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More "Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Valcartier, we had free shows and pay shows, also moving pictures. The pay show got to be so amusing that we made a bonfire out of it one bright September night, and found it more entertaining as a conflagration than it ever had been as an entertainment. At all events, that was how one of the boys of the Fifteenth ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... increased exercise, cleanliness, regular habits, hard beds, and useful employment. The diet may be improved by animal broths, roasted meats, fresh beef, mutton, chicken, or eggs, and the dress should be comfortable, warm, and permit freedom of motion. The patient should indulge in amusing exercises, walking, swinging, riding, games of croquet, traveling, singing, percussing the expanded chest, or engage in healthful calisthenic exercises. The hygienic treatment of this form of amenorrhea, then, consists in physical culture, regular bathing, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... towards the poor and the needy, and I joined the new movement. Two others—the one John D. O'Shea, a local painter, and the other John L. O'Shea, a carman (the similarity of their names often led to amusing mistakes)—with some humble town workers, formed the working vanguard of the new movement, what I might term a sort of apostolate of rural democracy. Our organisation was first known as the Kanturk Trade and Labour Association. As we carried our flag, ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... p.0125] habit of astonishing the congregation by the way he harmonized the chorales got him into trouble. But he was already too great an ornament to be lightly dismissed; and though his answers to the complaints of the authorities (every word of which makes amusing reading in the archives of the church) were spirited rather than satisfactory, and the consistorium had to add to their complaints the grave scandal of his allowing a "strange maiden" to sing in the church,[1] Bach was able to maintain his position at Arnstadt until he obtained ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... appearance, it was quite a misfit for Christmas—a mere toy with which a gay young horse might condescend to beguile a few loose hours. It was a charming morning. Birds were vulgarly sportful. Honey-eaters whistled among the trees, scrub-fowl chuckled in the jungle. Christmas, too, was bent on amusing himself, and he was so lusty and jocund, and the toy jangled and clattered so cheerfully that neither Tom nor myself could bestow much attention to the birds. What was gentle exercise to Christmas was quite sensational ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... peut!" at odd times of sunset; though, for my part, I have no pleasure in recalling unpleasant remembrances to brave men; and yet, really, being so philosophic, they ought not to be unpleasant. But the amusing feature in M. Michelet's reproach is the way in which he improves and varies against us the charge of running, as if he were singing a catch. Listen to him: They "showed their backs" did these English. ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... double entendre. The few selected may suffice. The so-called conversations of "the Ettrick Shepherd" are full of matter of this kind, treated by "Christopher North" with a happy combination of rare power of description and apt exaggeration of detail, often highly amusing. One or two instances are given here, such as the Fox-hunt and the Whale. The intention of this book is primarily to be amusing; but it will be strange if it do not instruct as well. There is much in it that is true of the habits of mammalia. These, with birds, are likely to interest young ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... other great man in history has had to live down such a mass of absurdities and deliberate false inventions. At last after a century and a quarter the rubbish has been mostly cleared away, and only those who wilfully prefer to deceive themselves need waste time over an imaginary Father of His Country amusing himself with a fictitious ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... interested to note how persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He suspected that it was all a feverish anodyne to still some inward unease. Since they ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... walk about with something like an approach to their former strength, but that they also expressed their conviction that they would be perfectly able to begin work on the morrow. It appeared that they had been amusing themselves by prowling about the camp and investigating the condition of affairs generally. It was only natural that their chief interest should centre in the cutter, and the probable amount of work ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and Conan Doyle," returned Inspector Val; "all detectives have. They are amusing if not instructive. But to resume: There is another reason why I'm certain a woman wrote this note. All the writer knows the writer got from Storri. It's a long yarn; it must cover in its transaction a dozen interviews between Storri and Mr. Harley. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of Charles it has been suggested that he was only playing at the same game as his opponents, amusing them as they sought to amuse him. This, however, is very doubtful as far as it regards the superior officers, who appear to me to have treated with him in good earnest, till they were induced to break off the negotiation by repeated proofs of his duplicity, and ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... that gains 19 seconds odd in every hour by false quadrature. But he ventures to tell me that pebbles from the sling of simple truth and common sense will ultimately crack my shell, and put me hors de combat.[220] The confusion of images is amusing: Goliath turning himself into a snail to avoid [pi] 3-1/8, and James Smith, Esq., of the Mersey Dock Board: and put hors de combat—which should have been cache[221]—by pebbles from a sling. If Goliath had crept into a snail-shell, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... generation. He shone particularly in comedy. His 'Gli Orazi e Curiazi,' which moved his contemporaries to tears, is now forgotten, but 'Il Matrimonio Segreto' still delights us with its racy humour and delicate melody. The story is simplicity itself, but the situations are amusing in themselves, and are led up to with no little adroitness, Paolino, a young lawyer, has secretly married Carolina, the daughter of Geronimo, a rich and avaricious merchant. In order to smooth away the difficulties which must arise when the inevitable discovery of the marriage takes place, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... T.S.D.'s account of a supposed date upon the Church of St. Brelade, Jersey, brings to my mind a circumstance that once occurred to myself, which may, perhaps, be amusing to date-hunters. Some years ago I visited a farm-house in the north of England, whose owner had a taste for collecting curiosities of all sorts. Not the least valuable of his collection was a splendidly carved oak bedstead, which he considered of great antiquity. Its date, plainly ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... Arabic proverb to the effect that "all Christians are of one tribe." That is the spirit which in reality inspires the whole Moslem world. It is illustrated by the author of that very remarkable work, Turkey in Europe, in an amusing apologue. Let once some semi-religious, semi-patriotic leader arise, who will play skilfully on the passions of the masses, and it will be somewhat surprising if the distinction which now exists will long survive. All Frenchmen, those in France equally with those in Algeria, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... further surmised that the young Shakespeare accumulated his law-treasures in the first years of his sojourn in London, through "amusing himself" by learning book-law in his garret and by picking up lawyer-talk and the rest of it through loitering about the law-courts and listening. But it is only surmise; there is no EVIDENCE that he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... anecdotal and amusing at tea, that afternoon. Claire saw how the Gilsons, and two girls who dropped in, admired him. That made her uneasy. And when Mrs. Gilson begged him to leave his hotel and stay with them, he refused with a quick look at Claire that ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... leaving the native encampment, it was several weeks before we made the Ord River, and then we glided down that fine stream for many days, spearing fish in the little creeks, and generally amusing ourselves, time being no object. I have, by the way, seen enormous shoals of fish in this river—mainly mullet—which can only be compared to the vast swarms of salmon seen in the rivers of ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... person who hadn't slept for a week. His lips were large and red, and the lower part of his face a good deal too big for the upper. Altogether Mr Masham was neither a very healthy nor a very prepossessing-looking specimen; but Hawkesbury had told me he was clever and very amusing, so I supposed I ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of organic compounds are discouraging to the beginner and amusing to the layman, but that is because neither of them realizes that they are not really words but formulas. They are hyphenated because they come from Germany. The name given above is no more of a mouthful than "a-square-plus-two-a-b-plus-b-square" ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... of that time, were as much opposed to harmless recreations and healthful amusements as those of the present day, and it is amusing to observe that each in their generation, advance precisely the same description of arguments. In the British Museum, there is a curious pamphlet got up by the Agnews of Charles's time, entitled 'A Divine Tragedie lately ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... as one might say, the Auld Licht kirk gave way and burled its minister. The congregation turned their empty pockets inside out, and the minister departed in a farmer's cart. The scene was not an amusing one to those who looked on at it. To the Auld Lichts was then the humiliation of seeing their pulpit "supplied" on alternate Sabbaths by itinerant probationers or stickit ministers. When they were not starving themselves to support ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... salute a man at his birth, then the genii of the earth, the great gods, Mamitu the moulder of destinies, all of them together assign a fate to him, they determine for him his life and death; but the day of his death remains unknown to him." Gilgames thinks, doubtless, that his forefather is amusing himself at his expense in preaching resignation, seeing that he himself had been able to escape this destiny. "I look upon thee, Shamashnapishtim, and thy appearance has not changed: thou art like me and not different, thou art like me and I am like thee. Thou wouldest be strong enough ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... you I do," he answered drily. "My world consists of myself for the central figure, and the half a dozen or so of people who are useful or amusing to me! Except that the rest are needed to keep moving the machinery of the world, they might all perish, so far as I ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with a smile; for Sancho sat bolt upright in the chair which Ben pushed, while Thorny strolled beside him, leaning on a stout cane newly cut. Both boys were talking busily, and Thorny laughed from time to time, as if his comrade's chat was very amusing. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... other has pained the animal no more than one of us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers, and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic patient. The first offender says "I did it because I find fishing very amusing," and the magistrate bids him depart in peace; nay, probably wishes him good sport. The second pleads, "I wanted to impress a scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no other way, on the minds of my scholars," and the magistrate fines ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... station of a pulpit. We forbear to quote cases of this nature, though really existing in print, because we feel that the blasphemy of such anecdotes is more revolting and more painful to pious minds than the absurdity is amusing. Meantime it must not be forgotten, that the principle concerned, though it may happen to disgust men when associated with ludicrous circumstances, is, after all, the very same which has latently governed very many modes of ordeal, or judicial inquiry; and which has been adopted, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... but it was dark and disagreeable there! And they said to him: "To-morrow you shall be hanged." That was not amusing to hear, and he had left his Tinder-box at the inn. In the morning he could see, through the iron grating of the little window, how the people were hurrying out of the town to see him hanged. He heard the drums beat and saw the soldiers marching. All the people were ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... rings,—the only articles made by the Providence jewellers for many years. In due time Jabez Gorham set up for himself; and he added to the list of articles the important item of watch-chains of a peculiar pattern, long known in New England as the "Gorham chain." The old gentleman gives an amusing account of the simple manner in which business was done in those days. When he had manufactured a trunkful of jewelry, he would jog away with it to Boston, where, after depositing the trunk in his room, he would go round to all the jewellers in the city to inform them of his arrival, and to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... jumping over a wall. Their fad at present is pedicure. Peachy's at it just like the rest of them. Every night when I come home, I find her sitting down with both feet done up in one of those beautiful scarfs she's collected, resting on a cushion. It's rather amusing, though." Ralph struggled to suppress his smile ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... in her long life that she had ever pronounced the name of her husband, for in India no woman, high or low, ever pronounces the name of her husband,—she would consider it disrespectful towards him to do so; and it is often amusing to see their embarrassment when asked the question by any European gentleman. They look right and left for some one to relieve them from the dilemma of appearing disrespectful either to the querist or to their absent husbands—they perceive that he is unacquainted ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... interesting things that could be given vividly in the little space of eight or ten such pages as this, and for a time I found it a very entertaining pursuit indeed. Mr. Hind's indicating