"Gaming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out a clear ringing sound, and to tilt upon its side.[] Much shouting, merriment, and a little wagering ensues. While most of the company prefer the cottabus, two, who profess to be experts, call for a gaming board and soon are deep in the "game of towns"—very like to latter-day "checkers," played with a board divided into numerous squares. Each contestant has thirty colored stones, and the effort is to surround your opponent's stones and capture them. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... to scratch my eyes out if I could not prove my fidelity, but I satisfied her by quenching on her the fires Armelline and the punch had kindled. I told her I had been kept by a gaming party, and she asked ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... denotes. He was a great deal in a certain roue set, for some years, and was celebrated for his affaires du coeur. His fortune was, however, perfectly unable to satisfy his expenses; he took to gambling, and lost the remains of his property. He went abroad, and used to be seen at the low gaming houses at Paris, earning a very degraded and precarious subsistence; till, about three months ago, two persons, who stood between him and the title and estates of the family, died, and most unexpectedly he succeeded to both. They say that he was found in the most utter penury and distress, in ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tubs of sand at a beer-house beyond the bridge, shuddered as though in disgust at this horde of Hans hastening to invade the district of hotels, supper-houses and gaming clubs, to beg or steal the means to survive ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... of the money thus raised, remains in the hands of the vile collectors. Sincere Catholics, who love and honor the ancient religion, shrink with horror at the spectacle offered on every side. Criminals buying Paradise for money, monks spending the money thus paid in gaming houses, taverns, and brothels; this seems, to those who have studied their Testaments, a different scheme of salvation from the one promulgated by Christ. There has evidently been a departure from the system of earlier apostles. Innocent conservative souls are much perplexed; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that a man was less of a thief because he thieved from a throne, or less a profligate because he debauched a princess. I was, no doubt, in advance of my time; these are the ideas of Monsieur Voltaire. I believe that I saw a great deal of iniquity, for the taverns and gaming-dens to which I sometimes resorted for shelter or entertainment were filled with desperadoes of all sorts—deserters from the army, thieves, coin- clippers in hiding, assassins elect, women of the town, and even worse. But while I expect my reader to believe ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... state, that a great many of the reported cases of success are, from misapprehension of the real circumstances of the parties, either quite false, or calculated to mislead. Doubtless many successful hits will be made by purchasers of mineral land, and so are successful hits made at the gaming-table. Successful men, besides, are well known, while the unsuccessful have slunk away and are forgotten. Few fortunes have been made ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... tiptop sort of thing. I know the name of every man who has been out on an affair of honour within the last five-and-twenty years; I know the private particulars of every cross and squabble that has taken place upon the turf, at the gaming-table, or elsewhere, during the whole of that time. I have been called the gentlemanly chronicle. You may consider yourself a lucky dog; upon my soul, you may congratulate yourself, though I ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... easily guess their notions of honour: I'll tell you one: it is very dishonourable for any gentleman not to be in the army, or in the king's service as they call it, and it is no dishonour to keep public gaming-houses: there are at least a hundred and fifty people of the first quality in Paris who live by it. You may go into their houses at all hours of the night, and find hazard, pharaoh, &c. The men who keep the hazard-table at the Duke ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... fund of entertainment to the contemplative observer. There were the dancers, all gaiety and good-humour; a little further off were the tables at which sat the card-players, some plying their vocation with deep and silent anxiety—for in those days gaming often ran very high in such places—and others disputing with all the vociferous pertinacity of undisguised ill-temper. There, again, were the sallow, blue-nosed, grey-eyed dealers in whispered scandal; and, in short, there is scarcely ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... have returned for thirty-six other reasons than jealousy, and Montfanon is right: Caterina is cunning enough to inveigle both the painter and him. She will make Maitland believe that she received Gorka for the sake of Madame Gorka, and to prevent him from ruining that excellent woman at gaming. She will tell Boleslas that there was nothing more between her and Maitland than Platonic discussions on the merits of Raphael and Perugino.... And I should be more of a dupe than the other two for missing ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... when he was not asleep. Madame would be very well satisfied at the completeness with which her rival has dethroned her. His callow passion for her has turned his attention from over-much racing and gaming, and therein was a benefit, but it has also implanted within his breast an intense desire for some woman's admiration, and circumstances have led him to Violet. He has been allowing himself to ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... though both Greeks and Romans permitted aged men to amuse themselves in that way. [Footnote: A gambler was called aleator, and sometimes his implement was spoken of as alea, which meant literally gaming. When Suetonius makes Csar say, before crossing the Rubicon, "The die is cast," he uses the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... died when we reached town. I had hardly any money. He refused to pay me for the last two months, about fifty pounds. There was no redress for me. There was no possible way I could get back at him. Miss Chetwood, I took money that did not belong to me. It went over gaming-tables. Craig. I ran away. Craig knows and this man Mallow knows. Can you not see the wisdom of giving me a ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... for those whom nothing but extreme necessity could have forced to live there a few weeks ago: some join in the merry dance, others saunter up and down the orange groves; and towards evening the roads become a moving scene of silk and jewels. The gaming-tables have constant visitors: there thousands are daily and nightly lost and won—parties even sit down to try their luck round the outside of the door as well ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... eclipsed in the display of the diseased oyster. Much, in the present instance, perhaps all, the disagreeable effect of his subject is no doubt attributable to the absence of Mr. Thackeray's usual brilliancy of style. A few flashes, however, occur, such as the description of M. Lenoir's gaming establishment, with the momentous crisis to which it was subjected, and the quaint and imaginative sallies evoked by the whole town of Rougetnoirbourg and its lawful prince. These, with the illustrations, which are spirited enough, redeem ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be no begging, swearing, gaming, card-playing, quarrelling, or universal conversation. That all novels, plays, and other improper books be excluded; that all bad words be avoided, and any default in these particulars be reported to ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... that I could not help feeling extremely uneasy at the information Oaklands had just given me. The recollection of what Coleman had said concerning some gaming affair in which Cumberland was supposed 66to have behaved dishonourably, combined with a sort of general notion, which seemed to prevail, that he was not exactly a safe person to have much to do with, might in some degree account for this; still I always felt a kind ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... to fill up his companies, and to enforce this newly defined authority within his camp. All gaming, drinking, quarrelling, swearing, and similar excesses, were prohibited under ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... at the society that diced and drank and squandered health and fortune in the times which we mention, we are more than ever