself? he would say,—he and Clara had many a lively contest of words, and were well matched in their powers of wit ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... how to play ball in the fairest and squarest way. These books about boys and baseball are full of wholesome and ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield

... mention, "Go play in garden", for I know well how he have like of play in lovely garden of his home, where, with body of bare, he race big dragon-flies what paint the summer air all gold and blue. But Tke Chan makes the laughs for me when looks so firmly and say: "No. I have the busy to make ready for ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay

... and the President has passed the tremendous subject of Forefathers' Day, like a Rugby ball, into my hands—after making elegant play with it himself—and, frightful as the responsibility is, I realize that I've got to do something with it—and do it mighty quick. [Laughter.] This is a festive hour, and even a preacher mustn't be any more edifying in ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... such doomed mortals, alas! there be And mine is that self-same destiny; The fate of the lorn and lonely; For e'en in my childhood's early day, The comrades I sought would turn away; And of all the band, from the sportive play Was ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... Moreover, he had succeeded of late in making Flavia accompany her to early mass on Sunday mornings on pretence of his wishing to see Flavia without the inevitable supervision of the old princess. The plan was ingenious; for Faustina, instead of meeting Gouache, was thus obliged to play chaperon while her sister and San Giacinto talked to their hearts' content. He was a discreet man, however, and Flavia was ignorant of the fact that Faustina and Anastase had sometimes met in the same way, and would have met frequently had they not been prevented. The young girl was clever enough ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... CURACOA were lightening on the horizon from many miles away, and next morning she came in. Tuesday was huge fun: a reception at Haggard's. All our party dined there; Lloyd and I, in the absence of Haggard and Leigh, had to play aide-de-camp and host for about twenty minutes, and I presented the population of Apia at random but (luck helping) without one mistake. Wednesday we had two middies to lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and Hoskyn (lieutenant and doctor ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... handsome, imperious man, with something of the theatrical in his appearance and manner. As a politician he was aggressive, fearless, scornful, shrewd and adroit when he chose to be, and masterful, always. As an orator he knew how to play on the feelings of the crowd; his vocabulary, when he turned upon one whom he disliked, was memorable for its wealth of invective and ridicule, and especially he uncorked the vials of his wrath on any who were not strictly organization men. Although an able man and a successful lawyer, Conkling ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... The part of the wolf-hounds was merely to hold the wolves at bay till the hunter could ride up and shoot them, and this usually was easy on the open plains of Texas; but here a new feature of the country came into play, and showed how well Lobo had chosen his range; for the rocky canons of the Currumpaw and its tributaries intersect the prairies in every direction. The old wolf at once made for the nearest of these and by crossing it got rid of the horsemen. ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... nonsense—that this was a great house, and we were to sit on chairs, and not speak unless you spoke to us, and we were not to play with the Persian kitten, nor see the dogs. She said you were a very grand lady, and that was the proper way to go on—we didn't agree with her, ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... of the people shall renounce their religion is to require them to part with that which they value most—more than life itself—and is it not in effect pronouncing against them a sentence of destruction? Some indeed will relinquish it rather than die; and some will play the hypocrite for a season, intending to return to a profession of it in more peaceful times: but most, and the best, will die before they will ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... abstraction in scholars, as a matter of course: but what a charm it adds when observed in practical men! Bonaparte, like Caesar, was intellectual, and could look at every object for itself, without affection. Though an egotist a l'outrance, he could criticize a play, a building, a character, on universal grounds, and give a just opinion. A man known to us only as a celebrity in politics or in trade gains largely in our esteem, if we discover that he has some intellectual taste or skill: as when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... who had been watching the little by-play, "did you see him pick up his gun? He wanted to fight, but the rest shouted and made signs to him till he put it down. I've got it," he exclaimed, "it was the chief in that canoe. They are trying to cover his retreat, poor fellows. They ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... big earner," said Canute, a thin, slow speaking Dane, "if he gives us a chance to save and enough time to enjoy a little every day the sunshine and make gardens or bowl or play with our children. That's what we came to America to get and, by God, we're going ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... into New York to attend a dress rehearsal of his new play, but he promised to write something on the train, and have it ready. His absence left me at once to play hostess and to receive the queer, curious, and inconsequent persons who flock to the door of the successful playwright, with ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... competitive conditions the free play of supply and demand between a number of producers and a number of prospective consumers fixes the price of a commodity. In such cases consumers are protected against exorbitant prices by the fact that rival ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... his jerkin and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt of coarse homespun fabric, in order to give his thick muscular arms unimpeded play in wielding the hammer and turning the mass of glowing metal on the anvil. He wore woollen breeches and hose, both of which had been fashioned by the fingers of his buxom mother, Herfrida. A pair of neatly formed shoes of untanned hide—his own workmanship—protected ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... those schools where I should meet the scions of the aristocracy. I was taught to dance, to ride, and to play. I was allowed spending money at will, and could call for champagne, and drink it, with any of my companions. At the end of my college life, I was sent upon my travels. I made the tour of the Rhine, of France, and Italy; and after some years spent in this way, I returned to England— ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... do at the old farm that we rarely found time to play games. But we had a croquet set that Theodora, Ellen and their girl neighbor, Catherine Edwards, occasionally carried out to a little wicketed court just east of the apple house in the rear ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... while the meanness and tyranny of contemporary England stand forward against our argument and leave our reasoning cold, we can find a more subtle appeal in spirit, such an appeal as comes to us in a play of Shakespeare's, a song of Shelley's, or a picture of Turner's. From the heart of the enemy Genius cries, bearing witness to our common humanity, and the yearning for such high comradeship is alive, and the dream survives to light us on the forward path. We ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... simply narrated, no solemnity of pathos could avail; even in narration, the violation of tragical dignity is insufferable, and is as much worse than the hyper-tragic horrors of Titus Andronicus (a play which is usually printed, without reason, amongst those of Shakspeare) as absolute farce or contradiction of all pathos must inevitably be a worse indecorum than physical horrors which simply outrage it by excess. Let us not, therefore, hear of the judgment displayed ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... hemmed in by a line of soldiers. Behind the crowd was a row of old-fashioned brick houses, on the walls of which were patterned, by the cold electric light, the branches of the bare elms ranged along the sidewalk. People leaned out of the windows, like theatregoers at a play. The light illuminated the red and white bars of the ensign, upheld by the standard bearer of the regiment, the smaller flags flaunted by the strikers—each side clinging hardily to the emblem of human liberty. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... him to lose. But he cared little, telling himself that he should soon have his share of the reward offered by the Duke to his secret messengers; and he plunged more and more deeply into debt, rather by way of passing the time than for any particular delight in play. He had not yet acquired strength enough to decline to share the amusements of those about him. He kept up his sword practice in the mornings, and took long walks with Harry Gay to visit different places of interest in and about the city; but the afternoon and ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... stand in the street and watch the dignitaries and the liveries pass by, this sense of critical expectation is perhaps greater than it is for those more immediately concerned in the spectacle. They have had their parts to play, their symbolic acts to perform, they have sat in their privileged places, and we have waited at the barriers until their comfort and dignity was assured. I can conceive many of them, a little fatigued, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... envy. folio : leaf. sxauxmo : foam, froth. fadeno : thread. fisxo : fish. lud- : play. vosto : tail. pentr- : paint. pentrajxo : painting. flar- : smell (something). regxido : prince (king's son). pel- : drive. princo : prince. kovr- : cover. ondo : wave. cxes- : cease. membro : member. mov- : move (something). tataro : Tartar. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... first," he advised. "There is bound to be a number of new experiences for him this initial day and I think it will be kinder to let him get adjusted to his job. He'll be up this evening and you and Mother can play for him and cheer ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence

... Come down, Typhoeus. If mine be most, lo! thus I make it more; Kick up thy heels in air, tear off thy robe, Play with thy beard and nostrils. Thus 'tis fit (And no man take compassion of thy state) To use th' ingrateful viper, tread his brains Into ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... were told that the Prussians whom her matchless armies defeated must henceforth be looked upon as friends and endowed with some new colonies which would otherwise be hers? The Italian dramatist Sem Benelli put the matter tersely: "The collapse of Austria transforms itself therefore into a play of words, so much so that our people, who are much more precise because they languished under the Austrian yoke and the Austrian scourge, never call the Austrians by this name; they call them always Croatians, knowing well that the Croatians and the Slavs who constituted Austria were our fiercest ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... yet, in fact, they HEAR very accurately (with mathematical, not ideal, accuracy; contretemps like that of the faulty orchestra parts do not happen to everyone); they are quick at a score, read and play at sight (many of them, at least, do so); in short, they prove true professionals; but, alongside of this, their general education (Bildung)—in spite of all efforts- -is such as can pass muster in the case of a musician only; so that, if music were struck from the list ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)

... being a soldier under you!" said Gary "if that's your idea of military duty! What are you going to do while I play Neptune in ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... choose to play shinny in front of my castle when you knew full well that the remembrance of my daughters would come back to me? The pain which you have made me suffer ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... migrating to more northerly hunting-grounds and fishing places, perhaps also to the markets and play-booths, which Dr. John Simpson describes in his well-known paper on the West Eskimo.[347] Others had already pitched their summer tents on the banks of the inner harbour, or of the river before mentioned. On the other hand, there was found in the region only a small number ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... appeared to excel in knowledge, instructed, as it is natural to suppose, the children of the leading men. As he had established it as a custom during peace to carry the boys out beyond the city for the sake of play and of exercise; that custom not having been discontinued during the existence of the war; then drawing them away from the gate, sometimes in shorter, sometimes in longer excursions, advancing farther than usual, when an opportunity offered, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... o'clock the heat was suffocating. The thermometer in the shade ranged after midday from ninety-six to ninety-eight degrees. The babe stretched itself upon the floor of the cabin, unable to jump about or play, the dog lay panting in the shade, the fowls half-buried themselves in the dust, with open beaks and outstretched wings. All nature seemed to droop beneath the scorching heat. At three o'clock the heavens took on a sudden change. The clouds, that ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... with joy. The king, accompanied by his wives, and the other ladies of his household, took up his residence in the midst of a forest. One day, on the shores of the Bhagirathi, the boy, accompanied by his nurse, ran hither and thither in play. Though only five years of age, his prowess, even then, resembled that of a mighty elephant. While thus employed, the child met a powerful tiger that came upon him suddenly. The infant prince trembled violently as he was being crushed by the tiger and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... aim; but to the credit of Ireland it is to be recorded that Mr. Redmond had to choose not Ireland, but England for its delivery. Speaking at St. Patrick's Day dinner in London on March 17th, 1913, Mr. Redmond, to a non-Irish audience, thus hailed the future part his country is to play under the restoration of what he describes as ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement

... try again," cried Mr Tidey; "but I should be obliged to the animal not to play me ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... can't play, but you can drum 'Days of Absence,' as most girls do," and opening the lid she bade Maddy "thump ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes



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