finger had shown me an amusing possibility of the mind. I found that, taking almost anything as a starting-point and letting my thoughts play about it, there would presently come out of the darkness, in a manner quite inexplicable, some absurd or vivid little incident more ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... absolutely ignored. My own lamp seemed to be a grave distraction among the invisible occupants of the roadside meadows, and often much lowing rose up on either side. The hedges would suddenly whirr with countless grasshoppers, although, no doubt, they had been amusing themselves with their monotonous noises for hours. The strange sound seemed to follow me in a most persistent fashion, and then would be merged into the croaking of a vast assemblage of frogs. These sounds, however, carry with them no real menace, however late the hour, but there is ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... me that they are the very men we seek; for they said they meant to have some game with you, and what more amusing than to give you a ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Cordova. After the Gitanos had discussed several jockey plans, and settled some private bargains amongst themselves, we all gathered round a huge brasero of flaming charcoal, and began conversing sobre las cosas de Egypto, when I proposed that, as we had no better means of amusing ourselves, we should endeavour to turn into the Calo language some piece of devotion, that we might see whether this language, the gradual decay of which I had frequently heard them lament, was capable of expressing any other matters than those which related ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... course it was only an amusing dream. He was not malignant enough. The old-fashioned sense of honour was too strong in him. Pooh! He would go and dine, and then laugh away ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... matter, which he substantiated by printing all the documents, and, not content with that, gave little details of the negotiations which show, either that Whitesides was one of the most grotesque braggarts of the time, or that Merryman was an admirable writer of comic fiction. Among the most amusing facts he brought forward was that Whitesides, being a Fund Commissioner of the State, ran the risk of losing his office by engaging in a duel; and his anxiety to appear reckless and dangerous, and yet keep within the statute and save his salary, was depicted by Merryman with a droll fidelity. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... retorted Spargo. "Well, stop here, and hear what this chap has to say: it'll no doubt be amusing." ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... is infinitely more graceful and becoming in the natives, than the most showy European apparel, in any variety of which, indeed, they generally look highly ridiculous. After they had made the chief and all his attendants nearly tipsy, the former began to be very talkative and amusing, continuing to chat without interruption for a considerable time, not omitting to whisper occasionally to the interpreter, by no means to forget, after his departure, to remind the travellers of the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... James had much regard and respect for Noel de Caron. He knew him to be able, although he thought him tiresome. It is amusing to observe the King and Ambassador in their utterances to confidential friends each frequently making the charge of tediousness against the other. "Caron's general education," said James on one occasion to Cecil, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... live Gnashing All Review Mr. Smacksy is, as usual, at his most vigorous. Among the statesmen who come in for his attacks are Mr. ASQUITH and Lord HALDANE, both of whom are probably by now quite inured to his blows. Nothing could be more amusing than the renewed play which is made with the phrase, "spiritual home." Mr. Smacksy has also something to say to members of what might be called his own Party. Other articles deal with "The Psychology of the Pacifist," a trenchant exposure; "The Teeth of American ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... never heard anything so amusing. But your comparison will not stand; everyone would have seen your petticoats, whereas no one has any ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a pause. "Is there anything amusing about being loved?" she thought; "what patient women the great coquettes of the world must have been! How I wish I were a crisp intelligent old maid, with a talent perhaps for gardening or ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... gave up the duty of amusing her guests, and stationed herself at the bedside of her cousin; and the unhappy husband wandered in and out of the room like a ghost; trying to think upon each fresh visit, that there was a slight improvement in ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... devoted herself to woodland sports. She was a favorite of Diana, and attended her in the chase. But Echo had one failing; she was fond of talking, and whether in chat or argument would have the last word. One day Juno was seeking her husband, who, she had reason to fear, was amusing himself among the nymphs. Echo by her talk contrived to detain the goddess till the nymphs made their escape. When Juno discovered it, she passed sentence upon Echo in these words: "You shall forfeit the use of that tongue with which you have cheated me, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... is anxious to present a clear picture of what happened; but he cannot make it animated, and he never reflects at length upon the matter of his history. At the same time he lacks the naiivete which makes Corio, Allegretti, Infessura, and Matarazzo so amusing. He gossips as little as Machiavelli, and has no profundity to make up for the want of piquancy. The interest of his chronicle is greatest in the part which concerns Savonarola, though even here the peculiarly reticent and dubitative nature of the man is obvious. While he ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... other hand I was not too happy with the overall style of the book, which is too florid and long-winded. Practically every sentence could be greatly shortened without loss, and it is sometimes an amusing exercise to rest from reading, and then try to re-phrase the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... direction of his victuals, but towards the warehouse of Joseph Varnhagen. There was no hurry in his gait; he sauntered down the street, his eyes observing everything, and with a look of patronising good humour on his dark face, as though he would say, "Really, you people are most amusing. Your style's awful, but I put up with it because you know ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... rather amusing," said he, "to hear those special qualities attributed to the work of a man who had no belief whatsoever, and no sympathy with the devotional feeling he is thought to have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... that you are not amusing yourself," she remarked, with some faint yet kindly note of condescension ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... any one there to counteract her. By this step we shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing whether the Empress wishes to take any friendly concern in our affairs; a point of knowledge perhaps not altogether unprofitable, though it should turn out contrary to our wishes, as it may prevent our amusing ourselves vainly with expectations of important assistance from Europe, and teach us one wholesome lesson, that America, under the blessing of God, must depend more upon her own exertions, for the happy establishment of her great ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... in style, is well motivated throughout, and has one amusing episode for which I know no parallel, the tying of Satan in his rocking-chair while he is taking his siesta, and then frightening him into compliance, when he wakes, by displaying, before him the cross-embroidered gown. The first task the hero is ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Claire's spirit, and prophesied her rapid success as a teacher. Mrs Gifford murmured sweetly, "And if you don't like it, dear, you can always come out by the next boat. Try it for a year. It will be quite an amusing experience to live the life of a bachelor girl. And, of course, in a year or two we'll be coming home. Then you must spend the whole leave with us. We'll see, won't we? We won't make any plans, but just be guided by circumstances. If you want ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... loudly as she finished, as though her words were highly amusing. To be experienced in the ways of evil seemed to her to ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... somewhat amusing discussion on this subject with a friend, only the other day; and one of his retorts upon me was so neatly put, and expresses so completely all that can either be said or shown on the opposite side, that it ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... over. The people of the town have again found, as in every other year, that their treasury is poorer, that they have worked, sweated, and stayed awake much without really amusing themselves, without gaining any new friends, and, in a word, that they have dearly bought their dissipation and their headaches. But this matters nothing, for the same will be done next year, the same the coming century, since it has always been ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... side, where the country is stony and barren, a multitude of old women are dragged forward on horses, waggons or carriages, and with much trouble are got into the water. On the other side of the fountain they appear as young maidens splashing about and amusing themselves with all kinds of playful mischief; close by is a large pavilion into which a herald courteously invites them to enter and where they are arrayed in costly apparel. A feast is prepared in a smiling meadow, which seems to be followed by a ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... Buckland's answer, which I think you may pretty nearly consider as an acceptance of your offer, and I really congratulate you upon it. He is full of information of all sorts, with lively spirits, and a most active mind and body, and will, I think, be as cheerful and amusing a companion as a man could have in such a tour. I trust you take a draughtsman with you, for without that your cortege ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Majesty's good spirits," said Albert, "that after a day of danger, fatigue, and accidents, you should feel the power of amusing yourself thus." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... centuries of all knowledge of its contents, are still stronger elements of doubt. Together, the circumstances fully justify the scepticism of Mr. Hepworth Dixon in the copious compilation styled by him a History of the Tower, though it is not requisite to adopt his amusing surmise that a document allowed to repose in the dark till the present age was fabricated to taint the credit of Ralegh as a virtuous husband. Probably the epistle was innocently concocted as a literary exercise by an admirer, who wished ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... of the lady I could see no sign. I was rather disappointed at first, as day after day went by and my young friend showed no disposition to break the silence in which he had chosen to wrap himself; for I had nothing to do in Venice, and I thought it would have been rather amusing to watch the progress of this incipient romance. By degrees, however, I ceased to trouble myself about it; and at the end of a fortnight I had other things to think of, in the shape of plans for the summer, my sister ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... ask ourselves deliberately what things we are going to allow ourselves to laugh at. We all laugh at some of the ways of lovers and no doubt we always will. They have beautiful ways, but beyond question some of them are amusing. There is no possible reaction to a girl's persuasion that her boy is pure hero and saint except a smile; and love itself will ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... pronunciation, together with the corresponding word in the Cherokee language and characters. As the language lacks a number of sounds which are of frequent occurrence in English, the attempts to indicate the pronunciation sometimes give amusing results. Thus we find: Fox (English script); kw[^a]gis[)i]['] (Cherokee characters); ts[/u]'l[^u]['] (Cherokee characters). As the Cherokee language lacks the labial f and has no compound sound equivalent to our ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... and manners of a by-gone generation, caught, as it were, through the chinks of the wall which time is building up between the past and the present, are instructive as well as amusing. It would be a great mistake to regard these details, apparently very loosely connected with the life of Chopin, as superfluous appendages to his biography. A man's sympathies and antipathies are revelations of his nature, and an artist's surroundings ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Walpole, she thankfully accepted the invitation, and decided to write the new book there in the bracing air of the hill town. In Walpole, she met delightful people, who were all attracted to the versatile, amusing young woman, and she was in great demand when there was any entertainment on foot. One evening she gave a burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position, by Oronthy Bluggage," which created such a gale of merriment that she was asked to repeat it for money, which ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... he," the prince said, speaking for the first time, "It was but yesterday in the great hall downstairs he stood up with blunted swords against young Victor de Paulliac, who is nigh three years his senior. It was amusing to see how the little knaves fought against each other; and by my faith Gervaise held his own staunchly, in spite of Victor's superior height and weight. If he join the Order, Sir Thomas, I warrant me he will cleave many an infidel's skull, ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... 