struck with the advance made. It is a literal fact that the correspondence of the young men mainly refers to drink and gaming, the correspondence of the middle-aged men to gout. There were few of the educated classes who reached middle age, and a country squire was reckoned quite a remarkable person if he could still walk and ride when he attained ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the world's opinion! ten thousand distresses crowded her distracted imagination, and she cast looks upon the conscious traitor with horrible dismay! Her fortune was in his hands, the greatest part of which was already lavished away in the excesses of drinking and gaming. She was young, unacquainted with the world; had never experienced necessity, and knew no arts of redressing it; so that thus forlorn and distressed, to whom could she run for refuge, even from want, and misery, but to the very traitor that had undone her. She was acquainted ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... fellow. I had, however, by having half worked and half starved myself to death during the time I was in his service, saved a few guineas, with which I bought a lottery-ticket, resolving to throw myself into Fortune's lap, and try if she would make me amends for the injuries she had done me at the gaming-table. This purchase, being made, left me almost pennyless; when, as if I had not been sufficiently miserable, a bailiff in woman's clothes got admittance to my chamber, whither he was directed by the bookseller. ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... he used frequently to repeat, "There are two levers for moving men,—interest and fear." What respect, indeed, could Bonaparte entertain for the applicants to the treasury of the opera? Into this treasury the gaming-houses paid a considerable sum, part of which went to cover the expenses of that magnificent theatre. The rest was distributed in secret gratuities, which were paid on orders signed by Duroc. Individuals ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... monde were then called, Fox had devoted himself to play. Whist, quinze, and horse-racing were his passion, and he threw away a thousand pounds as if they had been a guinea; and he lost his whole fortune at the gaming-table. Before thirty he was reduced to distress, even in the common affairs of life. He could not pay the chairmen who carried him to the House. He was known to borrow money from the waiters at Brookes's, which was the rallying-point of the Opposition. There the night was spent in whist, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... universal favorite, and Bering, the supreme commander, was loved for his {22} kindness; but Bering's commands were subject to veto by the Russian underlings; and the Russian underling officers kept up a constant brawl of duels and gaming and drink. No wonder the bluff Dane sailed out from the snow-rimmed peaks of Avacha Bay with dark forebodings. He had carried a load of petty instructions issued by ignoramus savants for eight years. ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... that it binds down whole ranks of men to idleness, while it gives the enjoyment of a reward which exceeds the hopes of the most active exertions of human industry. The languid tedium of this noble repose must be dissipated, and gaming, with the tricking manoeuvres of the horse-race, afford occupation to hours which it would be happy for mankind had they been ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... which they intended to amuse themselves during the voyage. As yet, the practice was confined to a few of "our fellows;" but the crew in the steerage were certainly in very great danger of being carried away by the passion for gaming, for it ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... took him into partnership; and for ten years the young man bought and sold with him, or travelled for him. But while Bernardone was a hard, avaricious man, the son differed from him greatly in disposition; being fond of dress, of song, and feasting, gayety, and gaming. He was generous even to prodigality, full of wit and imagination, very sympathetic withal, and compassionate. Thomas of Celano thus describes him: "His figure was above the middle height and well set. He was thin, and of a very delicate constitution. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... another is as hard to be described as it is really to be admired; they seem to have a mutual confidence in and friendship with one another, as if they were all relations; nor did I observe the sharping, tricking temper which is too much crept in among the gaming and horse-racing gentry in some parts of England to be so much known among them any otherwise than to be abhorred; and yet they sometimes play, too, and make matches and horse-races, as they ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... that they may the better do it I shall give them one Instance, using almost the Doctor's own Words, and applying them to himself as thus; Doctor COPPER-FARTHING, was by Pimping, Swearing, For-swearing, Flattering, Suborning, Forging, Gaming, Lying, Fawning, Hectoring, Voting, Scribling, Whoring, Canting, Libeling, Free-thinking, endeavouring to ruin the British Constitution, set aside the Hanover Succession, and bring in a Popish Pretender; by prostituting his ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... has a man to our generous assistance or good offices, who has dissipated his wealth in profuse expenses, idle vanities, chimerical projects, dissolute pleasures or extravagant gaming? These vices (for we scruple not to call them such) bring misery unpitied, and contempt on ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... too incredulous in other matters." He neglected his health, broke a blood-vessel in a rage with my lady, and so made way for Sir Kit the prodigal. Sir Kit was shot in a duel, and Sir Condy came into an estate which, between Sir Murtagh's law-suits and Sir Kit's gaming, was considerably embarrassed; indeed, the story proper is simply a history of makeshifts to keep rain and bailiffs out of the family mansion. Poor Sir Condy; he was the very moral of the man who is no man's enemy but ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... copies of Latin verse. It is reported of the young Virginian gentlemen who resorted to the new college that they brought their plantation manners with them, and were accustomed to "keep race-horses at the college, and bet at the billiard or other gaming-tables." William and Mary College did a good work for the colony, and educated some of the great Virginians of the Revolutionary era, but it has never been a large or flourishing institution, and has held no such relation ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... warnings of ruin, and when things were going badly in the stock market, Richard Boyce, who on his return from the East had been elected by acclamation a member of several fashionable clubs, tried to retrieve himself at the gaming-table. Lastly, when money matters at home and abroad, when the anxieties of his wife and the altered manners of his acquaintance in and out of the House of Commons grew more than usually disagreeable, a certain little ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a gambler is heir to. Some days found me able to peel ten and twenty-dollar bills from a roll, and others found me clad in a linen duster and carpet slippers. I finally caught up another method of earning money, and so did not have to depend entirely upon the caprices of fortune at the gaming table. Through continually listening to the music at the "Club," and through my own previous training, my natural talent and perseverance, I developed into a remarkable player of ragtime; indeed, I had the name at that time of being the best ragtime-player in New York. I brought ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... grace must a man who will often be disguised in liquor, preach sobriety? a passionate man, patience? an irreligious man, piety? How will a parent, whose hands are seldom without cards, or dice in them, be observed in lessons against the pernicious vice of gaming? Can the profuse father, who is squandering away the fortunes of his children, expect to be regarded in a lesson of frugality? 'Tis impossible he should, except it were that the youth, seeing how pernicious his father's example is, should have the grace to make a proper use of it, and look upon ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Lady Essex, and Mrs. St. John the presiding divinities. After these had flourished and decayed, Sefton struck into fresh paths of social enjoyment, and having successively sought for amusement in hunting, shooting, racing, gaming, 'besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking,' he plunged with ardour into politics, and though he had no opinions or principles but such as resulted from personal predilections, and had none of that ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Casino itself—Durkin could never quite decide whether it reminded him of a hurriedly finished exposition building or of a child's birthday cake duly iced and bedecked—the tinsel glory, the hackneyed magnificence, of its legitimatized and ever-orderly gaming dens, the eternal claws of greed beneath the voluptuous velvet of indolence—it all combined to fill his soul with a sense of hot revolt, as had so often before happened during the past long and lonely days, when he had looked up at the soft green of olive and eucalyptus and then down at ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... offended. With all his severity he took good care to let transgressors know what they had to expect, and he felt the less compunction, therefore, in inflicting penalties deliberately incurred. Life for the Puritan was a very serious affair, and levity a crime only milder than non-orthodoxy. Gaming even for amusement was rigidly prohibited. It was a criminal act to kiss a woman in the street, even in the way of chaste and honest salute. The heads of households were called to account if the daughters neglected the spinning-wheel. The ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... present the knowledge that she possessed it had been theoretic only. The young Frenchman brought home to her the fact that she could act on it if she were ever so inclined. Not that he asked her to do so. He had only reached the point of inviting her to dine with him at Monte Carlo and look in at the gaming afterward. She declined this invitation gently and without rancor toward him; but, in the idiom she used in talking with him, it gave her ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... are. And so I demand that you do something to try to keep Mark Fenlow away from the gaming table and make him understand what will be the outcome of the way he is going now. There's Robert Moreton, too. He begins to look like a dope fiend. I don't know whether he is or not, but he looks it. If he is, it is all because you described to him what a wonderful experience you ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... practically extends the same doctrine to cards and assemblies. No cards—because cards are employed in gaming; no assemblies—because many dissipated persons pass their lives in assemblies. Carry this but a little further, and we must say,—no wine, because of drunkenness; no meat, because of gluttony; no use, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... delight. The claims on her purse kept pace with the enormous gains which seemed to increase from year to year. To her large charities and her extravagant habits of living, her husband added the heavy losses to which his passion for the gaming table led him. It was said in after years that Mme. Catalani should have been worth not less than half a million sterling, so immense had been her gains. Mr. Waters, in a pamphlet published in 1807, says that her receipts from ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... The gaming tables were ranged about in the center of the room, and about them sat many men—and women, too—at play. On three sides of the place a row of columns ran some four or five yards from the wall. These pillars formed convenient ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... abounds in these topical references, from Pasquin's opening invocation to Lucian, "O thou, who first explored and dared to laugh at Public Folly," to its closing lecture against Sharpers like Count Hunt Bubble where the obvious allusions to Section III on Gaming of Fielding's Enquiry ... are applauded by Solomon Common Sense, the ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... experiments. His sister has next supplied him with the small fortune at her disposal: reserving only the family jewels, placed in the charge of her banker and friend at Frankfort. The Countess's fortune also being swallowed up, the Baron has in a fatal moment sought for new supplies at the gaming table. He proves, at starting on his perilous career, to be a favourite of fortune; wins largely, and, alas! profanes his noble enthusiasm for science by yielding his soul to the ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... he wasted by the most wanton extravagance, and at length reduced himself to abject want. 'His excesses,' says Mr. Hunter, in his 'History of Doncaster,' 'are still, at the expiration of two centuries, the subject of village tradition; and his attachment to gaming is commemorated in an old painting, long preserved in the neighboring mansion of Badsworth, in which he is represented as playing at the old game of put, the right hand against the left, for the stake of a cup ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... returned to the stable yard, and the horse block became his constant seat. Here he found some relief from the insupportable fatigue of doing nothing, and here, hour after hour, with his elbows on his knees, and his head on his hands, he sat, the spectator of wickedness. Gaming, cheating and lying soon became familiar to him; and, to complete his ruin, he formed a sudden and close intimacy with the stable boy (a very bad boy) with whom he had first ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... when religious faith expresses itself thus, in the language of the gaming-table, it is put to its last trumps. Surely Pascal's own personal belief in masses and holy water had far other springs; and this celebrated page of his is but an argument for others, a last desperate snatch at a weapon against the hardness of the unbelieving heart. We feel that a faith in ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... light ladies of the ballet and the opera who enticed Monsieur Alphonse to revel night after night at the gaming-table, or at interminable suppers! How ill he had been looking these last few weeks! He had grown quite thin, and the great gentle eyes had acquired a piercing, restless look. What would she not give to be able to rescue him out of that ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... under grave penalties, from profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately condemned as gambling. But years were yet to pass before statesmen, or the people rather, were brought to feel that the lottery-office and gaming-table stand side by side on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... which was to be the metropolis of the diggings. When I first saw it, it consisted of some hundred huts and tents, a large frame-house, in which an advertising board informed us there was an ordinary, a gaming-table, and all manner of spirits; and a timber wharf, somewhat temporarily put together, at which we landed. Yet the city was rising, as cities rise only in the western hemisphere: broad streets and squares were marked out; building was going forward on all sides; while ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... themselves in the spoils of the wardrobe; others were drilling, and exhibiting their skill by firing at the king's arms hung over the shops of the restaurateurs. Those shops were crowded with hundreds eating and drinking at free cost. All the cafes and gaming-houses were lighted from top to bottom. The streets were a solid throng, and almost as bright as at noonday, and the jangling of all the Savoyard organs, horns, and voices, the riot and roar of the multitude, and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... maroon-coloured gowns and black velvet bracelets, dispensing fancy articles in the shop, and presiding over games of chance in the concert-room. There were marriageable daughters, and marriage-making mammas, gaming and promenading, and turning over music, and flirting. There were some male beaux doing the sentimental in whispers, and others doing the ferocious in moustache. There were Mrs. Tuggs in amber, Miss Tuggs in sky-blue, Mrs. Captain Waters in pink. There ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... cascade of scales, its grim iteration and ceaseless questioning, spun through the room, and again came the curious silence. Even the Oberkellner listened, his mouth ajar. The waiters paused midway in their desperate gaming with victuals, and for a moment the place was wholly given over to music. The mounting unison passage and the smashing chords at the close awakened the diners from the trance into which they had been thrown by the magnetic fluid at the tips of the pianist's fingers; the bustle ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... captain said, drawing a familiar illustration from the gaming-table, to break the stoutest Bank in the world by a perpetual multiplication of your bets, and he was modest enough to remember that he was but one man against