1825, at Rheims, during the coronation of CHARLES X, with an amusing causerie on the manners and customs of the Restoration. The splendour of this coronation ceremony was singularly spoiled by the pitiable taste of those who had charge of it. These worthies took upon themselves to mutilate the sculpture work on the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... for some time, the silence being often broken by exclamations and questions. John and Betty could not understand how people avoided being run over when they all dashed across the street, right under the very noses of the horses. It was amusing to see people stumbling up the narrow, winding stairs of the buses, as they jolted along, and even the signs over the shops attracted some attention. They wondered if the King and Queen could shop in them all, for so many bore the words, "Jewelers to T. R. M.," or "Stationers ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... a series of pathetic, amusing and entertaining poems rendered in Indiana dialect on notable Hoosier scenes with parodies on poems by James ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... for truth, what exquisite skill in maintaining it and making it understood, characterise these eight last letters with their so different tone! I understand that you have read them only hurriedly, enjoying the more amusing passages; but that is not how one reads them ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... down and watch?" I asked again, pointing at the plateau; for I was young enough to find all operations of war amusing. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the novel in question, and, in an interview in the London 'Observer,' remarks: 'The suggestion of the German papers that I had Pygmalion produced in Germany lest I should be detected in my own country of plagiarism, shows an amusing ignorance of English ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... that Miss Blaine and Miss Mills were also members of the faculty; and they were. But they had just come in from a horseback ride, and they sat in rather disheveled attitudes, eating taffy out of a paper bag, and their conversation was very amusing and perfectly intelligible, even to a freshman who had still an ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... rang at dusk; at six o'clock they had tea—which was a repetition of breakfast, with leave to add to it whatever else they liked—and immediately after sat down to "preparation," which lasted from seven till nine. During this time one of the masters was always in the room, who allowed them to read amusing books, or employ themselves in any other quiet way they liked, as soon as ever they had learnt their lessons for the following day. At nine Dr. Rowlands came in and read prayers, after which the ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Senator Hearst, who entered the Senate two years after Senator Stanford, was also a man of very large wealth and possessor of a interesting character. Concerning him many amusing stories are told. He gave an elaborate dinner one evening, which I attended. There were twenty-five of us present with our wives, and after dinner was over the men went down to the smoking-room. Senator Hearst had thought out a little speech to make to us, in which he said: "I do now ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... intermixed in the garments of most of them. The most grotesque variety prevailed especially in their head-gear, which culminated in the case of one who wore a long, barrel-shaped, slatted sun-bonnet made out of spotted calico. They were boisterous and even amusing, had they not been well armed and apparently without fear or reverence for any authority or individual. For the present, the Irishman was evidently in command, by virtue of his ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... know very well, Candida, that I often blow them up soundly for that. But if there is nothing in their church-going but rest and diversion, why don't they try something more amusing—more self-indulgent? There must be some good in the fact that they prefer St. Dominic's to ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... that Saints' and Sinners' Corner was a place where congenial fellows met. We simply feasted our eyes on beautiful books or old manuscripts and chatted with each other after the usual fashion of book-lovers. The stories told were sometimes more amusing than profitable." He also told how Field, on one occasion, saved a book which he greatly coveted by ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... palaces only were to be left standing, to be utilized for public purposes. The whole of the remaining male population of Lucknow was set to work to carry out these alterations. The scene was busy and amusing, and the change from the fierce fight, the din of cannon, and the perpetual rattle of musketry, to the order, regularity, and bustle of work, was very striking. Here was a party of sappers and miners demolishing a row of houses, there thousands of natives filling baskets with rubbish and ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... saw her young friend again. Indeed, it required some clever diplomacy to heal the breach made, and even in her most amusing and affectionate moods, she often felt afterward that she was treated with a reserve which held her ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... they are very voluminous, but particularly devoid of interest, as they are written in a dry heavy style, and consist almost entirely of trifling details of forgotten Florentine society, mixed with small portions of Italian political news of the day, which are even still less amusing than the former topic. They have, however, been found useful to refer to occasionally, in order to explain allusions in the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the world has been the dupe of this marvellous dramatic genius and his work, changed in a fatal hour from fiction to history. I know no stronger proof for the existence of a malicious devil who takes pleasure in our amusing errors. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... personally, at different times, visited the frontiers of Ohio and Indiana, for the purpose of conversing with the Indians and the pioneers of that region, who happened to be acquainted with Tecumseh and his brother; and by these visits, has been enabled to enrich his narrative with some amusing and valuable anecdotes. ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... devoted to amusing the children, and contained a Punch and Judy show, fish pond, and ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... as good. When you're worried in London why don't you look me up? My wife and I will play the game for you. She's an amusing body. Heaven knows how I should have got through without her. She also ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... final refusal is simply too absurd. Miss FAY DAVIS made quite a little triumph of gentle gracious kindliness out of one of those potentially tiresome explanatory parts without which no mystifications can be contrived. Miss KATE JEPSON is a comedienne of rich grain, and gave a very amusing study of the hero's old nurse. Miss JEAN GADELL, that clever specialist in dour unpleasant stage women, made a properly repulsive thing out of the matron of the orphanage. Mr. HYLTON ALLEN scored his points as a comic lover with droll effect. If the distinctly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... gesture. "You thought—" He broke off. "I will tell you what you thought: That after amusing yourself with me you could say, 'Va-t-en!' with a wave of the hand. As if I were a clod like those we once had under us! American girls would make serfs of their admirers. Their men," contemptuously, "are fools where their women are concerned. You dismiss ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... which formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners, which united the Creole nonchalance with the vivacity of France. She was gay, gentle, and amiable. She had wit, which, without the smallest ill-temper, had just malice enough to be amusing. A polished and well-conducted education had improved her natural talents. She drew excellently, sang harmoniously, and performed admirably in comedy. In 1800, she was a charming young girl. She afterward became one of the most amiable princesses in Europe. ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... amusing to be engaged to him for a time, but now I am tired. You can give him what excuse you like, but tell ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... was only for a moment, for Barby immediately began to tell about an amusing experience she had on her way home, and started upstairs to take off her hat, with Georgina tagging after to ask a thousand questions, just as she had ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mean to be so atrociously impertinent," she sighed, in truth missing what had come to be such an amusing and novel way of using up some of each twenty-four hours. "But I can't, in self-respect, go to him ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... afternoon, in his cheerful yet cheerless words, she would have been deeply impressed by his appreciation of her playing, and his keen reflections on the merits of the composers; by his still keener attention to his subsequent experiments, and his amusing comments upon them. But, somehow, that very cheerless cheerfulness seemed to proclaim him superficial. Though she had no knowledge of science, she instinctively doubted his earnestness even in this work, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was not singular in confounding Dati and Deodati; it has been done by Fenton and others: but that Dr. Symmons, in his Life of Milton (p. 133.), should transform La Tina into a wine-press, is ludicrously amusing. La Tina is the rustic mistress to whom the sonnets are supposed to be addressed; and every one knows that rusticale and contadinesca is that naive and pleasing rustic style in which the Florentine poets delighted, from the expressive nature of the patois of the Tuscan ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... that there were many things in them which were unsound; but the rumour only gave additional zest to the speeches in which at Church Congresses and elsewhere he flattered clerical prejudice, and encouraged clerical ignorance. To him there was no more "amusing" study—using "amusing" in the French sense as meaning something that keeps a man intellectually happy and awake—than the study of the Gospels. They presented an endless series of riddles, and riddles were what he liked. But the scientific ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for two hours in his own defence, with an eloquence and effect to which no description can do justice. He touched the low underplot of the Committee on Foreign Affairs with pointed severity and bitter truth, and then gave amusing particulars of missives he had received from the South threatening him with assassination. Among other kindly hints sent through the post-office was a colored lithograph portrait of himself, with the picturesque annotation of a rifle-ball on the forehead, and a promise that such ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... quite one of the inner circle, you know. But we like him. He is really clever and very amusing. He is one of the heads of the Medical Faculty of our London University. All medical men, you know, are shareholders in the Medical Faculty Company, and wear that purple. You have to be—to be qualified. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... arrived at Lewes we put up our horses at the inn, and Charles ordered a lunch on his wonted scale of princely magnificence. Meanwhile we wandered, two and two, about the town and castle. I annexed Lady Belleisle, who is at least amusing. Charles drew me aside before starting. "Look here, Sey," he said, "we must be very careful. This man, Polperro, is a chance acquaintance. There's nothing an astute rogue can take one in over ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... place near the little lieutenant of doctor's degree, who was quite an amusing fellow, and chattered away so glibly that his neighbour hardly needed to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... may add, that to be a good housewife does not necessarily imply an abandonment of proper pleasures or amusing recreation; and we think it the more necessary to express this, as the performance of the duties of a mistress may, to some minds, perhaps seem to be incompatible with the enjoyment of life. Let us, however, now proceed to describe some of those home ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Own Wonderland is a delightful realm, wherein the very little ones can wander with interest through coloured pictures and easy fairy tales. Among the coloured picture series, the Old Mother Hubbard of 1793, with its contrast, Old Mother Hubbard of To-day, is very amusing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... "Bacon, Butler, and Shakspeare have rendered it impossible for any one after them to be profound, witty, or sublime," it is equally true that Scott, Irving, and others have rendered it impossible for any one to be equally entertaining, interesting, or amusing. I hold, however, to another maxim, that "he is a benefactor to mankind who furnishes them with innocent materials for laughter and delight," a maxim that did not come exactly "ex cathedra," but is full as profound, and correct. If I have been so fortunate as to contribute to, or become the cause ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... necessary to seek another parent for his children. For this purpose, he gave a commission to his friends to look out for him a suitable wife, and, in a long and jocular letter to Baron Strahlendorf, he has given an amusing account of the different negotiations which preceded his marriage. The substance of this letter is so well given by Mr Drinkwater Bethune, that we shall follow his ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... you would be amused if you could see his smile of placid self-satisfaction as he listens to our discussion of questions and problems which no more enter his daily life than they enter the daily life of an Eskimo; but I do not find it altogether amusing myself, and I could not well forgive it, if I did not know that he was at heart so simple and good, in spite of his commerciality. But he is sweet and kind, as the American men so often are, and he ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... escape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his tin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good marksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my mother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was amusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the way over that high board fence and escaped for that time. After an hour or two, when I ventured back, there was no one around and I thought the incident was closed. But it was not. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... not at once discern in the darkness who it was that opened the door, and he remained an aloof black shape against the moon-glare, lifting his cap and saying, "I am sorry to knock you up at this hour," so for a minute Marion had the amusing joy of seeing him as he appeared to other people, remote and vigilant and courteous and really more hidalgoesque than the occasion demanded. She laughed teasingly. The hard line of him softened, and he said, "Mother," and stepped over the threshold and folded her in his arms, and kissed ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... embassy reception the other night. Papa said it was like a green-room, only not half so amusing. They talked in one corner as openly as you might speak of the Prince Imperial, about Mademoiselle Schneider's child. There were women of the company whose liaisons are as well known as their faces, and yet they were parfaitement ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... overhead in a long, Gothic-like arch, he saw Miss Hargrove, mounted also, coming slowly toward him. He never forgot the picture she made under the rustic archway. Her fine horse was pacing along with a stately tread, his neck curved under the restraining bit, while she was evidently amusing herself by talking, for the want of a better companion, to an immense Newfoundland dog that was trotting at her side, and looking up to her in intelligent appreciation. Thus, in her preoccupation, Burt was permitted to draw comparatively near, but as soon as she observed ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... whenever you speak, speak with self-possession. Speak in a subdued tone, and always look at the person whom you are addressing. Before one can engage in general conversation with any effect, there is a certain acquaintance with trifling, but amusing subjects, which must be first attained. You will soon pick up sufficient by listening and observing. Never argue. In society, nothing must be discussed: give only results. If any person differ with you—bow and turn the conversation. In society, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... habitually growls and grumbles in a way that is highly amusing, and the absurd pitch of the deep bass voice issuing from so small an animal is ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... and apparently, to Borrow, a little Spanish; and Borrow, with his wonderful memory, must have been his favourite pupil. In his edition of Lavengro Dr. Knapp publishes a brief dialogue between master and pupil, which gives us an amusing glimpse of the worthy d'Eterville, whom the boys called 'poor old Detterville.' In the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of Lavengro he is pleasantly described by his pupil, who adds, with characteristic 'bluff,' that d'Eterville said 'on our arrival at the conclusion of ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... tremolos! I thought, hearing it, that God and his court of saints had left the heavens to take a walk, leaving the little angels masters of the house, full liberty! Universal gambols! The heavenly children, without any restraint, sported from cloud to cloud, amusing themselves by scattering on the earth the garlands of flowers that the saints had left behind them; one let loose the rain and made it fall on the earth; another seized the key of the thunder and touched it, fearful peals which frightened all the revellers and ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... There is nothing make-believe here as there is in the virtue of the letters. This is Pope's confession, the image of his soul. Elsewhere in Pope the accomplishment is too often rhetorical, though The Rape of the Lock is as delicate in artifice as a French fairy-tale, the Dunciad an amusing assault of a major Lilliputian on minor Lilliputians, and the Essay on Criticism—what a regiment of witty lines to be written by a youth of twenty or twenty-one!—much nearer being a great essay in verse than is generally admitted nowadays. As for ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... rubber band back of the corona, on the outer integument, so as to act like a tourniquet and limit the action of the anaesthetic effect to the prepuce. By this procedure he avoids all pain and the operation can be performed while the child is even amusing itself, care being taken that it does not see it. Sutures that require removal should not be used, according to the Doctor, and the operation thereby becomes a perfectly painless and unalarming performance to the patient in ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, was intimately acquainted with Boiastuan's book as translated by Alday; for there are passages in Burton's 'Love Melancholy' (the most extraordinary and amusing part of his work), which bear a very strong resemblance to many in the 'Gests and Countenances ridiculous of Lovers,' at p. 195 of Boiastuan's Theatre, or Rule ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... would be pleased to see another of Elia's contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... till he began to quail under the world's ill opinion, and especially, not till he felt secure that he might rely on his wife's fidelity and mercy, her silence and magnanimity, that he changed his tone to one of aspersion and contempt, and his mode of attack to that of charming, amusing, or inflaming the public with verses against her and her friends. We have his own testimony to her domestic merits in the interval between the parting and his lapse into a state of malignant feeling. In March, 1816, within two ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... which a puzzle was built has proved of considerable value to them in a most unexpected way. Indeed, it may be accepted as a good maxim that a puzzle is of little real value unless, as well as being amusing and perplexing, it conceals some instructive and possibly useful feature. It is, however, very curious how these little bits of acquired knowledge dovetail into the occasional requirements of everyday life, and equally curious ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... "It would be amusing for Rippingdale to hear these records—my Lord Clarendon's, are they not? Ah—not in the formal copy of his work? And by order of my Lord Rippingdale? Indeed! And wherefore, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... no answer was vouchsafed till the 11th, and then in the old terms; and meanwhile, on the 10th, Leary got into his gaiters—the sure sign, as was both said and sung aboard his vessel, of some desperate or some amusing service—and was set ashore at the Scanlons' house. Of this he took possession at the head of an old woman and a mop, and was seen from the Tamasese breastwork directing operations and plainly preparing to install himself there in a military posture. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his connection with Blackwood's Magazine, to which he was the chief contributor, De Quincey removed with his family to Edinburgh, where his erratic genius and his singularly childlike ways produced enough amusing anecdotes to fill a volume. He would take a room in some place unknown to his friends and family; would live in it for a few years, until he had filled it, even to the bath tub, with books and with his own chaotic manuscripts, allowing no one to ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... surrounding world I had nothing to ask for, aim at, or argue about. Fortune had taken me by the hand. One fine morning she had lifted me out of an abyss and put me down on a bed of roses and made me a young gentleman. The eagerness of others was for me but an amusing spectacle. My heart was interested in the future only on one mysterious point, the love which I felt ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... instilled into the mind of little Ursula a jealousy and distrust, which, but for the good sense maturer years brought to bear against such early impressions, would have rendered her unhappy for life. Propped up by pillows, she sat at a small table amusing herself by building little card houses, and then seeing them tumble down with all the kings and queens of her little city, when she heard her name mentioned in accents of pity by an old lady who had come to pay her aunt ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... there were moments when I pacified my conscience and others when I lashed it into pain. I did not laugh all day—that I do recollect; the case, however it might have struck others, seemed to me so little amusing. It would have been better perhaps for me to feel the comic side of it. At any rate, whether I had given cause or not it went without saying that I could not pay the price. I could not accept. I could not, for a bundle of tattered ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... the story always in the exact same words." This Jeanie must have been a character. She took great pride in exhibiting Maidie's brother William's Calvinistic acquirements when nineteen months old, to the officers of a militia regiment then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This performance was so amusing that it was often repeated, and the little theologian was presented by them with a cap and feathers. Jeanie's glory was "putting him through the carritch" (catechism) in broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning with "Wha made ye, ma bonnie ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... smart boots, bosomed shirts, or other dainty wear for men. He was quite innocent of giving any offence to the eye, however. Lying back in the comfortable chair with his coat off and his great lumberman's boots crossed, he laughed at anything Nan said that chanced to be the least bit amusing, until the gas-globes ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... got up, discountenanced and helpless, and as we stood there before her aunt it would certainly have seemed to a spectator of the scene that the old woman was amusing herself at our expense. Miss Tita protested, in a confusion of exclamations and murmurs; but I lost no time in saying that if she would do me the honor to accept the hospitality of my boat I would engage that she should not be bored. Or if she did ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... an inmate in the house of his uncle, John Goldsmith, Esq., of Ballyoughter, in that vicinity. He now entered upon studies of a higher order, but without making any uncommon progress. Still a careless, easy facility of disposition, an amusing eccentricity of manners, and a vein of quiet and peculiar humor, rendered him a general favorite, and a trifling incident soon induced his uncle's family to concur in his mother's opinion of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... often a surface of red mud, as if the surface had been enameled or electrotyped with mud. It appears to date from the first muddy day of creation. I have such a one for my doorstone at Woodchuck Lodge. It is amusing to see the sweepers and scrubbers of doorstones fall upon it with soap and hot water, and utterly fail to make any impression upon it. Nowhere else have I seen rocks casehardened with primal mud. The fresh-water origin of the Catskill rocks no doubt ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... very odd girl. There is, indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover that they live near each other and that they ought to have known each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck anyone else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when I met ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... its amusing features. A nervous representative shied violently at a piece of writing paper one night which had been left on his floor by a careless chambermaid; for the member rooming next him had the night before ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... as it had her parents, but, being wiser, he felt no antagonism. It was an amazing, an interesting thing. The girl had suddenly developed: that was all. She was eager to try her wings at a longer flight than any of her sex in Kenmore had ever before dreamed. It was amusing even if it ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... college which bears the same name as that of a city. Pembroke is another. Keble is, of course, named after the hymn-writer and divine; and Balliol, where C. S. C. played the wag so divertingly, after Balliol. A propos of Oxford, it is a question whether that extremely amusing book, Verdant Green, is still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... these two cases of the strength and weakness of the mind will not comprehend all mankind, and that there are in England, in particular, many honest gentlemen, who being always employed in their domestic affairs, or amusing themselves in common recreations, have carried their thoughts very little beyond those objects, which are every day exposed to their senses. And indeed, of such as these I pretend not to make philosophers, nor ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... this clamour of inharmonious voices, it is a little amusing to see how quietly and effectively some women settle the matter for themselves. If, indeed, they are among the best of their sex, they are surely qualified to judge, not only of their own ability, but also as to that which is proper. And they have no difficulty in finding this reply to ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... days the French language has as many idioms and represents as many idiosyncracies as there are varieties of men in the great family of France. It is extremely curious and amusing to listen to the different interpretations or versions of the same thing or the same event by the various species which compose the genus Parisian,—"Parisian" is here used merely to ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... is the matter now?" Graham knew the answer to his question, even before he asked it, and was irritated. If it was amusing to make Ruth scream by pointing his finger in her direction, when he was in a teasing mood, it was extremely annoying to have her suspect him of such intentions when his conscience was altogether clear, when indeed, with Peggy as a witness, he had solemnly renounced all ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... written for his director, is still at St. Sulpice. He stops short in his writing to make such reflections as these: "My courage is at times utterly cast down when I see what impertinences I have been writing. They must, I think, be a great waste of time for my good director, whom I am afraid of amusing. I pity him for having to spend his time in reading them, and it seems to me that he ought to stop my writing this intolerable ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of matter;" "that the world is a great body, which has sense, spirit, and reason;" that "matter, in appearance the most cold and insensible, is in reality animated, and capable of engendering thought." It might be amusing, were it not melancholy, to refer to one of his proofs of this position: "Une horologe mesure le temps; certes, c'est la un effet intellectuel produit par une cause physique!"[111] His grand principle is the doctrine of what he calls "Unisubstancisme," and it is applied ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... mood to meet people and kept out of the way of strangers as much as possible; even of her former acquaintances who came to the For'ard Lookout she saw but few. If she had not been too busy she might have found it amusing, the contrasting studies in human nature afforded by these former acquaintances in ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West, by Mrs. Bray: written for the entertainment of a family circle, these amusing records of the doings of the little people will find favour with all lovers of folk lore.—Ada's Thoughts, or the Poetry of Youth, may be commended for its natural, simple, yet elevated tone.—Essay on Human Happiness, by C. B. Adderley, M.P.; the first ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... it all about? Were they in earnest, or was it only their way of amusing themselves?" inquired Mary Carmichael, who had slipped into Mrs. Clark's kitchen after the men at the table had taken ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... twins had entered a new world and were rapturously making an omelet in a kitchen that had begun life as a closet, while Mr. Morton put up shelves and hooks and Mr. White tacked green burlap over gloomy wall-paper. Groceries and kitchen utensils and amusing make-shift furniture kept arriving in exciting profusion. They had not dreamed that there was such happiness in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... the origin of our Indians from the fugitive Trojans, stated in your letter of January the 26th, and his manner of accounting for the sprinkling of their Latin with Greeks is really amusing. Adair makes them talk Hebrew. Reinold Foster derives them from the soldiers sent by Kouli Khan to conquer Japan. Brerewood, from the Tartars, as well as our bears, wolves, foxes, &c. which, he says, 'must of necessity fetch their beginning from Noah's ark, which rested after the deluge, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of the city was an open field that was used as a race-course and practice ground for horses. Here the seven sons of Amphion were amusing themselves, when suddenly the oldest dropped his reins with a cry and fell from his horse, pierced to the heart by an arrow. One after another the whole seven were ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... presented by these men—some of them with grey heads and beards—as they marked time or tramped along singing this childish twaddle, would have been amusing if it ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... figures called tarascas gamboled about; and the auto, which was more like our operas than any other composition of the Spanish stage, was begun by a loa, written or sung. After this came the play, then an amusing interlude, followed by music and sometimes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the elder formed an amusing contrast with the laughing eye and untamable vivacity of the younger; but they smiled and they wept in unison. They thought and acted in different but not discordant keys. On all momentous occasions, they reasoned ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... town of Waukesha County, twenty miles by rail, to a Temperance meeting advertised for "speaking and the transaction of business." The meeting was held in the Congregational church, the pastor acting as chairman. The real business of the meeting was soon disposed of, and then was enacted the most amusing farce it was ever my lot to witness. The chairman and his deacon led off in a long-drawn debate on sundry matters of no importance, and of less interest to the audience, members of which attempted in vain, by motions and votes, to cut it short. When it had become sufficiently ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... laughingly about my enthusiasm for Tennyson, and asking me if I had read a certain severely caustic and condemnatory article in the Quarterly upon his poems. "Have you read it?" said she; "it is so amusing! Shall I send it to you?" "No, thank you," said I; "have you read the poems, may I ask?" "I cannot say that I have," said she, laughing. "Oh, then," said I (not laughing), "perhaps it would be better that ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... news—come from allied sources via correspondents in neutral countries. The German censor's task is here a relatively simple one, for German war correspondents never allow professional enthusiasm to run away with practical patriotism, and you note the—to an American—amusing and yet suggestive spectacle of war correspondents specializing in descriptions of sunsets ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a rose from a bunch she had fastened in her dress. "Why don't you pick one yourself, Giff?" she said simply; and afterwards, with a sparkle of indignant tears in her eyes and with a quick impatience which made her an amusing copy of her father, she said to Helen, "I suppose he meant to treat me as though I was some fine young lady. Why can't he be just the old Giff?" And when he came back from Europe, she declared ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... foibles. I remember that she made me laugh more than I liked; for I was, at that time, an eager scholar of ethics, and had tasted the sweets of solitude and stoicism, and I found something profane in the hours of amusing gossip into which she drew me, and, when I returned to my library, had much to think of the crackling of thorns under a pot. Margaret, who had stuffed me out as a philosopher, in her own fancy, was too intent on ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... fine that we had both been in love with her. It was not an air moreover for the plaintive note: no private inconvenience could long outweigh for him the great happiness of these years—the happiness that sat with us when we talked and that made it always amusing to talk, the sense of his being on the heels of success, coming closer and closer, touching it at last, knowing that he should touch it again and hold it fast and hold it high. Of course when we said ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... Duc d'Arscot, and M. d'Aurec. After an exchange of compliments, he mounted his horse, but continued in discourse with me until we reached the city, which was not before it grew dark, as I set off late, the ladies of Mons keeping me as long as they could, amusing themselves with viewing my litter, and requiring an explanation of the different mottoes and devices. However, as the Spaniards excel in preserving good order, Namur appeared with particular advantage, for the streets were well lighted, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... and amusing entourage vanished in all directions. Standing idly at the portico was a very straight, black Soudanese. On his head was the usual red fez; his clothing was of trim khaki; his knees and feet were ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... while Pitman, Comstock, and others, are amusing themselves with the folly of inventing new "Phonetic Alphabets," or of overturning all orthography to furnish "a character for each of the 38 elementary sounds," more or fewer, one of the acutest observers among our grammarians can fix ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... him at home; and chatted with him for a considerable time. To my surprise his manners were perfectly those of a gentleman, and his conversation, if not peculiarly engaging, was certainly amusing. The politeness of his demeanour, and the easy fluency with which he told his stories and his anecdotes, many of them curious, and all more or less entertaining, accounted to my mind at once for the facility with which he had improved his acquaintance with O'Connor; and when he pressed upon us an ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... persuaded his older brother, who was always looking for something to do, to execute his plans. It was usually Claude who was caught red-handed. Sitting mild and contemplative on his quilt on the floor, Ralph would whisper to Claude that it might be amusing to climb up and take the clock from the shelf, or to operate the sewing-machine. When they were older, and played out of doors, he had only to insinuate that Claude was afraid, to make him try a frosted axe with his tongue, or jump from ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... And how wonderful and amusing are the walls, hung with linen tapestries representing scenes from the Bible, and brilliant with all the gorgeous coloring of ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... woman engaged in washing clothes, near the sea coast, had a lad with her to take care of her two younger children—one a young babe—while she was at work. They wandered away a short distance, and while amusing themselves under some bushes, four men, to them strange looking creatures, with white faces, surrounded them; and when the lad attempted to run away, they threw the infant he held in his arms, on the ground, and seizing the other two children, bore them screaming with fear, to the ship. Frantic ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... in the papers yesterday and to-day. That fellow at Yimville does seem to have kicked up an amusing controversy. One set of papers says he was mobbed, and the other that he made a hit. But—pshaw!—of course it has no effect whatever on Judge Granger's chances for the nomination! Tempest in a child's teapot that ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... later, in the fall of 1805 he left home and took the trip to New Haven, where he entered the freshman class at Yale. An amusing incident of his early college days is given in ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the glorious Fourth. Torpedoes were the order of the day, and Katie and Robbie were amusing themselves by throwing the snappers in all directions, and seeing their feathered pets run to eat what they could never find. The other fowls, disturbed by the noise of the day, preferred to keep hidden away in their houses, but these liked ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... attention when one gentle woman's voice was heard to utter what they were quite sure had been well matured before the lips opened. Few, if any, could feel themselves her superior in general intelligence; and it was amusing one day to see the amazement of a certain doctor, who, venturing on a quotation from Epictetus to an unassuming young lady, was, with modest politeness, corrected in his Greek by his feminine auditor. One rare characteristic belonged to her which gave ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... into soldiers. There was plenty of fun mixed in with the hard work, and they had many stirring experiences. A pleasant feature was the coming of Tom, who although rejected when he tried to enlist had been accepted in the draft. Not so pleasant, though somewhat amusing, was the fact that Nick Rabig also had been drafted and had to go to Camp ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... Menes back at 160,000 years ago—what an amusing idea that will seem!—But the truth is we must wage war against this mischievous foreshortening of history. I have no doubt there have been empires going, from time to time, in Egypt, since before Atlantis fell; people have the empire-building ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... anecdote I am going to tell you is about a parrot my aunt once had—named, of course, Polly. She had been taught many funny and amusing speeches, among which she used to say to a canary that hung in the same room, "Pretty Poll, shabby canary;" and when the canary sang she would cry out, "Oh, what a noise! what a noise!" My aunt having been very ill, had not seen ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... generals who went out at the head of the Roman armies to conquer these distant realms and annex them to the empire, sent home these captives and wild beasts. They sent them for the express purpose of amusing the Roman people with them, by making them fight in these great amphitheatres. There was such an amphitheatre in or near almost every large town; but the greatest, or at least the most celebrated, of all these structures, was this Coliseum ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... endeavor, in every manner possible, to provide innocent and entertaining amusements for all, recognizing the great importance of pleasant occupation of the mind, as an essential part of the treatment. Hence the introduction of music, amusing games, light reading, and kindred agencies for ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... not sensational, does not care whether you believe his story or not, is a thoroughly quiet, intelligent, sensible man. Only his conduct has ceased to be swayed by any selfish interest, and there is some tremendous force working in his life that puzzles the physician. It is amusing how the latter tries to shake off his obsession, how he tries to persuade himself that Lazarus had a prolonged epileptic fit, or that he is now mad; how he tries to interest himself once more in the fauna and flora of the country. Impossible! ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... alacrity by Nicholas, who betook himself to the Kenwigs' apartment with all speed. Here he found the four Miss Kenwigses on their form of audience, and the baby in a dwarf porter's chair, with a deal tray before it, amusing himself with a toy horse, while Mrs. Kenwigs spoke to the little girls of the superior advantages they enjoyed above other children. "But I hope," she said, "that that will not make them proud; ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... idea of giving up amusement when it came in her way. Of such amusement, she had hitherto known but little. Miss Baker herself was, perhaps, rather dull. Miss Baker's friends at Littlebath were not very bright; but Caroline had never in her heart accused them of being other than amusing. It is only by knowing his contrast that we recognize a bore when we meet him. It was in this manner that she now began to ascertain that Mr. M'Gabbery certainly had bored her. Ascertaining it, she threw him off at once—perhaps ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... old-time severity toward the freedom of modern life. But that Calpurnia should plead her husband's absence as an excuse was ominous. Everyone knew that he dictated her social relations. Terentia had been implacable since that amusing winter when Clodia had spread a net for Cicero. For her own sex Clodia had the hawk's contempt for sparrows, but if Caesar as well as Cicero were to withdraw from her arena, she might as well prepare herself for the inverted ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... said with a smile. "Well, it has been very dull lately and we need cheering up. Suppose you send Mr. Fuller a note and ask him to dinner to-morrow? He's sometimes amusing and I think you ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... overemphasis on the aesthetic interest, through the habitual subordination of it in public opinion to standards of efficiency. Men commonly believe, and are justified in so believing, that a life delivered wholly to the aesthetic interest is frivolous; amusing itself with "bubbles" and "amber foam," while supported by a community in whose graver and more urgent concerns it takes no part. Probably no one has {196} done more than Pater to persuade men of the present generation ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... library, a dismal place in the forenoon. Never mind, first came a jolly evening with the Scorpions. The meetings were always fun, and this one, coming after the separation of a six-weeks' vacation, promised special sport. Carter was down for a paper on Rabelais; King would have some of his amusing ballades