some thousands, to contend with all of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nine, for examining the Accounts, is by the King made a Lord, the Lord Halifax; which, I believe, will displease the Parliament. By and by I met with Mr. Brisband; and having it in my mind this Christmas to (do what I never can remember that I did) go to see the manner of the gaming at the Groome-Porter's, I having in my coming from the playhouse stepped into the two Temple-halls, and there saw the dirty 'prentices and idle people playing; wherein I was mistaken, in thinking to have seen gentlemen of quality playing there, as I think it was ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... not only for the blacklegs and swindlers, who resort to the establishment, but for the nobility and gentry. The Conversationshaus is rented by the government to a company, who pay fifty-five thousand dollars a year for the monopoly of the gaming tables, and pledge themselves to spend one hundred thousand dollars annually upon the walks and buildings. Of course players must lose vast sums of money to enable the keepers of the establishment ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... he called an apology for his resignation, which, as Walpole says, excited no more notice than the resignation itself. "From that time he had lived at White's, gaming, and pronouncing witticisms among the boys of quality." He then proceeds to examine the noble lord's construction, pretty much in the style of an anatomist with the subject on the table, and cuts him up with all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... by politics and contracts, is become a branch of assurances; it was before more properly a part of gaming, and as it deserved, had but a very low esteem; but shifting sides, and the war providing proper subjects, as the contingencies of sieges, battles, treaties, and campaigns, it increased to an extraordinary reputation, and offices were erected on purpose which managed it to a strange ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... The gaming-houses at that time were not public, and that refinement of civilization which enables the first comer to ruin himself at all hours, as soon as the wish enters his mind, had ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... said I. And as regards the drinking, drabbing, and gaming of course it was. But the suggestion of cowardice gave me a sharp stab of surprise ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... schools established at New Orleans, which are supported out of the fund arising from five gaming-houses, they paying a tax of 25,000 dollars per annum. These schools are conducted on the Lancastrian system, each having a Principal and a Professor, and the studies are divided into daily sessions. The morning session is devoted to reading, ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... court. Gambling had been one of its established vices ever since the time of Henry IV., whose enormous losses at play had formed the subject of Sully's most incessant remonstrances. And from the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., a gaming-table had formed a regular part of the evening's amusement. It was the one thing which was allowed to break down the barrier of etiquette. On all other occasions, the rules which regulated who might and who might not be admitted to the royal presence were as precise and strict as in many cases ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... leave these drunken fellows," he said with disgust. "Come on, old man. Our partners are waiting in the gaming room." ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... those who hold gaming-tables are the less considered on that account; on the contrary, as the banks generally win, they are amongst the richest, and, consequently, the most respected men in Mexico. These bankers are frequently Spaniards, who have found gambling the readiest stepping-stone ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... III. By suppressing pretended madhouses, where many of the fair sex are unjustly confin'd while their husbands keep mistresses, and many widows are lock'd up for the sake of their jointures. IV. To save our youth from destruction by suppressing gaming tables, and Sunday debauches. V. To avoid the expensive importation of foreign musicians by promoting an academy of our own, [Anticipation of the Royal Academy of Music], &c. &c. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... animals began to come up from their cave, and their coming up required several days. First came the Navajos, and no sooner had they reached the surface than they commenced gaming at patole, their favorite game. Then came the Pueblos and other Indians, who crop their hair and build houses. Lastly came the white people, who started off at once for the rising sun, and were lost ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... diversions of our nobility and gentry, I had mentioned gaming: he desired to know at what age this entertainment was usually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed: whether it ever went so high as to affect their fortunes: whether mean, vicious people, by their dexterity in that art, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... thirsty soldiers; pedlars displayed their wares, and sardineras vaunted their fish; ballad-singers hawked about copies of patriotic songs; mahogany-coloured gitanas executed outlandish, and not very decent, dances; whilst here and there, in a quiet nook, an itinerant gaming-table keeper had erected his board, and proved that he, of all others, best knew how to seduce the scanty and hard-earned maravedis from the pockets ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... augured a prosperous and happy issue; not on any light or random hope, but on a divine guidance, and by the anticipations of many holy men." Moreover, he enjoined the officers to look to the good conduct of their troops; to repress swearing, gaming, riot, and plunder, and thereby to render them more deserving of victory. Accordingly, a fast of three days was proclaimed for the fleet, beginning with the Nativity of our Lady; all the men went to confession and communion, and appropriated to themselves ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... of voice or trick of expression, struck the hearer as solid facts, thrice buttressed by evidence. He bore no marks of dissipation, unless the occasional use of terms traceable to the turf or the gaming-table might be considered such; but these expressions, I considered, are so constantly before every reader of the newspapers that the language of the pulpit, even, is infected by them. Their evidential value being thus destroyed, ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... I mention trade, I only mean low, dull, mechanick trade, such as the canaille practise; there are several trades reputable enough, which people of fashion may practise; such as gaming, intriguing, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... followed him up a broad, shallow staircase, into a part of the Casino where the very atmosphere seemed different from that surrounding the public gaming tables. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Jacobins, I saw the Revolutionary Power 50 Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms; [E] The Arcades I traversed, in the Palace huge Of Orleans; [F] coasted round and round the line Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Shop, Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk 55 Of all who had a purpose, or had not; I stared and listened, with a stranger's ears, To Hawkers and Haranguers, hubbub wild! And hissing Factionists with ardent ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the younger son of a high family, had in very early youth been addicted to wild courses; that he had gone to the colonies under a feigned name, to escape difficulties at home; and whilst at the Isle de Bourbon, had been convicted of premeditated homicide at a gaming-house, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment with hard labour. Contriving to escape, he had returned to France, and by the aid of a considerable legacy, commenced a prosperous mercantile career; how terminated, we have just seen. It was by pure accident, or what passes for such in the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... particularly guarded in their expressions; courteous in their behaviour; grave in their deportment, being seldom or never excited to laughter; and patient to a great degree. On the other hand, they are litigious; indolent; addicted to gaming; dishonest in their dealings with strangers, which they esteem no moral defect; suspicious; regardless of truth; mean in their transactions; servile; though cleanly in their persons, dirty in their apparel, which they never wash. They are careless ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... tradesmen were much engaged in recounting to each other the different flagrant deeds that, in the course of the last three or four years, had been imputed to his hand. One spoke of the body of a stranger that had been found near the gaming-houses frequented by those who visited Venice. Another recalled the fate of the young noble who had fallen by the assassin's blow even on the Rialto, and another went into the details of a murder which had deprived a mother of her ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the very first moment when he had listened to the girl's story, his mind had settled on Enright as the real leader. The lawyer's arrival in Haskell with the La Rue woman only served to strengthen that conviction. For certainly a man playing for potential stakes as big as those Enright was gaming for, would intrust no cunning moves to a mere Broadway chorus-girl. No, Enright was on the ground in person because the matter in prospect needed a director, an excessively shrewd trickster, and the others were with him to do his bidding. If ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... dwelt a very plain woman, who looked chronically frightened, and a very beautiful girl who did not. The scared woman was Madame La Martine; the unscared girl passed for their daughter, but about the daughter no one asked questions of Pierre. About the Blue Goose, its bar, and its gaming-tables Pierre was eloquent, even with strangers. About his daughter and other things his acquaintances had learned to keep silence; as for strangers, ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... which had driven honour and virtue from one part of the character, extended their influence over every other. The second generation of the statesmen of this reign were worthy pupils of the schools in which they had been trained, of the gaming-table of Grammont, and the tiring-room of Nell. In no other age could such a trifler as Buckingham have exercised any political influence. In no other age could the path to power and glory have been thrown open to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the squire spent the money freely; but it was just the same or worse when he was in London; he had a big house there, and entertained as splendidly, perhaps more so, than he did at the Hall. In those days, too, sir, there was as much gaming and betting as there is now, perhaps more—though I'm told that great folks are more given nowadays to gambling on the Stock Exchange than at cards or race-horses; begging ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... CALEB (1780-1832).—Miscellaneous writer, ed. at Eton and Camb., took orders and held various livings. He was an eccentric man of talent, with little or no principle, took to gaming, and had to leave the country. He d. by his own hand. His books, mainly collections of epigrammatic aphorisms and short essays on conduct, etc., though now almost forgotten, had a phenomenal popularity in their day. Among them are Lacon, or Many Things in ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... fended her off from the vessel's side, so that she might be ready in case we had to make a hurried retreat. The carpenter was sent to find out how much water there was, and whether it was still gaming, while the other seaman, Allardyce and myself, made a rapid inspection of the vessel and ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Gaming at cards at private balls and parties and toddy at dinner date back to the earliest knowledge of society in this vicinity. Card playing, horse-racing and other sports were fashionable and popular and had not abated in 1800 when ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... with which I am concerned, it was anything but "awfully jolly." The fifteen thousand rich visitors who were wont to flock into the city during the season had gone elsewhere to recruit their health on the sands and lose their money at the gaming-tables. They had been frightened to the coasts of France by the apparition of Carlism, and San Sebastian was plaintive. Her streets and her coffers were empty. The campamento of bathing-huts was ranged as usual on the velvet rim of the ear-like bay, but no bathers were there. There were more ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... house! And, owing to American women taking the lead in obtaining their claims, there is a general complaint of the dearth of women who will condescend to domestic work in the United States. My lady prefers art, politics, literature, or the gaming tables; as to the work-girls, they are few, those who consent to submit to apron-slavery, and servants are only found with difficulty in the States. Consequently, the solution, a very simple one, is pointed out by life itself. Machinery undertakes ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... the season, devoted to spinneys and the outlying coverts, had been, as usual, made to synchronise with the last Newmarket Meeting, for Newmarket was within an uncomfortable distance of Worsted Skeynes; and though Mr. Pendyce had a horror of gaming, he liked to figure there and pass for a man interested in sport for sport's sake, and he was really rather proud of the fact that his son had picked up so good a horse as the Ambler promised to be for so little money, and was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and heavy curtains hanging over the doors. On the walls were beautiful paintings, and on a stand to one side of the room rested a remarkable piece of statuary representing three jolly gamblers at the gaming-table. ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... sheaves, each winter the iron frost binds lake and stream, and still the bookbinder he bindeth not. Then a secret voice whispereth: "Arise, be a man, and slay him! Take him grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May; At gaming, swearing, or about some act That hath no relish of salvation in it!'' But when the deed is done, and the floor strewn with fragments of binder — still the books remain unbound. You have made all that horrid mess for nothing, and the weary path has to be trodden over again. As a general ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... Jenny notes how Mrs. Marlove's partiality for her froward maid promotes discord in the family, and Jemmy is shocked to find the fair Liberia so fond of cards that "though at present a profest enemy to religion, she would be the greatest devotee imaginable, were she once persuaded there were gaming-tables in heaven." ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... Gaming at the Palais Royal was not wholly confined to the public gambling houses. During the carnival season of 1777 the gambling which went on in the royal apartments became notorious for even that profligate time: ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... rum. His successor was not more successful, when he tried the same plan. Cargoes of American spirit produced the madness of intoxication; and the freed settlers neglected their farms, or anticipated their produce to obtain the liquid destruction. Their passion for gaming was universal: they sometimes staked not only their money and their goods, but even their clothing, and were seen to labor in the field, as free from clothing as the savages who ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... At closes in the consequence, I marry, He closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman, I saw him yesterday, or tother day; Or then or then, with such and such; and as you say, There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse, There falling out at Tennis; or perchance, I saw him enter such a house of saile; Videlicet, a Brothell, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falshood, takes this Cape ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... him well for not having brewed better ale." "With your permission," said the tavern-keeper shivering, "I have deserved no such treatment. Must not every trade live?" "And could you not live," said the Fiend, "without encouraging dissipation and gaming, uncleanness, drunkenness, oaths, quarrels, slander and lies? and would you, hell-hound, live at present better than ourselves! Pray what evil have we here that you had not at home, the punishment solely excepted? And having told you this bitter truth, I will add, that the infernal ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... Sandwich Islands continued. Of the Inhabitants. Their Origin. Persons. Pernicious effects of the Ava. Numbers. Disposition and Manners. Reasons for supposing them not Cannibals. Dress and Ornaments. Villages and Houses. Food. Occupations and Amusements. Addicted to Gaming. Their extraordinary Dexterity in Swimming. Arts and Manufactures. Curious Specimens of