and rondeaus; and above all there would be the first chapter of the serial, from which the members promised themselves much diversion. It was too late now to attempt anything on Danton and Robespierre; he picked ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... theatrical tour, which extended through most of the Southern States, and into Texas. In this tour, Mr. Kelly went through a great variety of adventures, saw many strange scenes, and obtained a fund of amusing experience, which afterward served him to great advantage in his literary sketches. After having thoroughly exhausted his roving desires, he returned to Philadelphia, where, indeed, upon his previous visit, he had become subject to a new attraction, the most powerful which could be found to restrain ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... was the kind to be adored. She was pretty, and clever, and amusing,—a great talker and crazy about people. She had real social instinct,—the kind you read of in books, you know. She could make her circle anywhere. She couldn't be alone five minutes,—people clustered ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the question, and then adroitly whipping the argument about a pivotal point, as a boy would whip a top, may be amusing enough to the childish mind, but is manifestly making no more progress in logic than to substitute an ingenious paraphrase of a term for its real definition. It is a mere verbal feat at best, without the possibility of reaching any determinate ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... an amusing article in a review that Gillian was set to read, and she did it so pleasantly that her aunt declared that she looked forward to many such afternoon pastimes, and then, by an easier way than the ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... born April 2, 1884, at Plymouth, of Devonian ancestry. He was educated at Blundell's and Cambridge University, and became known first as a remarkably adroit parodist. His Imaginary Speeches (1912) and Tricks of the Trade (1917) are amusing parodies and, what is more, excellent criticism. He edited The New Statesman for a while and founded The London Mercury (a monthly of which he is editor) in November, 1919. Under the pseudonym "Solomon Eagle" he wrote a page of literary criticism ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... to mimic her crew. But the next step was a hard matter, for the crew having finished their job sat side by side on the bulwarks and lit their pipes. However, a little pantomime soon occurred, as amusing as it was inspiriting. They seemed to consult together, looking from the tug to the inn and from the inn to the tug. One of them walked a few paces inn-wards and beckoned to the other, who in his turn called something down the engine-room skylight, and then joined his mate in a ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... and one side of his head dyed a beautiful red, presenting a ludicrous appearance. The first glance at him was one of astonishment; but realizing that he had been testing George's newly made dye, all burst out in laughter at the amusing sight. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Perhaps the most amusing thing in this world is to watch the antics of a large-canined virgin de bonne famille who is trying to be a lady,—by "lady" is here meant someone who, among other parlour tricks, can perform the feat of "controlling" her feelings,—who has, that is to say, ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... of the two sinners with a touch of fascinated curiosity. They were said to be in Paris, and Teresa was probably having a very good time—a wildly amusing, exciting time. ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... They were presented at court and commented upon in the Row and the Bois. Their little transatlantic tricks of speech and their mots were repeated with gusto. It became understood that they were amusing and amazing. Americans "came in" as the heroes and heroines of novels and stories. Punch delighted in them vastly. Shopkeepers and hotel proprietors stocked, furnished, and provisioned for them. They spent money enormously and were singularly indifferent (at the outset) under imposition. They ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the like of which was never before seen. For twenty-six miles this wild stampede kept up, with our troopers close at the enemy's heels; and the ludicrous incidents of the chase never ceased to be amusing topics around the camp-fires of Merritt and Custer. In the fight and pursuit Torbert took eleven pieces of artillery, with their caissons, all the wagons and ambulances the enemy had on the ground, and three hundred prisoners. Some of Rosser's troopers ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the midst of tears, the life and deeds of the dead, beginning with the moment of his birth, and dealing with the whole course of his life, recounting his strength, his height, his beauty, in a word, all that can in any way do him honour. If some amusing action occur in the recital, the company begin to laugh as if they would split their sides; then on a sudden they drink and are again drowned in tears. There are sometimes two hundred persons present at these absurd anniversaries." When the Spanish ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... dozen men and boys about the door, amusing themselves with bursting percussion caps on the stone. They addressed us as "hadji!" (pilgrims), begging for more caps. I told them I was not a Turk, but an Arab, which they believed at once, and requested me to enter the mosque. ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... spend the next summer in the lovely New Hampshire village of Walpole, she thankfully accepted the invitation, and decided to write the new book there in the bracing air of the hill town. In Walpole, she met delightful people, who were all attracted to the versatile, amusing young woman, and she was in great demand when there was any entertainment on foot. One evening she gave a burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position, by Oronthy Bluggage," which created such a gale of merriment that she was asked to repeat ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... telling amusing stories of their boyhood experiences at Rupert's House, the pranks they played on their teacher, their fights, football, and other games, and while they talked I bestowed some special care upon my revolver. Job sat smoking his pipe, listening with a merry light in his gleaming, ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... which forms the chef d'oeuvre of their atrocity. Having taken out of this brig all the valuables they could find, they hatched down all hands to the hold, except a black man, who was allowed to remain on deck for the special purpose of affording in his torture an amusing exhibition to Soto and his gang. They set fire to the brig, then lay to, to observe the progress of the flames; and as the miserable African bounded from rope to rope, now climbing to the mast head—now clinging to the shrouds—now leaping to one part ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... lived, much in the same way as Henry the Second had been with Becket. Now he was dead, a banished man, the Pope had declared him a saint, and King Henry made humble offerings at his shrine. But it is amusing to find that with respect to this offering at least, his Majesty's instructions were to buy the samite of the lowest price ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... the most amusing events in Richard Strong's experience, and as for Bambi, she was at her best. She enjoyed herself utterly, until coffee put ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... chapter, I should like to refer briefly to a valuable and amusing book (brought under my notice in Shetland) that furnishes details of the life of Mr. Mill, minister of Dunrossness from 1742 till 1805. Mr. Mill's special talent was his unrivalled power of exorcism: he was a strenuous foe to the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... and the form of the singer could barely be discerned upon a bench under a great oak. The voice was that of a man, and his song was an Italian air from one of Verdi's operas. He sang in a low tone, as if he were simply amusing himself and did not wish to disturb the rest ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... taken to the fair in a motor, but a slight delay occurs on the way. How they finally arrived at the fair ground and their amusing experiences ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... An amusing incident occurred that night, and yet one that came near costing Kirkendall his life. Among the men left with the train was William Woodcock, Lieutenant Jacobs' servant. He was armed with a double-barreled shotgun and ordered to take his ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... feet from the summer-house, on the bench which Miss Hugonin had just left. And when that unprincipled young woman finally rose to her feet, it must be confessed that it was with a toss of the head and with the reflection that while to listen wasn't honourable, it would at least be very amusing. I grieve to admit it, but with Billy's scruples she ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... my men being—for a change—in a good mood, owing to the amusing time we always had fishing. We had been making excellent progress during the last two or three days. The strange man X enlivened our journey with diabolical songs and with crude wit, which sent his companions into fits of laughter. When they were in a merry ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... happened in a few hours! Who would have thought when she took her stand against Theodore and Talouel that the wind was going to blow so favorably in her direction. How amusing it was ... their ill feeling towards her had itself brought her ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... late at night the great convention read its papers, ate its luncheons, held its committee meetings—talked, aspired, lobbied, schemed, prayed, sang, rejoiced! Culture was splendidly on its way—progress was the watchword! It was wonderful and amusing and superb. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... exact same words." This Jeanie must have been a character. She took great pride in exhibiting Maidie's brother William's Calvinistic acquirements when nineteen months old, to the officers of a militia regiment then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This performance was so amusing that it was often repeated, and the little theologian was presented by them with a cap and feathers. Jeanie's glory was "putting him through the carritch" (catechism) in broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning with "Wha made ye, ma bonnie man?" For the correctness of ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... scores, assembled under a large tree, laughing, chattering, and cooking breakfast. On a sudden, a shell burst in the tree-top, rattling down leaves and branches in fine style, and the rapid decampment of the servitors was most amusing. But I must pause to give an account of my own servant, Tom Strother, who deserves honorable and affectionate mention at my hands, and serves to illustrate a phase of Southern life now ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... advancing. On my halting, they stole away, and, when a little further on, I perceived an old white-haired woman before me, on seeing whom I turned slightly to one side, that we might not frighten her or provoke the tribe. The whole party seemed to have been amusing themselves in the water during the noon-day heat, which was excessive; and the cool shades around the lagoon looked most luxuriant. Our position, on the contrary, was anything but enviable. With jaded horses scarcely able to lift a leg, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... not only felt for me as a sorrowful child, but bowed before me as something of higher and stronger nature than themselves. Darry silently attended me now from house to house of the quarters; introducing and explaining and doing all he could to make my progress interesting and amusing. Interested I was; but most certainly not amused. I did not like the look of things any better than I had done at first. The places were not "nice;" there was a coarse, uncared-for air of everything within, although the outside was in such well-dressed condition. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a month's holydays. My exertions for the London are, tho' not dead, in a dead sleep for the present. If your club like scandal, Blackwood's is your magazine; if you prefer light articles, and humorous without offence, the New Monthly is very amusing. The best of it is by Horace Smith, the author of the Rejected Addresses. The Old Monthly has more of matter, information, but not so merry. I cannot safely recommend any others, as not knowing them, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... was just amusing myself with counting the packs of wolves in the forest, but there are really so many of them that I don't think ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... intimation of the outbreak was rather amusing than alarming. A negro boy was herding cattle on the mountain side. A stone fell near him. Another followed. He fancied that some other boys were pelting him from the cliff above, and began throwing stones upward at his fancied ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... wagons: thus Nausicaa drove a mule team to haul out the family wash, and Priam made his visit to Achilles in a mule litter. Homer professes to prefer mules to oxen for ploughing. There were mule races at the Greek games. Aristotle (Rhetoric, III, 2) tells an amusing story of Simonides, who, when the victor in the mule race offered him only a poor fee, refused to compose an ode, pretending to be shocked at the idea of writing about "semi-asses," but, on receipt ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... are a very busy and clever race, but much given to litigation. My brother says, that they are the greatest benefactors to the Outer House, and that their lawsuits are the most amusing and profitable before the courts, being less for the purpose of determining what is right than what is lawful. The chambermaid of the inn where we lodge pointed out to me, on the opposite side of the street, a magnificent edifice ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... the popinjay is an amusing dog—tells a story; sings a song; and saves us the trouble of flattering the Queen. What does she care for old politicians and campfed bears like us? No: Apollodorus is ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... not laughing," I said. "In this state, without a body, I have nothing to laugh with. Still you are right, for you see that I should be laughing if I could. Your story of the stout lady and the dogs and the china is very amusing." ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... place in the concert repertory? Yet Chopin, whose name is seldom absent from the program of a pianist, was a god in his own time and the most brilliant woman of his epoch fell in love with him, as Philip Moeller has recently reminded us in his very amusing play. On the other hand there is the case of Robert Franz whose songs never achieved real popularity during his lifetime, but which are frequently, almost invariably indeed, to be found on song recital programs today and which are more and more appreciated. The critics are praising him, the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... some of the gentlemen present would rather not be amongst the aspirants, it is amusing to see them retire behind the others, hoping to escape without offence against the rules of good breeding. Should one of these be called by the lady superior, he will probably give himself awkward airs, and ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... next letter hardly belongs in this collection; as it was doubtless written with at least the possibility of publication in view. But it is too amusing, too characteristic of Mark Twain, to be omitted. It was sent in response to an invitation from the New York Society of California Pioneers to attend a banquet given in New York City, October 13, 1869, and was, of course, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... about 1420, and relating the story of the Trojan war as recounted by Guido di Colonna in his Latin prose history of Troy; and "The Falls of Princes," founded on a French version of Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium." In 1433, Lydgate wrote a wearisome but somewhat amusing poem, "Pur le Roy," describing a visit to London, and the pageants, processions, and other rejoicings, on the occasion of the entrance of Henry VI. into the city after his coronation. The date of the poet's death is not ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... the conversation was commonplace, and I related various experiences in a desultory fashion. Those that were mildly amusing were most appreciated. But gradually we drifted towards more vital issues and then the long and futile argument began. The weapons of sarcasm and denunciation were denied to me by the laws of politeness and etiquette. ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... these serious words, a large place, in the combat of thought, is given to humour, that bright and beauteous weapon. Charles Scott Wood writes amusing Voltairian dialogues. Here we see Billy Sunday in heaven, filling the place with clamour. He preaches a sermon full of Billingsgate, a sermon addressed to God, represented as an old gentleman with suave and distinguished ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... schoolboy he was an excellent talker: his descriptive power being far above the average, and his humorous exaggerations of school occurrences always highly amusing. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Teddy, and amusing myself by imagining the future of my boys," she answered, smiling as she made room ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... was learning from his mother to play on the lute, the Knight of the Sun—for so they called him—had gone with his nurse to the banks of the broad river, and was amusing himself with scrambling in and out of a boat that lay moored to the side. There were no mirrors in the convent, and the boy jumped hastily back with dismay when he saw some one dressed like himself looking at him ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... that stands out vividly in my mind after all these years, has no amusing aspect. Late in the fall of '57 I found it necessary to make a trip to Decorah, Iowa, for supplies of various kinds. My absence from home was to be shorter than usual on such trips, for Bill and ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... was familiar already." If this were true, the babe could never perceive anything, as it begins without any knowledge, and it would be impossible for us to learn anything or acquire any new ideas. This is rather an amusing discovery! but it is barely possible or conceivable that there are some old fossils whose minds are in ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... some amusing tales of the court; how Beaufort was always blundering, how Mazarin was always saving, how Louis was always making love, and how the queen was ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... held up the second mirror saying that there was another Rakhas. The Rakhas was fascinated at the sight of his own reflection; when he grinned or opened his mouth the reflection did the same; and while he was amusing himself with making different grimaces Jhalka suddenly cut him down with the battleaxe, and he fell down dead. Then Jhalka cut off the ears and tongue and toes and hastened with them to the Raja. When it was found that the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... kinds of clothes are associated in the public mind with certain kinds of women is to me an amusing mystery. Why are old maids always supposed to wear black silks? And why are they always supposed to be thin?—the old maids, I mean, not the silks. Why are literary women always supposed to be frayed at the edges? And why, if they keep up with ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... the two was amusing, or would have been had not the atmosphere been so surcharged with passionate feeling, for Rhett Sempland was six feet high if he was an inch, while Fanny Glen by a Procrustean extension of herself could just manage ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... its own private opinion that, in default of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chell and his Countess, no better 'civic heads' could have been found than Mr. Curtenty and his charming wife. So far the tone of the Signal was unimpeachable. But underneath all this was a sub-title, 'Amusing Exploit of the Mayor-elect,' followed by an amusing description of the procession of the geese, a description which concluded by referring to Mr. Curtenty as His Worship ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... easy-chair, and he makes me sit down; as we do so, we cautiously pat each other on the back, touch each other's buttons, and it looks as though we were feeling each other and afraid of scorching our fingers. Both of us laugh, though we say nothing amusing. When we are seated we bow our heads towards each other and begin talking in subdued voices. However affectionately disposed we may be to one another, we cannot help adorning our conversation with all sorts of Chinese mannerisms, such as "As you so justly observed," or "I have already had the honour ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and watch?" I asked again, pointing at the plateau; for I was young enough to find all operations of war amusing. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the council. The boys of the fifth and sixth forms are allowed access daily at certain fixed hours, the librarian being present. In addition to this, libraries are now being formed in each house, which are maintained by small half-yearly subscriptions, and which will contain books of a more amusing character, and better ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... spirit was amusing the crowd, a second medium brought out ten coconut shells, one of which was filled with blood and rice. These she placed on a winnower, which in turn was set on a rice-mortar. Soon the spirit Ilongbosan entered her ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... views with the latest official reports is highly amusing, as well as suggestive that early impressions are liable to ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the Journey to the Hebrides is the translation; and it is amusing to compare the two versions.' Macaulay thereupon quotes these two passages. See ante, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... her some amusing anecdotes of 'Varsity life, then went away early, as he was going to leave the village for ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... it we are powerless in the face of the awful evils which flow from random and reckless reproduction. With it we possess a power so great that some persons have professed to see in it a menace to the propagation of the race, amusing themselves with the idea that if people possess the means to prevent the conception of children they will never have children at all. It is not necessary to discuss such a grotesque notion seriously. The desire for children is far too deeply implanted in ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... and printed books. There is no knowing what treasures are hid in them, and of which the literary world must remain ignorant, unless they are thus introduced to general notice. How many curious and amusing anecdotes may be told of precious works being discovered under barbarous titles! Among others, take, gentle reader, the two following ones—relating to books of a very different character. Within a volume, entitled Secreta Alberti, were found "The Fruyte of Redempcyon," printed ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... later a notice signed A Traveler, told that the old man had been seen resting by the road over which the Albany stage coach passed. Then in ten days followed this amusing letter to the editor ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... cheerfully and managed to conceal her terror. Then the Beast asked her how she had been amusing herself, and she told him all ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Anonymous
... an excursion into the valley he had discovered a charming maid who sought berries in a lonely wood. In his wicked eagerness he dragged the maiden on to his horse and fled. Amusing himself with her lamentations, he carried his booty up the ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... given up wearing anything on my head, and did not require it: these were, after a certain amount of haggling, surrendered, on condition that the sultan would exert himself a little more energetically on my account. The way he handled the musket was very amusing: he had never had one in his hands before, and could not get it to sit against his shoulder; and when his people placed it for him, he persisted in always cocking the wrong eye, which tickled Farhan's fancy so much, that ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... in the Zoological Gardens, his matter-of-fact description of which affords an amusing contrast with that of those veracious scions of Persian royalty, who luxuriate in "elephant birds just like an elephant, but without the proboscis, and with wings fifteen yards long"—"an elephant twenty-four feet high, with a trunk ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... socialist sovereign, the same people who before 1870 believed in the liberalism of Bismarck, now believe in the socialism of William II. They go on saying the same old things. In different words they ask: "Isn't the young Emperor amusing?" (tis' a great word with us French people), and before long, they will be appealing to the gullible weaklings among us by suggesting "After all, why shouldn't he give us back Alsace-Lorraine?" And thus are being sown the seeds ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... Rover Boys at School" we were introduced to Dick, Tom, and Sam, and their amusing and thrilling adventures at Putnam Hall, a military academy for boys situated in the heart of Now York State; in "The Rover Boys on the Ocean" we followed our young heroes during a most daring rescue; and in ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... different from casual reactions, and total attitudes are different from usual or professional attitudes. To get at them you must go behind the foreground of existence and reach down to that curious sense of the whole residual cosmos as an everlasting presence, intimate or alien, terrible or amusing, lovable or odious, which in some degree everyone possesses. This sense of the world's presence, appealing as it does to our peculiar individual temperament, makes us either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, gloomy or exultant, about life at large; and our reaction, involuntary ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... magnanimity of the Verdurins. But just as the conversation, the smiles, the kisses of Odette became as odious to him as he had once found them charming, if they were diverted to others than himself, so the Verdurins' drawing-room, which, not an hour before, had still seemed to him amusing, inspired with a genuine feeling for art and even with a sort of moral aristocracy, now that it was another than himself whom Odette was going to meet there, to love there without restraint, laid bare to him all its absurdities, its stupidity, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... his knees, and converted the beans to powder, to the tune of "Old dog Tray" through his nose, which Miss Mattie found very amusing. ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... in close fitting clothes and by the end of his performance has filled the stage with several large flags, a bouquet of flowers and, may be, a beautiful lady, all, possibly produced from a top hat. His performance is given to the accompaniment of amusing patter and is brightened with the colour of the articles ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... master of the house, went off that very evening, by the King's orders, to start on another voyage. And when he was gone his wife found the children amusing company, and kept them talking and singing and dancing till quite late. 'To distract my mind ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... and, like Northumberland, confessed to the indictment. Northampton, however, pleaded in his defence, that he had held no public office {p.040} during the crisis; that he had not been present at the making of Edward's device, and had been amusing himself hunting in the country.