their Sculpture. Kipparee, or Method of Painting Cloth. Mats. Fishing Hooks. Cordage. Salt ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... that is done by such Power, is warranted, and owned by every one of the people; and that which every man will have so, no man can say is unjust. It is in the Lawes of a Common-wealth, as in the Lawes of Gaming: whatsoever the Gamesters all agree on, is Injustice to none of them. A good Law is that, which is Needfull, for the Good Of The ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... and of Vishnu, gifts of cows, gifts of lands, gifts of rice balls, gaming and spirit-drinking, all these he prohibited. In the city no man could get leave to do them, and as for bones, into the Ganges no man was allowed to throw them, and in these matters the minister, having taken orders from the king, caused a proclamation ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... the logs off shore. Hasjelti carried a squirrel skin filled with tobacco, with which to supply the gods on their journey. Hostjoghon carried a staff ornamented with eagle and turkey plumes and a gaming ring with two humming birds tied to it with white cotton cord. The two Naaskiddi carried staffs of lightning. The Naaskiddi had clouds upon their backs in which the seeds of all corn ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... to have been based upon necessity, and a due regard to morals and to justice. For instance, the harmony of a well-conducted community would be interfered with by some worthless scoundrel, who would entice the young men to gaming, or the young women to deviate from virtue. He becomes a nuisance to the community, and in consequence the heads or elders would meet and vote his expulsion. Their method was very simple and straight-forward; ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... were full of life and colour; serving men in the livery of Abbat and Knight, King and Cardinal, lounged at the tavern doors dicing, gaming, and drinking. Hilarius walked delicately and strove to shut eyes and ears to the sights and sounds of sin. He delivered the purse, only to hear mine host curse roundly because it was lighter than the reckoning; and after being hustled and jeered at for a milk-faced varlet ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... Thoughts of the gaming table passed through his mind, and with the thought he placed his hand involuntarily upon his pocket. It was empty. Sometimes his mind would rise into a state of vigorous activity, with the internal consciousness of a power to do any thing. But, alas—it ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... these, as well as with other merchandise, their visitors were, at this time, very scantily supplied. These Indians were unacquainted with the use of ardent spirits, but they were no strangers to the vice of gaming. ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Though alive to-day, they might be dead to-morrow, and hence it was folly for them to hoard their treasure. 'Live to-day,' was their maxim, 'to-morrow may take care of itself.' Those, therefore, who were worth millions to-day, robbed by courtezans and stripped at the gaming table, were often penniless in a week—destitute of clothes and even the necessaries of life. They had therefore no recourse but to return to the sea, and levy new contributions, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... interruption by one student stabbing his opponent in Italian fashion, and no one was allowed to carry arms to a meeting of Congregation; if a student had reason to apprehend personal violence from another, the Rector could give him a dispensation from the necessity of attendance. Gaming and borrowing from unauthorised money-lenders were strictly forbidden; to enter a gaming-house, or to keep one, or to watch a game of dice was strictly forbidden. The University of Arts and Medicine granted a dispensation for three days at Christmas, and a Rector might ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... betake them hastily from their dinner-pails to the river, and spend their precious nooning in quest of the potent bug, through whose spell the unwelcome visit may be averted. The time so squandered in riotous gaming might have, fixed the afternoon's "North Poles and Equators" triumphantly in mind, to the everlasting defiance of all alien questioning; but no! for human delight lies ever in the unattainable. The committee-man comes like Nemesis, aequo ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... to support himself; and that when you loosen all the holds, which he has of external objects, he immediately drops down into the deepest melancholy and despair. From this, say they, proceeds that continual search after amusement in gaming, in hunting, in business; by which we endeavour to forget ourselves, and excite our spirits from the languid state, into which they fall, when not sustained by some brisk and lively emotion. To this method of thinking I so far agree, that I own ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... with admirable dexterity. A little was put down at first; it was doubled. The loss vexed the one, the gain stimulated the other. At the end of a quarter of an hour the convent of the Angelic Order[7] of our father of San Francisco had converted itself into a gaming house, and the poor religious (friars) into profane worldlings. We, who were simply spectators, had occasion to observe what passed in the play, and to acquire matter for reflection upon such a life. As the game went on engrossing in ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... be taken of such convicts as may sell or barter their slops or provisions; and also of such as are addicted to gaming for either of the aforesaid articles, who are to be reported to ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman, that was born of pure parents and bred among cabin-boys, and sent from school to the University and from the University to the Gaming Ordinaries, but the young man, being easily rooked by the old Gamesters, he was sent abroad to gain courage and experience, and beyond sea saw the Bears of Berne and the large race of Capons at Geneva, and a great many fine sights ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... keepers of gaming-houses he uttered wonders, and many more than can here be repeated—commending highly the patience of a certain gamester, who would remain all night playing and losing; yea, though of choleric disposition ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Two or three were asleep, their heads sagging on their necks with maudlin looseness. The others spoke infrequently, but often let down their chairs while they spat in the sand-box under the stove, or screwed about in the direction of the gaming-table. Among these was Old Michael. He sat nearest the door, a checkerboard balanced on his knees, his black stub pipe in its toothy vise. And when he was not feeding the stove's flaming maw with broken boxes, barrel-staves and green wood, his blowzy countenance ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... acquaintance for not recognising him at a masquerade: then a similar affair occurs with a beautiful girl in ——- square; at the Theatre; and on the Serpentine. He is next recognised by an old friend at a gaming-table, who mentions the sale of an estate there for his last stake, which property our student really had sold, though under different circumstances; and then rejected by his chere amie for a slight which he never offered. ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... can't be any doubt about it. You know, he had asked for Maria's hand, and when Polani refused him, had gone off muttering threats. You know what his character is. He is capable of any evil action; besides, they say that he has dissipated his patrimony, in gaming and other extravagances at Constantinople, and is deep in the hands of the Jews. If he could have succeeded in carrying off Maria it would more than have mended his fortunes, for she and her sister are acknowledged to be the richest heiresses in Venice. Oh, there is not a shadow ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... the corners or before the saloons, directed intent long glances at every passing man who looked as if he had the "roll" to treat them handsomely in the back parlor of a saloon, or possibly stake them at a gaming table. The town, still in its brief period of insufferable virtue, was "closed," but the lid was not on as irremovably as the police led the good mayor to believe; and these girls, who traveled not in "bunches" but in pairs, if they had not ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That Cousin here again? He waits outside? 220 Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans? More gaming debts to pay? You smiled for that? Well, let smiles buy me! Have you more to spend? While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth? 225 I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit The gray remainder of the evening out, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... signal for Catalina that the hour of vengeance had struck; and, stepping hastily up, she tapped the Portuguese on the shoulder, saying —'Senor, you are a robber!' The Portuguese turned coolly round, and, seeing his gaming antagonist, replied—'Possibly, Sir; but I have no particular fancy for being told so,' at the same time drawing his sword. Catalina had not designed to take any advantage; and the touching him on the shoulder, with the interchange of speeches, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... subject to them. Most of the people were freemen, who were land-owners, and carried arms. The nobles were those of higher birth, but with no special privileges. The freemen owned slaves, who were either criminals or persons who had lost their freedom in gaming or prisoners of war. There were also freedmen or leti, who held land of a superior. Many freedmen lived apart, but many were gathered in villages. The land about a village was originally held in common. Each village had a chief, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... and not being punishable in a state prison, are usually called misdemeanors, and are punishable by fine or imprisonment in a county jail. There are numerous other misdemeanors and immoralities, as profane cursing and swearing, betting and gaming, horse racing, disturbing religious meetings, sabbath-breaking, trespasses and injury to property, and many disorderly practices, all of which are ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... you're going to get so set up." She glanced back, nodded, said, "Come in, children," picked up the "widow," and discarded with quick twitches of the cards. The frightened Mr. Wrenn, feeling like a shipwrecked land-lubber, compared this gaming smoking woman unfavorably with the intense respectability of his dear lost patron, Mrs. Zapp. He sat uneasy till the hand of cards was finished, feeling as though they were only tolerating him. And Nelly Croubel ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... bottles. The second and third rooms were more especially devoted to the business of the establishment. Long tables, covered with green cloth, filled up the centre of each, and were strewed with cards, dice and their boxes, croupier's rakes, and other implements of gaming. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... instrument of that great event which is the subject of the poem. He is described pensive among his books, giving up the cause, and apprehending the period of her empire: after debating whether to betake himself to the Church, or to gaming, or to party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the goddess, beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out by casting upon it the ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... States meant to surrender the authority of preserving order, of enforcing moral duties, and restraining vice, within their own territory? And this is the present case, that of Cohen being under the ancient and general law of gaming. Can any good be effected, by taking from the States the moral rule of their citizens, and subordinating it to the general authority, or to one of their corporations, which may justify forcing the meaning ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... or two of madcaps here hard by, whom I can pick up from taverns, and gaming-houses, and bordels; those I'll bring to aid him,—Now, Florimel, there's an argument for wenching: Where would you have had so many honest men together, upon the sudden, for ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... stocks and town-lots in the same spirit that he had formerly betted at the racecourse and cockpit in his dear Palmetto State. It was a pleasant sort of excitement to him, and without excitement of some kind, he would have found it impossible to exist. To have frequented gaming hells and race courses in the North would have greatly impaired his social position; and as he set a high value upon that he was compelled to forego his favourite pursuits, and associate himself with a set of men who conducted ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... these particulars, and confessed that he only made his living by gaming. Faro and biribi were the only pillars of his house; but they must have been strong ones, for he lived ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... indeed, it is the last of them all and the most contemptible. It promises everything, and fulfils nothing. It comes, like love, as a need, the last, and dies away the first. Ah, talk to me of revenge, hatred, avarice, of gaming, of ambition, of fanaticism. These passions have something virile in them; these sentiments are imperishable; they make sacrifices every day, such as love only makes by fits and starts. But," he went on, "suppose ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... the gaming-table—not as a heated, anxious venturer, but one whom it was quite a treat to see staking his two or three pieces in deference to the follies of society, and smiling with equal benevolence on winners and losers—made it late ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... looks at the reverse side for her duty. They go to Christ Church, Andrew said, and though christening signifieth nothing to us, she may impress the child with a sense of its importance. Then the Wetherill House has been very gay this winter. Friend Lane said there was gaming and festivities going on every night, and that it was a meeting place for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... see it, and paid his debts, and let him have his fling. Miss Nesta were engaged to be married, and Jane says her lover did all he could to stand by her brother and keep him straight; but it weren't no good whatever. And about two year ago the end came. Mr. Arthur had some trouble over a gaming-table; that was the beginning; then he went and signed a bank cheque that wasn't his—I believe as how it is called forging, and the gentleman whose cheque it was had him up in court; he wouldn't hush it up, and it ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... undertakings were all unfortunate. John Law, the son of a Scotch banker, was an adventurer and a gambler who yet became celebrated as a financier and commercial promoter. After killing an antagonist in a duel in London, he escaped the gallows by fleeing to the Continent, where he followed gaming and at the same time devised financial schemes which he proposed to various governments for their adoption. His favorite notion was that large issues of paper money could be safely ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... crossing his sleek legs inside or putting his head to the window on the change of horses. He has outriders and a horn to sound his coming. His Lordship has a liver that must be mended, but also he has a weakness for the gaming table. Or Lady Euphemia, wrapped in silks, languishes mornings in her lodgings with a latest novel, but goes forth at noon upon the Pantilles to shop in the stalls. A box of patches must be bought. A lace flounce has caught her ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... of worthless wares are palmed off upon them by unscrupulous wretches. They are drawn into gaming and are fleeced out of their money. Dozens of sharpers are on the watch for them, and woe to them if they fall into ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... repetition, notaries are summoned to attest by an authentic record the truth of such a marvellous event. Another method of introduction into the houses and society of the great is derived from the profession of gaming, or, as it is more politely styled, of play. The confederates are united by a strict and indissoluble bond of friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior degree of skill in the Tesserarian art is a sure road to wealth and reputation. A master ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... corrective for what offends them, saying, instead of 'king'—'The Tyrant!' or just 'The fat pig!' They go on using the same old filthy cards and never buy new ones. The great market for playing-cards is the gaming-hells of the Palais-Egalite; well, I advise you to go there and offer the croupiers and punters there your Liberties, your Equalities, your ... what d'ye call 'em?... Laws of hearts ... and come back and tell me what sort of a reception ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... Court, did give his oath that there was no such act in Council; for his adultery and uncleanness; for his counselling and assisting the king in all his tyrannies, overturning