[90] Warwick, with proud sadness, said merely, that he had followed his father, and would share his father's fortunes; if his property was confiscated, he hoped that his debts ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... one tale in particular, which my mother who, by the way, was no gossip, and was as peaceable as a barnyard fowl, was in the habit of rehearsing before a chosen few, occasionally, with a quiet relish that was amusing, considering the fact that ordinarily any comment on her neighbors' affairs was alien to her. It appeared that after a short wedding trip, during which the bridegroom had several times shown the cloven foot, the couple returned ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... it's gone when we have to shut up. But I don't care, he says. . . And then there was George's new wife. When Cloete dines there, the beggar puts on a dress suit; little woman liked it; . . . Mr. Cloete, my husband's partner; such a clever man, man of the world, so amusing! . . . When he dines there and they are alone: Oh, Mr. Cloete, I wish George would do something to improve our prospects. Our position is really so mediocre. . . And Cloete smiles, but isn't surprised, because he had ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... too, since a mule could hardly engage in literary labour of any kind. Evidently the Jinnee must either have overrated his supernatural powers, or else have been deliberately amusing himself ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... afterwards more fully set forth in his Essay, upon History, in the Edinburgh Review. From the protest, in the last mentioned essay, against the conventional notions respecting the majesty of history might perhaps have been anticipated something like the third chapter of the History of England. It may be amusing to notice that in the article on Mitford, appears the first sketch of the New Zealander, afterwards filled up in a passage in the review of Mrs Austin's translation of Ranke, a passage which at one time was the subject of allusion, two or three times ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tell." As she came to the full command of her faculties her trouble grew. "The blood of our soldiers is flowing," she said; "why did they not tell me? My arms, my arms!" Then she rushed down stairs to find her page amusing himself in the tranquil afternoon, and called to him for her horse. All was quiet, and no doubt her attendants thought her mad: but D'Aulon, who knew better than to contradict his mistress, armed her rapidly, and Luis, the page, brought her horse to the door. By this time there began ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... easily—"Don't be foolish! The airs of a tragedy queen do not suit you. I assure you I haven't the least objection to your amusing yourself with a parson, if you like! The conversation in the picture-gallery just now was quite idyllic—all about a cigarette and Psyche! Really it was most absurd!—and the little sermon of the enamoured clergyman to his pretty penitent was as ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... history of Staffordshire, tells of an idiot, that chancing to live within the sound of a clock, and always amusing himself with counting the hour of the day whenever the clock struck: the clock being spoiled by some accident, the idiot continued to strike and count the hour without the help of it, in the same manner as he had ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... practitioner must imply, merely by expression and attitude, that the supposed companion has left her for only a few moments, that she herself has sent him upon an errand; and, if possible, the minds of observers must be directed toward a conclusion that this errand of her devising is an amusing one; at all events, she is alone temporarily and of choice, not deserted. She awaits a devoted man who may return at ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... in the Book of Job are very amusing. One day there was a drawing-room or levee held in heaven. The sons of God attended, and Satan came also among them. He seems to have so closely resembled the rest of the company that only God detected the difference. This is not surprising, ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... sods, tied down to cross poles by ropes of twisted heather. The walls did not rise more than five feet from the ground; and nothing could be easier than for the goats to leap up, when tempted to graze there. A kid was now amusing itself on one corner. As Lady Carse walked round, she was startled at seeing a woman sitting on the opposite corner. Her back was to the sun—her gaze fixed on the sea, and her fingers were busy knitting. The lady had some doubts at first about its being the ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... to give him a fine devil-may-care indifference to what happened next. So it was only the spray Paula had given him—it still made his body feel better and removed his shock and worry and made everything seem suddenly rather amusing. ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... pitting of animals against each other; or, as they call it, "play fight." I wondered that so moral a people could enjoy these brutal sports. My landlord noticed my surprise, and said, that throughout the kingdom it was the custom to vary their lives with a due mixture of earnest duties and amusing pleasures. Theatrical plays are very much in vogue with them. I was vexed, however, to hear that disputations are reckoned suitable for the stage, while with us they are confined to ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... humour of broad comedy and obvious farce—the humour that finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. How thoroughly wholesome it is too! To be at the same time merry and wise, says the old adage, is a hard combination. Dickens was both. With all his boisterous merriment, his volleys of inextinguishable ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... conversation should roll around a given point. I think that is the most entertaining, restful, and real talk which is the most roving. You may begin in Portland and end in San Francisco. You may start talking about preserving peaches, and halt on the latest sensation. It is often very amusing to trace the line of such converse: it moves in a zigzag course, and terminates many miles out of the original direction. By this discursiveness I do not mean gossip. Of course talk of that kind has no good part in conversation: it is the slave of ignorance and bad character. I might, however, ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... me to send you a copy. You delight me much by telling me that I am in your good graces, and more particularly as to temper; for, unluckily, I have the reputation of a very bad one. But they say the devil is amusing when pleased, and I must have been more venomous than the old serpent, to have hissed or stung in your company. It may be, and would appear to a third person, an incredible thing, but I know you will believe me when I say, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... every allowance for these changes of mood, which, if they were trying at times—and certainly they were trying—were interesting also and amusing. He knew what an affliction the sensitive, nervous, artistic temperament is; what a power of suffering it hides beneath the more superficial power to be pleased; and he pitied the Boy, who was an artist in every sense. He also ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... was aware that caring about sitting together was treated by the elders as egregious folly; but a promise was a promise with her, and she held staunchly to her purpose, though between Dolores and Miss Vincent she lost all those delightful asides which enhanced the charms of the amusing parts of the penny reading and beguiled the duller ones—of which there were many, since it was more concert than penny reading, people being rather shy of committing themselves to reading—Hal, Mr. Pollock ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... too amusing? I brought him up as much to help dear Chad as for any other reason. But he is incorrigible at times and I fear I shall have to send him back to his mother. I thought the livery might increase his self-respect, but it only seems ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of the Paris Opera. You might think you were going into a place of entertainment! And, as a fact, you are! This affair, with nearly four thousand clerks, is the huge toy and pastime of a group of millionaires who have discovered a way of honestly amusing themselves while gaining applause and advertisement. Within the foyer and beyond the staircase, notice the outer rooms, partitioned off by bronze grilles, looming darkly gorgeous in an eternal windowless twilight studded with the beautiful glowing green disks of electric-lamp shades; and under each ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... attempting once or twice to tease Diana, in a boy's offhand manner. That small person, however, had become conscious of the fact that Enoch was not interested in her, and she had withdrawn into herself with a pride and self-control that was highly amusing to her father. Nor did she ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... proud of Ary Scheffer than of any of her really great sons. It is Ary Scheffer's statue—not Albert Cuyp's or Nicolas Maes's—which rises in the centre of the town; and Ary Scheffer's sentimental and saccharine inventions fill three rooms in the museum. It is amusing in the midst of this riot of meek romanticism to remember that Scheffer painted Carlyle. Dort has no right to be so intoxicated with the excitement of having given birth to Scheffer, for his father was a German, a mere sojourner ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... The amusing mistake which gave rise to this episode in the lower house of Congress would be unworthy of the notice I have taken of it, except that it illustrates the virulent and vindictive spirit which occasionally burst forth for some time after the close of the war, ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... "Ordinary mortals have to take what they can get. Still, I suppose such things are only a matter of personal disposition. If one has the mood for enjoyment, one can find it anywhere; if not—well, a funeral or a comedy would be equally amusing." ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... they saw the Joseph Skupa puppets, and at this stage, Ilya Simonov found only great amusement at the political innuendoes involved in half the skits. It would never had one in Moscow or Leningrad, of course, but here it was very amusing indeed. There was even a caricature of a security police minister who could only have been his superior ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... doomed. What would they say if they knew the number and power of the ABOLITIONISTS OF THE SOUTH,—a body of no trifling significance, whose fierce grasp will yet be felt on the throat of rebellion and of slavery? It is grimly amusing to think of the aid which the South counted on receiving from these Northern dough-faces,—little thinking that within itself it contained a counter-revolutionary party, far more dangerous than the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and the populace threw off all restraint. Yet I still continued to walk quietly amidst the hootings of the vulgar; and a taste for botany, which I had begun to contract with Doctor d'Ivernois, making my rambling more amusing, I went through the country herbalising, without being affected by the clamors of this scum of the earth, whose fury was still augmented by my calmness. What affected me most was, seeing families of my friends, or of persons who gave themselves that name, openly ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Michael, sometimes from Alicia. The young lady's letter rarely contained more than a few curt lines informing him that her papa was well; and that Lady Audley was in very high spirits, amusing herself in her usual frivolous manner, and with her usual disregard for ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... to remember it perfectly. But I thought your complaint was that there was nothing at all amusing to ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... be fun to you, but it will be most amusing to Mrs. Harris. I do wish Daniel would come in. Where can ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick in condemning them." It was amusing to notice how the consequential Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of the capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock Holmes's face, I could see that the speech had not been ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been amusing if Mr. Bilkins had not spent the greater part of the previous forenoon in initiating Mr. O'Rourke into the mysteries of the thermometer. Nothing could make amusing Mr. O'Rourke's method of setting out crocus bulbs. Mr. Bilkins had ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... richer, and the finish more exact. Both Don Quixote and Sancho are brought before us like such living realities, that at this moment the figures of the crazed, gaunt, and dignified knight, and of his round, selfish, and most amusing esquire, dwell bodied forth in the imagination of more, among all conditions of men throughout Christendom, than any other of the creations of human talent. In this work Cervantes has shown himself of kindred to all times and all lands, to the humblest as well as to the highest degrees of cultivation, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... thought this highly probable, and the two remained silent for some time, watching, from an elevated position on the road leading down to the sands, the ever-changing and amusing scene below. Talk of a pantomime, indeed! No Christmas pantomime ever got up in the great metropolis was half so amusing or so grand as that summer pantomime that was performed daily on Newlyn sands, with admission to all parts of the house—the stage included—for nothing! ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... were not forgotten. There are numerous charges for coals, with an amusing apology for their use in winter "because the place was so cold"; and for juniper to fumigate (ad suffumigandum). Brooms are bought to clean the library, and fox-tails to dust ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... strangely was that they should be living in this happy state away out there on the sea, a long distance from land, really burrowing in the snow for shelter, and roaming about for food like beasts of prey, and yet enjoying themselves and amusing themselves after the fashion of civilized human beings, so far as their relations ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... pretty one. She was therefore intitled to all the privileges of prettiness; and, it must be acknowledged, that she enjoyed them to a very animated extent. In the curious memoirs of French private life, from Plessis Les Tours down to St Evremond and Marmontel—and certainly—more amusing and dexterous dissections of human nature, at least as it is in France, never existed—our cooler countrymen often wonder at the strange attachments, subsisting for half a century between the old, who were nothing but simple fireside friends after all; and even between the old and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... in which he tried, getting both his fore-paws against it, was most amusing, the more so that there was not the slightest possibility of success attending his efforts, for his neck, which the collar fitted pretty closely, was small, and his bullet head ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... the story sounds dull; but suggests the possibility of its containing an agreeable surprise. An amusing anecdote to ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the inn at Portland. The Kentuckians are a fine tall race of men; but, tall as they are in general, the landlord, Mr. Jim Porter, surpassed them all in height, standing 7 feet 9 inches without his shoes. This is the same individual of whom Dickens gave an amusing account in his American notes ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
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