and plotting against the true religion; for his gaming on the Lord's day, and lastly for his usual and ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... in the epidermis of an elephant. He was no longer "the Majorcan with the ounces." The hoard of round gold pieces treasured by his mother had vanished. He now flung bank bills prodigally upon the gaming tables, and when bad luck assailed him he wrote to his administrator, a lawyer, the scion of a family of old time mossons, retainers of the Febrers during ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... truth, mutual wants are the great bands of society, a person thus placed, would be in danger of feeling himself so independent a being as might tempt him to disclaim all commerce with mankind, since he could not be benefited by them. He would look on himself in the light of a rich man gaming with sharpers, with a great probability of losing, and a certainty ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... Washington so peerless in the field and in the chair of state. His first utterances upon assuming command of the American army before Boston, on the 2d of July, 1775, were a rebuke of religious bigotry and an impressive protest against gaming, swearing, and all immoral practices, which might forfeit divine aid in the great struggle for national independence. Succeeding orders, preparatory to the battle of Long Island, in August, 1776, breathe the same spirit,—that ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... the inspector. "The notorious Shen-Yan was missing, and although there is no real doubt that the place is used as a gaming-house, not a particle of evidence to that effect could be obtained. Also—there was no sign of Mr. Nayland Smith, and no sign of the American, Burke, who had ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... a sort of gaming, like checkers, or backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its obligation never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right thing is doing nothing for it. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... the Australian Government closed the mine. In 1991, the mine was reopened by union workers. With the support of the government, Australian-based Casinos Austria International Ltd. built a $34 million casino on Christmas Island, which opened in 1993. As of yearend 1999, gaming facilities at the casino were temporarily closed but were expected to reopen in early 2000. Another economic prospect is the possible location of a space-launching site on ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... arm-chair. For a twelvemonth and some odd weeks Treddleford had skilfully avoided making the acquaintance of his voluble fellow-clubman; he had marvellously escaped from the infliction of his relentless record of tedious personal achievements, or alleged achievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming table, by flood and field and covert-side. Now his season of immunity was coming to an end. There was no escape; in another moment he would be numbered among those who knew Amblecope to speak to—or rather, to ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... he possessed even half as much talent for business as capacity for intellectual effort, he might soon have obtained a competency by his pen; but, unfortunately, though he was not seriously addicted to intemperance, his convivial habits, and his attraction for the gaming table, soon scattered his hard-won earnings. His "knack of hoping," however, helped him through life. He died on the 4th April, 1774. His last words were sad indeed, in whatever sense they may be taken. He ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... begging him with tears to leave his habits of dissipation for my sake, for his own sake, for the sake of my dead mother; while he would talk and weep, telling me that he could not break away; there was something continually drawing him to the gaming-house—he knew it was ruining him, but he must go, while the bitter, burning tears would roll over his face. Little by little every available article of property was disposed of and poverty stared ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... verse. It is reported of the young Virginian gentlemen who resorted to the new college that they brought their plantation manners with them, and were accustomed to "keep race-horses at the college, and bet at the billiard or other gaming tables." William and Mary College did a good work for the colony, and educated some of the great Virginians of the Revolutionary era, but it has never been a large or flourishing institution, and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... idea with the reckless daring of a gamester who throws down his last card to win or lose. It had to be played any way, so why not double the stakes? She had played on that principle in some of the most fashionable gaming places of Europe in search of cure for the ennui she complained of to Captain Jack; so why not in this more vital ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... youth, he met a young lady in whose eyes he thought his happiness to lie. For a time his passion for cards was forgotten, and neither White's nor the Coffee House saw him for months. But she went abroad and he became restless. Then came news of her marriage and he returned to his first love, the gaming table. Do what I might I could not restrain him. He was perfectly reckless. Soon he was in debt and his father, when it was too late, sought to check him and cut down his allowance. From associates at White's he descended to the lower resorts. There was one ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are cheated a good deal: 'Club,' a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... honor, the pink of courtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of the elephant; frank—the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: his paper was good in Toulouse street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs he was the culminating proof that smuggling was one of ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... vague, restless impulse within him, that clamored for an outlet; but he misjudged himself in imagining that he could be compelled to drown the memory of his disappointment in the wine-cup, the vortex of the gaming-table, or the more fearful maelstrom of siren allurements. To a young heart which has not been sullied by familiar contact with evil, there is no aegis so invulnerable to the assaults of those deadly enemies, who make their attacks ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... The Palais Royal! that pandemonium of profligacy! whose gaming tables have eternally ruined so many of our countrymen! So many, that he who, unwarned by their sad experience, plays at them, is—is he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... the groome-porters. Chapman here transfers to the French Court an official peculiar to the English Royal Household till his abolition under George III. The function of the groom-porter was to furnish cards and dice for all gaming at Court, and to decide disputes arising ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... quarter to many rustlers, and who, while always carefree and easy-going (even fighting with great good humor and carelessness), had established the reputation of being the most reckless gang of daredevil gun-fighters that ever pounded leather. Crooked gaming houses, from El Paso to Cheyenne and from Phoenix to Leavenworth, unanimously and enthusiastically damned them from their boots to their sombreros, and the sheriffs and marshals of many localities had received from their hands most ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... entertainment; but we must not be partial. While London has twelve capital rooms for the professed amusement of the Public, Milan has but one; there is in it, however, a ridotto chamber for cards, of a noble size, where some little gaming goes on in carnival time; but though the inhabitants complain of the enormities committed there, I suppose more money is lost and won at one club in St. James's street during a week, than here at Milan in the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... occasions, sportively compared him to a stork in Raphael's Cartoons, standing on one leg. Beauclerc was more "a man upon town," a lounger in St. James's Street, an associate with George Selwyn, with Walpole, and other aristocratic wits; a man of fashion at court; a casual frequenter of the gaming-table; yet, with all this, he alternated in the easiest and happiest manner the scholar and the man of letters; lounged into the club with the most perfect self-possession, bringing with him the careless grace and polished wit of high-bred society, but ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving |
