DICTIONARY ONE.COM • More 'Humor' Quotes from Famous Books

... from feeling it. He had the natural Oriental gift of smothering excitement, added to a trick learned from the West of aggressive self-restraint that is not satisfied with seeming the opposite of what one is, but insists on extracting humor from the situation and on calling attention ...

— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... their children to these tables as to schools of temperance; here they were instructed in state affairs by listening to experienced statesmen; here they learnt to converse with pleasantry, to make jests without scurrility, and take them without ill humor. In this point of good breeding, the Lacedaemonians excelled particularly, but if any man were uneasy under it, upon the least hint given there was no more to be said to him. It was customary also for the eldest man in the company to say to each of them, as they came in, "Through this" (pointing ...

— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... ceded in nothing to the worker and scientist. Good, affable, generous, he joined liveliness and good humor with courage and energy. Incessantly occupied with the prosperity and grandeur of his country, he knew that true patriotism does not consist in putting forth vain declamations, but in endeavoring to accomplish useful and ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... the situation redolent with comedy. He had a quick eye for such matters; so quick an eye that he deplored on the present occasion her ladyship's entire lack of a sense of humor. But for that lamentable shortcoming, she might have enjoyed with him the grotesqueness of her having—she, who disliked him so exceedingly—toiled and anguished, robbed herself of sleep, and hoped and prayed with more fervor, perhaps, than she ...

— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... what Arthur Young did for France a few years earlier, or to take an apter parallel, what President Dwight did for New England. His careful observations, relieved of tedium by a rare charm of style, his sweetness of temper, quiet humor, his love of nature and of man all combine to make his "Travels" a work that would be accorded a conspicuous place in the literature of any country. An English translation will appear in the ...

— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... factory, where an explanation is made to the men. Mr. Brent receives a check for a month's wages in advance, and a vacation. Mr. Wilmarth looks on with a sardonic suavity, saying little, and betraying surprise rather than ill-humor, but he hates Floyd Grandon to the last thread. The man has come between him and all his plans. No mere money can ever make up to ...

— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... have, perhaps, redeemed my soul), and be pure as a lily for my lover I would not hesitate a moment! What sort of devotion has rewarded mine? You have housed and fed me, just as you give a dog food and a kennel because he is a protection to the house, and he may take kicks when we are out of humor, and lick our hands as soon as we are pleased to call to him. And which of us two will ...

— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... existence of three portraits, one by Gilbert Stuart, one by Copley, and a third by an unknown artist. From these likenesses one gains an impression of his kindly gray eye, firm countenance, and robust figure. His keen sense of humor relieved the strain of many a hardship in the life of the frontier, for he is remembered as "noble-looking, warm-hearted, and witty, with a deep laugh, sweet voice, and fine rich eye, as he used to lighten the way with his ...

— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... and ingenuous, rather went to redeem this quality of face. Under his wide and flapping sombrero peered the front lock of his straight, black hair. Even before he smiled, Judge Tiffany marked him as a pleasing youth withal; and when he did smile, eyes and mouth so softened with good humor that stern authority went from the face of Judge Tiffany. He stood in that embarrassment which an old man feels sometimes in the presence of a younger one, struggled for a word to cover ...

— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... not stop him. Frowning had no effect, and toward the end of his outburst I even protested in words. But it was no use. He spoke quickly, and he spoke very loudly, and not a word was lost on Bainbridge. Bainbridge had a fine sense of humor; but like many other humorists, he did not relish jocosities of which he was the subject. Any levity in any manner connected with Hili-li, I knew would be to him unendurable. He had from the beginning taken the Peters disclosures, and even the old sailor himself, very seriously. Little ...

— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... betrayed a complete incredulity. "Mrs. Packard? a woman of such strong good sense! I think you must have been misled by some foolish attempt at humor on her part. Does she know that you have come to me with ...

— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... dollars—as large a "killing" as he had ever made in any single day, one large enough to elevate him to the rank of prince among the "sure-thing snides." He said nothing about his luck to his family, but let them attribute his unprecedented good humor to the news he brought and ...

— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... Arthur and Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humor asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge. And then he cried, till he laughed again, and laughed and cried together, ...

— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... not in the best of humor myself, and began to feel that the Doctor was getting the ...

— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... When he seemed on the verge of insanity a friend, Bowling Green, took him to his own home and nursed him back to health, and the grief settled into that temperamental melancholy, which, relieved only by his humor, was part of the deep mystic there was in him, part of the prophet, the sadness that so early baptised him in the tragedy of life, and taught him to pity ...

— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... young men bucketing about big pastures in the moonlight. But as it was given, very softly at that bad time in that terrible camp of death, it was the one thing in the world that could have restored, as it did restore, shaken men back to their pride, humor, and self-control. [Cheers.] This may be an extreme instance, but it is not an exceptional one. Any man who has had anything to do with the service will tell you that the battalion is better for music at every turn, happier, more easily handled, with greater zest in its daily ...

— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... to Alcibiades. Alcibiades, to do him justice, admired and understood virtue in others, however small the share of it he contrived to keep for himself. It is impossible to read that wonderful compound of dramatic humor and philosophic thought, Plato's "Banquet," without being moved by the generous and impassioned eulogy which Alcibiades, in the fulness of his heart and of his wine, pours out upon the austere virtue of Socrates. Such as Alcibiades is there described we may suppose ...

— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... was in a lovely humor when Alexander came around. It was close and hot, and, after buying sondaes at the drug store on the corner below, Alexander suggested riding out and strolling along some of the paths of Druid Hill Park. He put it humbly, but he was most blithe and ...

— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... orders, ribbons, and wreaths given him than all the lieutenants put together; but even the prospect of such a triumph could not make him ambitious, and for the first time this evening the beautiful excited girl left him looking out of humor, and glanced at him in a way which was not merely sorrowful but reproachful. Paul, on the other hand, was happy. He kept more than ever near the pretty insignificant girl with whom he had danced so much, and the good-hearted fellow did not ...

— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... two strangely-assorted friends had returned to Mr. Hamlin's rooms previous to Gideon's departure, the former, in a manner more serious than his habitual cynical good-humor, began: "I said I had to talk business with you. The boys about here want to build a church for you, and are ready to plank the money down if you'll say it's a go. You understand they aren't asking you to run in opposition to that Gospel sharp—excuse me—that's ...

— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... then related to his wondering companion the history of the mummery and incantations of which she had been a distant spectator. Le Bourdon's heart was light, after his hazards and escape, and his spirits rose as his narrative proceeded. Nor was pretty Margery in a mood to balk his humor. As the bee-hunter recounted his contrivances to elude the savages, and most especially when he gave the particulars of the manner in which he managed to draw whiskey out of the living rock, the girl joined in his merriment, and ...

— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... room in which Mr. Delora was supposed to be, to remain there concealed, and to await this attack which, for some reason or other, they were expecting. And then, as the possibilities connected with such an event spread themselves out before me, my sense of humor suddenly asserted itself, and, to Louis' amazement, I laughed in his face. I came back from this world of fanciful figures, of mysterious robberies, of attempted assassinations, to the world of every-day things. It was Louis—the maitre d'hotel, ...

— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... parents, and to tell you with alarming assurance just how and when to do things, both at home and abroad. Fortunate, indeed, are the parents who have come to this critical stage in their education equipped with a sense of humor. ...

— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... of sarcastic humor passed over the placid countenance of Miss Incledon, but she made ...

— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... "It seems you don't know me yet. That was a frolic, indulged in out of humor, for your benefit. You see, your role demanded a good deal more ability than you ever displayed in it, and it did not seem fitting that a very puritanical and priggish person should pose as me at Silverdale. The little affair was the one touch of verisimilitude about the thing. No ...

— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... something in her manner so reminiscent of the school teacher reprimanding a recalcitrant pupil that Mr. Snyder's sense of humor came to his rescue. "We do our best, Mrs. Pickett," he said. "But you mustn't forget that we are only human and cannot ...

— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... The humor of the remark made every one smile, and Jeb gazed from one to the other to find out just where he ...

— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... reply, but thought, with grim humor, that running an automobile over Lake Carlopa would be no small feat. Mr. Damon, however, knew what ...

— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... laughed. "I have heard his lordship has a pretty sense of humor, and never fails, when opportunity offers, ...

— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... It was perhaps not sufficiently lofty and intellectual, and did not confine itself rigorously to one exalted subject. But how it did raise one's spirits and open up curious vistas! And how good tempered and humorous it was, even though sometimes the humor was a little bewildering! During the whole dinner there never occurred even one of those dreadful pauses in which dead silence fell, and one tried, like a frightened hen flying from side to side of a coop, to think ...

— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... She looked at the handsome Calyste without ill-humor; but a first spasm of jealousy seized her, and she felt the dreadful madness of rivalry when she came in sight of the two Parisian women, and suspected the cause of ...

— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... the grim humor of the method they had adopted to do me this great honor, but that there was any hoax in the reality of the title they had conferred upon me was readily disproved by the sincerity of the congratulations that were heaped upon ...

— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Richardson, the meticulous inventor of the epistolary novel, but the past-mistress of sensational romance who is credited with originating the English domestic novel. Compared with the delicate perceptions and gentle humor of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen, Mrs. Haywood's best volumes are doubtless dreary enough, but even if they only crudely foreshadow the work of incomparably greater genius, they represent an advance by ...

— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... Plunger, who had been asked that day to do a large amount of extra work by the cadets, and was consequently in no good humor. "I ain't half as much off as you are, you young rascal!" He grabbed Codfish by the arm. "You jest pick up them magazines and put 'em in my arms ag'in, or ...

— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... night, which is no small matter. One is often disqualified for enjoying the woods after he gets there by the loss of sleep and of proper food taken at seasonable times. This point attended to, one is in the humor for any enterprise. ...

— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... be the popular indoor and outdoor sport for girls in these days," he returned with good humor. "Just a moment ago you were raising the very devil with that fellow up there with your eyes. Of course, practice makes perfect. But you're a good, kind girl in your heart. Don't make ...

— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... fact he did not understand Dick at all; nor could he comprehend his imperturbable good-humor. There were several things that he had said which would have offended most boys; but Dick met them with a careless good-humor, and an evident indifference to Roswell's good opinion, which piqued and ...

— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... thought. His voice was deep and pleasant, his diction and expression perfect, his thoughts, clothed in finished sentences, were entertainingly expressed and at times exhibited a rich vein of the choicest humor. He was the leading member of the conference—certainly the brainiest—and it fell to his lot to deliver the most important address ...

— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... work in Helen's chamber. Patiently and earnestly, with their stiff old fingers, they were trying to forge the required note. They made failure after failure, but they improved little by little all the time. The pity of it all, the pathetic humor of it, there was none to see; they themselves were unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon the notes and spoiled them; sometimes a single misformed word made a note risky which could have been ventured but for that; but at last Hannah produced one whose script was a good enough ...

— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... action. They belong to the same world; they are pillars of the same church, though they uphold its starry roof from opposite sides. Burns was much the rarer man; precisely because he had most of common nature on a grand scale; his humor, his passion, his sweetness, are all his own; they need no picturesque or romantic accessories to give them due relief: looked at by all lights they are the same. Since Adam, there has been none that approached nearer fitness to stand up before God and angels in the naked majesty of manhood than ...

— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... night when Mr. Pontellier returned from Klein's hotel. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits, and very talkative. His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. He talked to her while he undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that he had gathered during the day. From his trousers pockets he took a fistful ...

— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... "Humor is the salt of life," smiled Mrs. Saxon. "We may just as well get all the fun out of the little daily happenings. Even 'the ...

— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... answer, she turned and led the way to the parlor. Annie followed, as if across the foundation of the fallen wall of Jericho; and found, to her surprise, that Mrs. Macintosh, knowing her by sight, received her with condescension, and Annie, grateful for the good-humor which she took for kindness, told her simply that she had come to see whether she would accept her ...

— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald

... had sat throughout this conversation, making buttonholes in a new gray percale. Once, when Nell was back at the sink, she reached out a wavering, fat old arm, and gave Myra's apron-string a tug, as a bad child pulls a cat's tail in a sort of impish humor. Her eyes, blue and shining as a child's saucer, looked very wise. A little laugh clucked ...

— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... nothing worse. And, in the constant view, the most objectionable phase of grandeur is that of extent; the worst phase of extent, that of distance. It is at war with the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion—the sentiment and sense which we seek to humor in 'retiring to the country.' In looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot help feeling abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid ...

— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook was in too vicious a humor to give her anything to eat with it. It was always safe and easy to vent her spite on Sara. Really, it was hard for the child to climb the three long flights of stairs leading to her attic. She often found them ...

— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... not till I had caught the last glimpse of him, as he disappeared over a knoll, did I awake to my duty as a sportsman, and realize what an opportunity to distinguish myself I had unconsciously let slip. I clutched my gun, half angrily, as if it was to blame, and went home out of humor with myself and all fox-kind. But I have since thought better of the experience, and concluded that I bagged the game after all, the best part of it, and fleeced Reynard of something more valuable than his fur, ...

— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... said, and his voice was kind but firm; one might almost say there was a hint of humor in it, and there surely was a twinkle in his eye; but the sternness of his lips belied it, and the minister was in no state to appreciate humor—"Mr. Parson, we've brought you here to do you good, an' you oughtn't to complain. This is altruism, an' we're but actin' out what ...

— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... same night the guard of the Thirty-third Ohio turned out slowly, and some of them were found to have stolen off to their quarters. The General was still in a bad humor. "Where is the officer of the day?" he asked. "At his quarters, sir," replied a sergeant. "Present him the compliments of the General commanding, and tell him if he does not come to the guard-tent at once, I will send a file of soldiers after him." The officer appeared ...

— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... writings. We read his character in every page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevolence that beams throughout his works; the whimsical, yet amiable views of human life and human nature; the unforced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melancholy; even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and softly-tinted style, all seem to ...

— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... the music, Always made me—and no doubt makes you—sick. Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, 800 She that kept it in constant good humor, It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, And my head's one that its spite was spent on; Thirty years are fled since that morning, 805 And with them all my head's adorning. Nor did the old Duchess ...

— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... if any man in the world is to draw an eye, here's the man to do it, surely! With a hand which can give lessons to John Bellini, and a care which would fain do all so that it can't be done better, and acquaintance with every crack in the cranium, and every humor in the lens,—if we can't draw an eye, we should just like to know who ...

— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... to find what each volume contains." Thus: The first volume contains (reading down), a great many fables, many fairy stories and much folk lore, a few myths and old stories, a little biography, some biblical or religious material, selections that may be classified under the heads of nature, humor and poetry; but there is no account of legendary heroes, no travel and adventure, no history, nothing of a patriotic nature and no drama. On the other hand (reading across), there are many fables in the first volume, a few in the second but none thereafter; ...

— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... obey the latter. This will place him on the safe side of practice. We always know where to look for the real Scientist, and always find him there. I agree [10] with Rev. Dr. Talmage, that "there are wit, humor, and enduring vivacity ...

— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... reflect the characteristics of the writer: the same vivid imagination, the quick transition from pathos to humor, the facility of utterance, the wholesome sentiment, the purity of thought, the delicacy of touch, the spontaneous wit which has endeared Myrtle Reed to ...

— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... a smooth-faced boy, not as heavy as Jake Dennison by twenty pounds, had "faced down" and quelled the Dennisons all three together, and kept Jake Dennison from going where he wanted to go, struck the humor of the trustees, and they stood by their teacher almost unanimously, and even voted to pay for a new door, which he had offered to pay for himself, as he said he might have to chop it down again. Not that there was not some hostility ...

— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... agreed to do the next day, the seventh day since the case came under my management, and the fourteenth day from the beginning of the disease. The sick man was out of humor. To my question, "Would you like something to eat!" he drawled, "Na-a-aw! I never intend to eat any more; but I would like to know when my bowels are going to move." Of course I could not tell him any more than I had told him before, namely, that under such circumstances ...

— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... two of the party, Mitchell and New, concluded to tarry awhile in order to gratify their humor for hunting. But Kit Carson, with the remainder of the mountaineers, continued on their course, and, in three days time, were safely lodged within the walls of the Fort. One week subsequently, Mitchell and New followed their companions to the Fort, but in a sad plight. They had ...

— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... finished a long discussion with the pilot and was not in the best of humor, looked ...

— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sat down to the table. The king was so happy that he ate enough for four. As for Carlino, who kept his eyes fixed on his bride, he cut his thumb five or six times in a fit of absent-mindedness, which each time put him in the best humor imaginable. Everything gives us pleasure when the heart ...

— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... which cannot wholly perish while any fragment of her sculptured walls nods to its shadow in the canal; I had been penetrated by a deep sense of the mystery of the place, and I had been touched already by the anomaly of modern life amid scenes where its presence offers, according to the humor in which it is studied, constant occasion for annoyance ...

— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... commissioned to make the desired changes in the libretto, cutting it down to two acts from three. The conference lasted until one in the morning, when, the point being gained, the Prince ordered supper to be brought in. Being Germans and musicians, they finished the night in the utmost good humor, Beethoven being the best natured of all, once his consent to the revision ...

— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... by some three or four years. Her face was round but worn, and expressed that tolerant but anxious good humor which is the special attribute of elder sisters in large families. Her pleasant brown eyes resembled Ralph's, save in expression, for whereas he seemed to look straightly and keenly at one object, she appeared to be in the habit of considering everything from many ...

— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... was fortunate. Wabi, who possessed a Caucasian sense of humor, shook with merriment as he gave his assistance, and Rod, after he had dug the snow from his eyes and ears and had emptied a handful of it from his neck, joined ...

— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... Indians." This lawless trade of the Caughnawagas went on even in time of war; and opposed as it was to every principle of Canadian policy, it was generally connived at by the French authorities as the only means of obtaining the goods necessary for keeping their Indian allies in good humor. ...

— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... thirds the size of Cloud, and lacked both the height and breadth of shoulder that made West's popular nickname of "Out" West seem so appropriate. Clausen's threat was so absurd that Cloud came back to good humor with a laugh, and even ...

— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... to you," said Cap'n Abe. "They're pretty average funny I do guess to a stranger, as ye might say. But after you've summered 'em and wintered 'em for twenty-odd years like I have, land sakes! the humor's worn ...

— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... latter came nearer to the truth than the former. No great popular leader had in him less of the true ring of the demagogue. He saw, of course, that a statesman cannot oppose the popular will beyond a certain point, and may have to humor it in order that he may direct it. Now and then, in his later days, he so far yielded to his party advisers as to express his approval of proposals for which he cared little personally. But he was too self-absorbed, too eagerly interested in the ideas that suited his own cast of thought, ...

— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce

... these into English and to leave out all but those that were likely to be agreeable to my vanity. Of these I remember but a single sentence, and that because it was expressed with felicity. The reviewer said of the fun in "The Hoosier School-Master:" "This is humor laughing to keep ...

— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... should find that you still continue to play, and should have to separate you, will you move into your new seats pleasantly, and with good humor, feeling that I ...

— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... The situation was aggravated by the state of my exchequer. I expected an ultimatum from my banker by every post. Yet this influence was nothing to the other. It was Raffles I loved. It was not the dark life we led together, still less its base rewards; it was the man himself, his gayety, his humor, his dazzling audacity, his incomparable courage and resource. And a very horror of turning to him again in mere need of greed set the seal on my first angry resolution. But the anger was soon gone out of me, and when at length Raffles ...

— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... suit kept Whistler in ill-humor for a long time, while Moore continued to be a special object of aversion. The two avoided each other. But, as some philosopher has said, if you remain long in Paris you will meet all your friends and all your enemies. So it fell out that ...

— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz

... this little kingdom is unknown, but Patience herself lived among the glories of the heavens and the beauties of the earth which she had created. Probably she may have had a humorous conception of this, for she was not lacking in a sense of humor. The stone step that led to her private door she had skillfully painted with faint brown spots, so that when visitors made their exit from this part of the house they would say, "Why, it rains!" but Patience would laugh and say, "I guess it is over ...

— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Hiram," said the visitor, "and for that reason I like it, though I don't laugh. There is no danger of your becoming famous if you stick to humor of ...

— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... his good-humor had returned. At least there was no immediate danger of his doing anything desperate. The nervous tension was over for the time being. Rising and going near ...

— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... and killed some Duks, which made one of my fellow travellers go no further. I seeing him taking such a resolution, I proferred some words that did not like him, giving him the character of a timourous, childish humor; so this did nothing prevaile with him, to the Contrary that had with him quite another isue then what I hoped for; ffor offending him with my words he prevailed so much with the others that he persuaded them ...

— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... angry or out of humor with you, Ivy. On the contrary, I feel as mild as a lamb, and I'm so razzle-dazzle-dizzled pleased with getting these buckets filled in spite of you girls, that ...

— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... occasion of offense, or encouraged the antipathy that he could perceive in Willie; but his patience, and gentleness, and intelligence, were a constant reproach to his rich young neighbor, who so continually wearied his friends by fretfulness and ill-humor, and who spurned all the efforts of his tutor, never trying to improve the privileges lavished upon him, but deeming it very hard that he should be expected to confine himself to books—"As if it were not punishment enough to carry about a ...

— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... friend, however, was now cordially welcomed by these unfortunate ecclesiastics, for such, in fact, the majority of them were. His presence seemed to them like a ray of light from the sun. His good humor, his excellent spirits, which nothing could repress, and his drollery kept them alive, and nothing was so much regretted by them as his temporary absences from time to time; for, in truth, he was their messenger, their steward, and their newsman—in fact, the only link that connected them ...

— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... This anthology of American Humor represents a process of selection that has been going on for more than fifteen years, and in giving it to the public it is perhaps well that the Editor should precede it with a few words of explanation as to its ...

— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... has been rewarded by commendation for his services to morality and condemnation for his buffoonery. The majority of Plautine critics have evinced too serious an attitude of mind in dealing with a comic poet. However portentous and profound his scholarship, no one deficient in a sense of humor should venture to approach a comic poet in a spirit of criticism. ...

— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... is particularly copious in his warnings to copyists and translators, cautioning them against the slightest negligence or inaccuracy, and promising them for faithfulness a passport to the glories of heaven. This shows that the author at least took the work seriously. That there is not a trace of humor in the book would doubtless recommend it to the dignified and lethargic orientals for whom it was written. Bokhari seemed to consider himself prophet, priest, and poet-laureate in one. The work has a high position in the ...

— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... protect the Princess from the machinations of Gabriel, that knave of purgatory. Lorry, at last recognizing the hopelessness of his suit, was ready to throw down his arms and abandon the field to superior odds. His presumption in aspiring for the hand of a Princess began to touch his sense of humor, and he laughed, not very merrily, it is true, but long and loudly, at his folly. At first he cursed the world and every one in it, giving up in despair, but later he cursed only himself. Yet, as he despaired and scoffed, ...

— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... recovered from her flurry, she explained matters to her associate. The girl's ill-humor quickly vanished once she understood the situation, and she willingly agreed to help retain the doll ...

— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... said Josh, with his grave good humor of the great man tolerating the antics of a mountebank, "you'll appreciate it wasn't the subject that was dull, but the ears. For the day'll come when everybody'll be thinking and talking about me most of ...

— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... same Israelite who had been sitting over the fire with the head-servants. He at once plunged into his story, telling it in his peculiar light-hearted style. He was so rich that the loss he might suffer did not trouble him enough to spoil his good-humor, and so honest that it was a pleasure to him to restore the stolen property to its rightful owner. Early that morning, so he told them, Hiram the groom had been to him to offer him a wonderfully large and splendid ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... company were fast assembling, in that high tide of good-humor which generally sets in at this crisis ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... unpleasant any longer if it only produces such unnatural gayety in others. At last, as a matter of self-defense, he puts on the armor of good humor, which alone is able to protect him from ...

— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... lace, was a charming hostess, and the girls were soon talking naturally and easily. Judith looked down the table at Nancy; she didn't want to look at her and yet she must. Nancy, radiating friendliness and good-humor, smiled at Judith as much as to say, "Isn't it jolly?" But Judith hardened her heart and pretended that she didn't see her. The ice-cream was delicious and the tiny cups of black coffee afterwards made them feel very grown-up, and every one but ...

— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... Reader,—This story is not to be a novel, as the world understands the word; and we tell you so beforehand, lest you be in ill-humor by not finding what you expected. For if you have been told that your dinner is to be salmon and green pease, and made up your mind to that bill of fare, and then, on coming to the table, find that it is beefsteak ...

— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... blood-poisoning. Even if it didn't kill you, it might easily cripple you for life by involving a joint. The trouble was with their logic, or rather with their premises. They were firmly convinced that the danger came from within, that there was a sort of morbid humor which must be allowed to escape, or it would be dammed up in the system with ...

— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... later I heard outside the command "Halt!" to a squad of soldiers. The doors opened and Javert reappeared, this time in the full uniform of an officer. For the moment I thought he had come with a firing squad and they were going to make short shrift of me. The grim humor of disposing of my case thus "directly" came home to me. But merely flicking the ashes from his cigarette, he glanced round the room without offering the slightest recognition, and then disappeared. How he made his change from civilian clothes so quickly I can't understand. ...

— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... little thing, anyhow," said Matilda Ann, who was standing before the looking-glass, in high good humor, with the new bonnet on, and turning her head from side to side, so that she could ...

— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... race, like the English or the German, without plenty of moisture in the air and in the soil. Good viscera and an abundance of blood are closely related to meteorological conditions, unction of character, and a flow of animal spirits, too; and I suspect that much of the dry and rarefied humor of New England, as well as the thin and sharp physiognomies, are climatic results. We have rain enough, but not equability of temperature or moisture,—no steady, abundant supply of humidity in the air. In places in Great Britain it is said ...

— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... physiology, I know little about the value of sex instruction. Yet however important sex instruction may be to those about to be married, there is one thing more important—character. Two people unselfish and considerate, tactful and warmhearted, and salted with humor, who are in love, have the most essential of all qualifications for a successful marriage—they have character. People about to be married need training in character much more than ...

— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... temples; her lips were pouting and provokingly suggestive of kisses. The whole face was of the type which comes so near to the ideal that the least sentimentality of expression would have spoiled it. Happily the big eyes and the ripe, red mouth were both suggestive of demure humor. There was a mirthful air about the dimple which came and went in the left cheek like Cupid peeping mischievously from the folds of his mother's robe. A boa of long-haired black fur lay carelessly about ...

— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... extraordinary in the skill with which it gets into that world of the boy so shut away from the adult world. It is entirely unlike anything else by Phillpotts, equal as it is to his other volumes in charm, character study, humor and interest. It is one of those books that every reader will want to recommend to his friends, and which he will only lend with the express proviso that it must be ...

— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... a pitiful surrender; For soon the Child, on whom the Evil Eye Seemed to exert an influence but slender, Would run to question him, till, by and by, His moody humor like a cloud dispersing, He found himself ...

— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... on his feet, and not so ill at ease. A Scottish court, high or low, civil or criminal, had a flavor all its own. Law points were threshed over with gusto, but counsel, client, and witness gained many a point by ready wit, and there was no lack of dry humor from the bench. About the Burgh court, for all its stately setting, there was little formality. The magistrate of the day sat behind a tall desk, with a clerk of record at his elbow, and the officer gave his testimony briefly: ...

— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... Malone decided as the bartender went off to get his drink, had no sense of humor. Back in Chicago—where he'd been more or less weaned on gin, and discovered that, unlike his father, he didn't much care for the stuff—and even in Washington, people didn't go around accusing you of drunkenness just because you made some harmless ...

— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett

... a laugh that she was the only true royalist at the imperial court of France. That was well enough for her in her days of flightiness and frivolity. No one, however, accused Queen Victoria of being frivolous, and she was not supposed to have a strong sense of humor. None the less, after listening to the skirling of the bagpipes and to the romantic ballads which were sung in Scotland she is said to have remarked ...

— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... denied a dancing-master, because she would not permit my learning along with him, though the entrance had been paid for us both; so all my father could do for me was to indulge me (and please himself) sometimes with a short lesson on the violin, when my mother was either in good humor or out of the way. Though I have often felt myself exceedingly at a loss for the want of those few accomplishments of which I was thus, by an erroneous though well-meant opinion of my mother, deprived, ...

— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... Bernard dog which reminded me much of my ideal. He was always sedate, always loving, and faithful; generally quiet. He only got excited when out in the elements.) I have not been able to get on with people who have no sense of humor. From my birth I was physically weak. First I suffered from eczema. Being born with a double squint, I was operated on at 21/2 and again at 31/2 years of age, with excellent result. From 4 to 12 years of age ...

— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... wouldn't be so overwhelmingly glad to see him when he came back—especially if he had got fat and bald-headed," she added, her face involuntarily twitching into a smile. Cecily, in spite of her serious expression and intense way of looking at life, had an irrepressible sense of humor. ...

— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... unselfishness. They felt it a great merit to be frugal and industrious that they might prosper; they prospered solely to their own advantage, but the advantage of persons so deserving through their frugality and industry seemed a kind of altruism; it kept them in constant good humor with themselves, and content with each other. They had risked a great deal in getting married on Pinney's small salary, but apparently their courage had been rewarded, and they were not finally without the sense ...

— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... lass in charge seized roughly, and at the risk of dislocating their little limbs, tossed into the air and caught, one on each of her own robust arms, and carried them off stupidly irritated—for want of a grain of humor—at the good-natured laugh this caused, and looking as if she would like to knock ...

— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... spring in the whole enclosure; but we try to make up for it by wells, or rather fountains. But along this wonderful shore you have only to dig a little and there oozes out at once—I cannot call it water, a humor rather, which is unsophisticated brine, on account of the sea so near by, I suppose. Those forests supply us with wood: Ostia supplies us with everything else that cannot be got in yonder village. You see how I live and enjoy myself, and you must be a very ingrained ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... The ill-humor of the senora increased every time the captain shouted "Port," "Starboard" to the sailors, who then hastily seized their poles and thrust them against the banks, thus with the strength of their legs and shoulders preventing the steamer from shoving its hull ashore at that particular point. Seen ...

— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... had determined him upon pressing his suit with Bertha. As he sat there he came to a most momentous conclusion. "Why not marry the girl and live honest?" he asked himself; and being moved by the memory of her sweetness and humor, he said, "I will," and the resolution filled his heart with a ...

— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... eyes of his race in all the generations, caught by looking skyward for a light that dawned not upon earth. His expression was sad, and the beautiful smile that illumined his face, radiating compassion, kindness, gentleness and the humor of the Kelt, made me think of a brilliant noontide ...

— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... error, he continued his tramp. His ill humor made the monument with which the Bourbon restoration had adorned the old cemetery of the Madeleine, appear uglier than ever to him. Time was passing, but she did not come. Every time that he turned, he looked hungrily at the entrances of the garden. And ...

— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... of Girlhood," full of incident and humor. The "Seven Daughters" are characters which reappear in some of Miss Douglas' later books. In this book they form a delightful group, hovering on the verge of Womanhood, with all the little perplexities of home life and love dreams as incidentals, ...

— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... will be thronged with unfortunate women and children, desiring situations. Better let me burn this, as I did the other, and not be foolish. She will never see it," and John made a gesture as if he would put it in the stove, but Anna caught his hand, saying imploringly: "Please humor me this once. She may see ...

— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... on a visit for a time because she could not at once bring her mind to be reconciled to him, that he could not quite actually believe this comer to be she. It was one of the features of Fitzpiers's repentant humor at this date that, on receiving the explanation of her absence, he had made no attempt to outrage her feelings by following her; though nobody had informed him how very shortly her departure had preceded his entry, and of all that might have been ...

— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... his Ensayo Historico-Critico, p. 388) quotes a popular satire of the fifteenth century, directed, with considerable humor, against these abuses, which lead the writer in the last stanza to envy even the summary style ...

— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... profligate result. To assist this purpose, while the girl's nearest relative was supposed to be taking care of her, was Mrs. Drumblade's idea of "fun." Her worst enemies admitted that the honorable Lavia had redeeming qualities, and owned that a keen sense of humor ...

— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to make a ring,—when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning the tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman, (who, by the way, should have had his sister,) balks his humor, and the pit's reasonable expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the new philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly caught,—their courage was up, and on the alert,—a few blows, ding dong, as R——s the dramatist afterwards expressed ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... By diligent execution of menial drudgery; by performing to some overlooker's satisfaction his daily toil; by careful obedience and subservience to these Jacks in office, themselves but servants, and yet whose malice or ill-humor might cause them to report him for the most trifling faults, or for none at all, and thereby destroy even this hope—he might be a free man in fifteen years! He would, even then, he was told, be still a young ...

— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... to go out his eye caught the look of a general officer who stood near, watching. He was a square, alert, vigorous man, his face bronzed by the suns of many African campaigns, his eyes full of intelligence, humor, and courage. It was Guillaumat, the new commander of the Army ...

— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... at the door of Rheims before they enter," remarked Madame Coudert with grim humor. "I did not ...

— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... that not till I had caught the last glimpse of him, as he disappeared over a knoll, did I awake to my duty as a sportsman, and realize what an opportunity to distinguish myself I had unconsciously let slip. I clutched my gun, half angrily, as if it was to blame, and went home out, of humor with myself and all fox-kind. But I have since thought better of the experience, and concluded that I bagged the game after all, the best part of it, and fleeced Reynard of something more valuable than ...

— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... could you expect young sap-heads like you boys to understand anything about a woman? I know what I'm talking about. A single woman never shows her true colors, but conceals her imperfections. The average man is not to be blamed if he fails to see through her smiles and Sunday humor. Now, I was forty when I married the second time, and forty-five the last whirl. Looks like I'd a-had some little sense, now, don't it? But I didn't. No, I didn't have any more show than a snowball in—Sis, hadn't you better retire. You're not interested in my talk to these boys.—Well, ...

— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... that invigorates and inspires whomsoever it touches. His laugh is the expression of his wholesome nature; his words are jewels of discrimination; his every sentence bears a helpful message; his fine sense of humor mellows and illumines every situation; and his face always shows forth the light within. Children find delight in his society, and the exuberant vitality of his nature wins for him the friendship of all living creatures. Birds seem to sing for him, ...

— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... nothing of Warren the next day, but on the day following he strode into the room, whistling in tuneless good humor. ...

— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... the corn, Drayne," broke in Hudson, with what he meant for good humor. "Just say you're no good and let it ...

— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock

... I possess a good share. I am never out of humor, never impatient, never mischievous, noisy, nor intrusive; and though I and my fellows cannot lay claim to brilliant powers either in word or deed, we may boast of the same qualifications as our wittiest king, for certainly none of us ever 'said ...

— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown

... read the greater part of them to Gertrude, who had resolved to be pleased out of good-will to Webb, and with the intention of aiding his cause. But she soon found herself expressing genuine wonder and delight at their simple, vigorous diction, their subtile humor, and the fine poetic images they often suggested. "Oh, Amy," she said, "I couldn't have believed it. I don't think he himself is aware of ...

— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... without degrading him in the public estimation) privately amused. Conscious of having honestly presented himself at the inn in Anne's interests, as well as in the interests of the ladies at Windygates, it appealed to his sense of humor to find himself kept at arm's-length by the very woman whom he had come to benefit. The temptation was strong on him to treat his errand from his own whimsical point of view. He gravely took out his watch, and noted the time to a second, before he ...

— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... plague of bolls. As a mere pastime, there was an occasional fight in the forecastle. Unhappily for the disputants, Stump had a ready ear for these frays, and he would rush in to settle them with a vigor that left the pugilists prostrate. Then he would recover his caustic humor for half an hour, and regale Royson with yarns of things wot happened when the Bed Sea was reelly hot. This weather was on'y warm. Why, once when he was aboard the Ocean Queen, her bunker gev' out six hours ...

— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader ...

— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... rumor that Alexandra, pleading a dread of copy-designing peeresses, guards with jealous vigilance the secret of her coronation crown, and gossip adds that she fears to have it duplicated by some enterprising American. It is doubtful if the peculiar humor of the British populace would allow of a full appreciation of this joke. Years and etiquette combined have led her Majesty to the thraldom of the rouge and enamel pot. Like the sensible woman that ...

— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... experiences as a private in the great war I have tried to put the emphasis on the things that seemed to me important. It is true I set out to write a book of smiles, but the seriousness of it all came back to me and crept into my pages. Yet I hope, along with the grimness and the humor, I have been able to say some words of cheer and comfort to those in the United States who are sending their husbands, their sons and brothers into this mighty conflict. The book, unsatisfactory as it is to me now that it is finished, at least holds my ...

— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat

... destruction, with a reasonably fair show of getting the thing covered up if I'm let alone, and now this fiend has gone and found me out somehow or other. I wonder how much she knows? Oh, oh, oh, it's enough to break a body's heart! But I've got to humor ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... whatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature; because that which is in it naturally would impede the knowledge of anything else. Thus we observe that a sick man's tongue being vitiated by a feverish and bitter humor, is insensible to anything sweet, and everything seems bitter to it. Therefore, if the intellectual principle contained the nature of a body it would be unable to know all bodies. Now every body has its own determinate ...

— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... at her quizzically, and seeing a slight gleam of humor in her fine eyes, he launched into the heart of ...

— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... again to me, sonny. I'm surely thick in the haid," soothed the intruder, and listened with bland good-humor to the ...

— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... that the Irish, notwithstanding a deep susceptibility of sorrow, are a light-hearted people; and this is strictly true. What, however, is the one fact but a natural consequence of the other? No man for instance ever possessed a higher order of humor, whose temperament was not naturally melancholy, and no country in the world more clearly establishes that point than Ireland. Here the melancholy and mirth are not simply in a proximate state, but frequently flash together, and again separate so quickly, that ...

— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... reached home, cannot tell by what route they got there. Jean de Muris reproved them in turn, saying: "You throw tones by chance, like boys throwing stones, scarcely one in a hundred hitting the mark, and instead of giving pleasure you cause anger and ill-humor." Machaut was born in Rethel, a province in Champagne, in 1284. He was still living in 1369. He was a poet and musician who occupied important positions in the service of several princes, and wrote a mass for the coronation ...

— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... humor, his fidelity to nature, and story-telling power lose nothing with years; and he stands at the head of those who are furnishing a literature for the young, clean and sweet in tone, and always of ...

— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... eaten a good dinner, was in a very agreeable humor when, that same evening, his wife brought up again the ...

— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... mother laugh. Mrs. McGregor had the good old Scotch sense of humor and when her flashing smile came it was always a delight to ...

— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... to notice:—"With me, as with every young man of a taste that way, he talked," etc.; "he was always booked up on all the fresh topics," etc.; "the sparkle and flash produced by a battle of brains"; "newspaper topics of erudition and magnificence"; "convulsive humor"; "severity sweetening all the courts through which he revolved"; "the maiden-mother,"—alluding to an unfortunate female witness who was a mother, though never married; "two names, chiefs at the bar, facile ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... bloody Jeffreys was in his bloodiest humor, he wore into court a red cap, which was the sure death warrant of those about to ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... part Indian. Dr. Jimmy didn't whoop. He visited and he'd get a jug of whiskey, call his niggers and give them a little, make them feel good and get them in a humor for working. Dr. Jimmy had a nigger overseer. They was digging a ditch and making a turnpike from Dr. Manson's place to Murfreesboro. They told grandpa to drive down in the ditch with his load of rock and let the white folks drive up on the dump. They was hauling and placing ...

— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... have to do it; but Bob is agin that kind of business, an' to humor him we must keep the ...

— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... half involuntary act? Indeed it was too aimless even to have been prompted by a conscious effort of the will. But this book is one of the least results of that momentary sweep of the eye. Another was, that Van Berg did not enjoy the symphony at all, and was soon in a very bad humor. That casual glance had revealed, not far away, a face that with his passion for beauty, at once riveted his attention. His slight start and faint exclamation, caused Ik Stanton to look around also, and then, with a mischievous and observant twinkle ...

— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... to Johnny Cass, so 't he wouldn't feel lonesome," she explained; and the tender bit of remembrance was followed out by the children for days afterward. Was it not enough to put us in a gentle humor? ...

— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... the well known Dom Jean de Watteville, the renegade Abbe of Baumes (1613-1703); small and very thin, rather deficient mentally; spent his life in a cabinet-maker's establishment "enjoying utter ignorance"; collected shells and geological specimens; usually in good humor. After living in the Comte, "like a bug in a rug," in 1815 he married Clotilde-Louise de Rupt, who domineered over him completely. As soon as her parents died, about 1819, he lived with her in the beautiful Rupt house on rue de la Prefecture, a piece of ...

— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... and privilege to die. Then, only then, would heaven think to lop Such a cedar as the captain o' the Splendid's main-top: A belted sea-gentleman; a gallant, off-hand Mercutio indifferent in life's gay command. Magnanimous in humor; when the splintering shot fell, "Tooth-picks a-plenty, lads; thank 'em ...

— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... good Scholer, this Song was well humor'd by the maker, and well remembred and sung by you; and I pray forget not the Ketch which you promised to make against night, for our Country man honest Coridon will expect your Ketch and my Song, which I must be forc'd to patch up, for it is so long since ...

— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... hinder the necessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined and scrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected ... that the critic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one's ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good humor" (letter to his mother, October 27, 1863). In addition to these virtues, which in Arnold's opinion comprised the qualities most requisite for salutary criticism, certain others are strikingly illustrated by Arnold's own mind ...

— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... a pleasant humor; undisturbed I'll leave thee to enjoy it. Hark, Duchatel! Ambassadors are here from old King Rene, Of tuneful songs the master, far renowned. Let them as honored guests be entertained, And unto each ...

— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... villagers that invariably swarm about us when we halt. In doing this he sometimes flogs about him pretty lively with the whip. As a general thing the natives take this sort of thing in the greatest good humor; in fact, ...

— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... (albeit a little galled at being, in spite of his elegant appearance, slipped into a back seat in the gallery,) remained to the close of the service—but his thoughts wandered grievously the whole time. Having quitted the church in a buoyant humor, he sauntered in the direction of Hyde Park. How soon might he become, instead of a mere spectator as heretofore, a partaker in its glories! The dawn of the day of fortune was on his long-benighted soul; and he could hardly subdue his excited feelings. Having ...

— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... by McGivney to fix himself up and pose as one of the martyrs of the night's affair, and this appealed to his sense of humor. He cut off the hair from a part of his head, and stuck some raw cotton on top, and plastered it over with surgical tape. He stuck another big wad of surgical tape across his forehead, and a criss-cross of it on his cheek, and tied up his wrist in an ...

— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... the objects, and then projected into them. However that may be, there is no doubt that the ability to make these responses is something that can be trained, and that some people are blind and deaf to beauty and humor that other people clearly perceive. Many a one fails to see the point of a joke, or is unable to find any humor in the situation, which are clearly perceived by another. Many a one sees only a sign of rain in a great bank of clouds, only a weary ...

— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... not in a humor for conversation. He wanted to think in peace. "Don't bother!" he called up. "I'm going to spend the night here. I'll ...

— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... stiff. The Major calls on Rowe To devise an entertainment. What his charger doesn't know Isn't in the regulations. Him 'n' Rowe is brothers met, 'N' that horse's sense iv humor ...

— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... social comedy, permeated with a refinement of spontaneous humor and brilliant with touches of shrewd and ...

— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... opera at the end. When I received the first chorus of my libretto by post (I composed the Siciliano in the prelude later) I said in great good humor to ...

— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... a measure recovered his good humor and was very respectful to the Captain. He addressed him instead of Ned when ...

— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson

... poor in the Dominion like the English poor—and share with the needy the harvests that are granted us. I have been thinking often of your helper, Lee, and as a beginning he could send you two families in the spring—we have room for them. And so, Ralph, if you will humor me in this I shall never be sorry to preside over Fairmead instead ...

— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... can get back of her patient's forehead and put her mind there and let it work from the patient's point of view, will learn a saving sense of humor, will be strict without antagonizing, will clear away a lot of mental clouds and help to make permanent the cure the ...

— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... the porch, and he sank into it, feeling like a criminal. There was a certain humor in the situation. Sanderson felt it, but could not appreciate it, and he sat, hunched forward, staring glumly into the dusk that had settled ...

— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... corner, was a man silent, serious. He lived intent, honest, upright. He seldom laughed; though when he did, there came at the corners of mouth and eye, tiny, tell-tale lines which showed that beneath seriousness and silence, lay a fund of humor unharmed by continual drain. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, straight-backed. And to that which had been left him, he added, in health, in mind, and in money, and he added wisely and well, and never at unjust expense ...

— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... turn. To tell the truth, I was getting a little warm. His face showed nothing like good-humor and friendliness. I waited ...

— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... and try to amuse him, as if that were his right. He gives his mother a great deal of trouble, by first wanting this and then that, and by uttering a great many expressions of discontent, impatience and ill-humor. Thus his accident is not only the means of producing inconvenience to himself, but it makes the whole family uncomfortable. This is boyishness of ...

— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott

... a tale," answered Bud, "and I don't mean maybe. Listen, Kid, and try to control your well-known faculties for humor 'til I get this ...

— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... began his public work with every promise of success. For a few months he preached with great power, and thousands flocked to hear him. Then came the waning of his popularity, and soon he was shut up in a prison, and in a little while was cruelly murdered to humor the whim of a ...

— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... by no means in a humor for play. People rarely are at five in the morning. She rushed about the house like a whirlwind, giving Mell directions, and scolding her in advance for all the wrong things she was going to do, till the poor child ...

— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... mastery over the boy's intellect and affections; and had brought him to think, as indeed Father Holt thought with all his heart too, that no life was so noble, no death so desirable, as that which many brethren of his famous order were ready to undergo. By love, by a brightness of wit and good-humor that charmed all, by an authority which he knew how to assume, by a mystery and silence about him which increased the child's reverence for him, he won Harry's absolute fealty, and would have kept it, doubtless, ...

— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... indeed, and he was sorely disappointed when told that, owing to a mistake, the wine had been carried to another part of the forest. But when Hagen pointed out a fresh spring at a short distance, all his wonted good humor returned, and he merrily proposed a race thither, offering to run in full armor, while the others might lay aside their cumbersome weapons. This challenge was accepted by Hagen and Gunther. Although heavily handicapped, Siegfried reached the spring first; but, wishing ...

— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... of the honors shown me by my fellow-townsmen, is it?" asked Lucien. All his melancholy had left him, his face was radiant with good humor. "If you knew mankind, Papa Sechard, you would see that no moment in one's life comes twice. Such a triumph as this can only be due to genuine enthusiasm! . . . My dear mother, my good sister, this wipes ...

— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... discipline of socialism or plutocracy, or despotic rule, whether by class or by dictator. Nor shall we be driven to these alternatives. Our ancient hopes, our courageous faith, our underlying good humor and love of fair play will triumph in the end. There will be give and take in all directions. There will be disinterested leadership, under loyalty to the best American ideals. Nowhere is this leadership more likely to arise than among the men trained in the ...

— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... masters fairly flocked into camp on many occasions. When near Lebanon, Ky., a bright darkey, very witty, kept the camp alive with his humor. During the day some Kentuckians had posted up in camp an advertisement: "One Hundred Dollars Reward. Ran away from the subscriber, my man Bob," etc. Jim Duncan, the darkey I have referred to, soon after issued the following, and posted it beside ...

— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... shouts and laughter. And the same incessant life which plays upon his face shows itself in every movement of his limbs. Never for a moment is he still unless he has some work upon his hands. He has his little routine of tasks, regularly assigned, which he goes through with the most amusing good-humor and attention. It is his duty to see that the skiffs are not jammed under the wharf on the rising tide; to sweep out the "Annie" when she comes in, and to set her cabin to rights; to set away the dishes after meals, and to feed the chickens. Aside from a few such tasks, his time in summer is his ...

— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... sweetest smiles, and the baby in her arms. And after she had made him remark how the child grew every day more and more like him, and after she had treated him to a number of compliments and caresses, which it were positively fulsome to exhibit in public, and after she had soothed him into good humor by her artless tenderness, she began to speak to him about some little points which she had ...

— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray

... experience with an English manservant. This was my bedroom steward, by name Lubly—William Lubly. My hat is off to William Lubly—to him and to all his kind. He was always on duty; he never seemed to sleep; he was always in a good humor, and he always thought of the very thing you wanted just a moment or two before you thought of it yourself, and came a-running and fetched it to you. Now he was softly stealing in to close my port. As he ...

— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... in to assist and superintend the toilet. So serious at the task, and so filled with a sense of its importance and the issues that were staked upon it was she and the maid also, that one would not dare think of the humor of the situation if Helen herself had not broken the spell by declaring that she felt like an Ashantee warrior being decked out for battle with plumes and war paint, or like Rinaldo, ...

— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... was in the best of humor that day, and when it was four o'clock, appeared in a smiling face, and dressed in it's best clothes. Chapman, I may also mention, forgot his misfortunes, and for once appeared neat and tidy, and in a happy mood. Indeed he had kissed and congratulated ...

— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... seemed angry at being disturbed in his meal. The boys happened to be "down the wind" from him, and this would explain how it was they came upon him apparently unawares. But when a wildcat is in a frightfully bad humor he does not run off very easily, and this one, according to what Uncle Jim had said, was unusually bold. He had proved this by approaching the cabin of the trapper on ...

— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie

... stop, when one has made a bull's-eye in any sort of achievement, I take it. And Tish is nobody's fool. She took off her spectacles and wiped the perspiration and gunpowder streaks from her face. She was immediately in high good humor. ...

— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... thumb to mark the number of times she had heard it, since Split and she had made a wager on it. Inwardly, though, she was nauseated by the thought that she was being laughed at. As nearly destitute as a Madigan could be of humor, she would so much rather have been flayed alive, she thought in the depths of her puritanical ...

— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... the Chilian mate, who had had no responsibility in this affair, and who was, consequently, not out of humor, proposed that he should go back with them, and take ...

— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... but thought, with grim humor, that running an automobile over Lake Carlopa would be no small feat. Mr. Damon, however, ...

— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... of grim humor in this suggestion of Young's that tickled my fancy; and it was, indeed, allowing for the quaintness of his phrasing of it, but an expression of my own thoughts. But my reflection was upon the curious incongruity ...

— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... was so vexed that she burst into tears, and retired. His first compliment when he saw her a little time afterwards was, "Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last?" To which she replied with the greatest good humor, "No, Mr. Dean; I will sing for you now, if you please." From this time he conceived the greatest esteem for her, and always behaved with the utmost respect. Those who knew Swift, took no offence at his bluntness of behavior. It seems Queen Caroline did ...

— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... grow up round religions. Yes: there are many reasons; and one of them is that children all like the story of Jonah and the whale (they insist on its being a whale in spite of demonstrations by Bible smashers without any sense of humor that Jonah would not have fitted into a whale's gullet—as if the story would be credible of a whale with an enlarged throat) and that no child on earth can stand moral instruction books or catechisms or any other statement of the case for religion in abstract terms. The object ...

— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... the cause of the massacre, I think he was the most out of humor that I ever saw him. He said, "Such men as the ones who fired on those Indians deserve to be shot, for they are not fit to live in any country," and turning to Bridger he said, "Jim, it has always been such men as they that has made ...

— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan

... glass, as usual, restored her good humor, and she started off to the ghostly rendezvous with her faithful attendant. They never talked very much when they were alone together, and this evening both were thoughtful. Maud had never taken this commerce with ghosts much to heart. She had a feeling, ...

— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... apronful to Cissy Mount. Poor Cissy! Guess there's hard times at her house since her father was killed on the railroad and her mother got lame. And you know she's going to ask for work, and it most always puts folks in good-humor if you carry 'em ...

— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... he said, and his voice was kind but firm; one might almost say there was a hint of humor in it, and there surely was a twinkle in his eye; but the sternness of his lips belied it, and the minister was in no state to appreciate humor—"Mr. Parson, we've brought you here to do you good, an' you oughtn't to complain. This is altruism, an' we're but ...

— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... surroundings, in our likes and dislikes, our opinions, and even in our pleasures and intimate tastes, is a delicate and interesting one, for the line between success and failure in the world, as on the stage or in most of the professions, is so narrow and depends so often on what humor one's "public" happen to be in at a particular moment, that the subject is worthy ...

— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... small piercing eyes, deep-set beside a hawk's-beak nose, twinkled from under the rim of his brown straw hat, whose crown was defiantly surmounted by a cock's feather. But he was exceedingly jolly withal, and welcomed the Yankees with pompous good-humor, despatching a sergeant for a jug of applejack, which was doubtless as inexpensive to the major as his other hospitality. Having been a prisoner at Chicago, he prided himself on his knowledge of dungeon etiquette and the military courtesies due ...

— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... and human enigma seemed to be represented. There were languid beauties of the Latin type whose drooping eyes might have expressed ennui, passion, pride—anything, in fact, that one's humor chose to fancy; the blonde by adoption was there, with heavy ear-rings of jet, whose habit was that of looking slant-wise through her cigarette smoke and raising one black, though carefully plucked, eyebrow; also ...

— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... poet, in the person of Alexander Smith, but, unlike Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish about him beyond his place of birth. "It is not," says one of his reviewers, "Scottish scenery, Scottish history, Scottish character, and Scottish social humor, that he represents or depicts. Nor is there," it continues, "any trace in him of that feeling of intense nationality so common in Scottish writers. London," as it adds, "a green lane in Kent, an English forest, an English manorhouse, these are the scenes where ...

— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey

... half in humor, the chief answered, "Suppose we were to set him on the farther shore of the Potomac, do you love him well ...

— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... of the poems abound in playful humor or tender touches of sympathy which appeal to a refined feeling, and love for the good, ...

— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... zealous companions. They worked with confidence, even gaily, Pencroft always having some joke to crack, sometimes carpenter, sometimes rope-maker, sometimes mason, while he communicated his good humor to all the members of their little world. His faith in the engineer was complete; nothing could disturb it. He believed him capable of undertaking anything and succeeding in everything. The question of ...

— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... moon, wended their way homeward. They sat in their carriage and thought over the results of the day. Both were tired and kept silent. Chubikoff was always unwilling to talk while traveling, and the talkative Dukovski remained silent, to fall in with the elder man's humor. But at the end of their journey the deputy could hold in no ...

— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... Constance adapted herself to them and thereby won his confidence and gained an influence over him which, however, she brought into play only when the occasion demanded. When he was thinking out a work, he was absent-minded, and at such times she always was ready to humor him, and even cut his meat for him at table, as he was apt during such periods of abstraction to injure himself. But when he had a composition well in mind, to put it on paper seemed little more to him than copying; and then he loved to have her sit by him and tell him stories—yes, ...

— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... the one who had asked her name was her wicked grandfather: that her grandfather was a wicked man Bessie had quite made up her mind. Mr. John Short admired her behavior. It did not chafe his dignity or alarm him for the peace of his future life. But Mr. Fairfax was not a man of humor; he saw no fun whatever in his prospects with that intrepid child, who had evidently inherited not the Fairfax face only, but the warm ...

— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... since? Who has not felt the charm of her frank, easily flowing talk, her inexhaustible spirits, her good-humored, gracious sociability of manner? Where is the modern hermit who is not familiarly acquainted, by hearsay at least, with the fantastic novelty and humor of her opinions; with her generous encouragement of rising merit of any sort, in all ranks, high or low; with her charities, which know no distinction between abroad and at home; with her large indulgence, which no ingratitude can discourage, ...

— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... a step closer and peered sharply into Bill's face, with all the easy good humor wiped ...

— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... the animal and the reptile tribes were imitated with a fidelity that was amazing. In addition, the renditions were interspersed with droll and lively comments by Larry that added immensely to the humor of the performance. When at last it was over, the boys broke out into enthusiastic hand-clapping that would have warmed Larry's heart, had he been ...

— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... fast among the thorns, the good servant's humor so tempted him that he took up his fiddle and began to play. In a moment the Jew's legs began to move, and to jump into the air, and the more the servant fiddled the better went the dance. But the thorns tore his shabby coat from him, combed his beard, ...

— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... "strong" for pep—a little word with a big significance. Vigor, enthusiasm, sense of humor, attack, forcefulness—all of these qualities are summed up ...

— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... the poet of the North Sea Plain: he discovered its peculiar beauty. While the tragic note predominates, joy and humor nevertheless abound, and at the beginning of his poems Storm himself significantly placed his Oktoberlied, written in the political gloom and uncertainty of the fall of 1848. While realizing fully its ...

— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... "Oh, that can't be all!" She sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her—but her behavior may as well go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side window, ...

— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... a cup of coffee after dressing warmly, and went up. Carlsen and the girl had preceded him and were gazing at the iceberg. The doctor seemed to be in the same rare vein of humor as overnight. Lund stood at the rail with his beak of a nose wrinkled, snuffing toward the icy crags that were spouting a dazzle of white flame, set about with smaller, sudden flares ...

— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... pastures in the moonlight. But as it was given, very softly at that bad time in that terrible camp of death, it was the one thing in the world that could have restored, as it did restore, shaken men back to their pride, humor, and self-control. [Cheers.] This may be an extreme instance, but it is not an exceptional one. Any man who has had anything to do with the service will tell you that the battalion is better for music at every turn, happier, ...

— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in the well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was warm—unusually so for the season—there was hardly a breath of air stirring; and the multitude were in no bad humor at being now and then besprinkled with friendly showers of momentary duration, that fell from large white masses of cloud which chequered in a fitful manner the blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless, about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in the assembly: the clattering ...

— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... me think of something I forgot to tell you, fellows," declared Paul, his face filled with good humor. "One of the stipulations connected with the lending of these two motor-boats by the kind gentlemen who own them was that they insisted on supplying all the liquid fuel needed to run the craft. The tanks are to be filled, and each boat carries in addition ...

— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... said I, put to shame by the undiminished good-humor of my neighbor, "some one did; but he's gone now, so ...

— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... after all, but he does not understand how an enemy happens to be behind him. He is angry, too, that his own pretty ambush, in which he was sitting so cunningly waiting for us, is broken up. Tandakora's humor is far from good, but, because of it, mine ...

— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections and generous sentiments among ...

— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... feared or worst hated among his surroundings. Vaguely realizing from the memory of accidents or unforeseen events that he is dependent on his surroundings, he invests every feature of his environment with a capricious humor reflecting his own disposition, and gives to each and all a subtlety and inscrutability corresponding to his exalted estimation of his own craft in the chase and war; and, conceiving himself to live and move only at the mercy of his multitudinous associates, he becomes a fatalist—kismet ...

— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... stopping the way; she could swallow nothing; everything had been tried. Her friends were standing round her bed in misery and helplessness. "Try her wi' a compliment," said her husband, in a not uncomic despair. She had genuine humor, as well as he; and as physiologists know, there is a sort of mental tickling which is beyond and above control, being under the reflex system, and instinctive as well as sighing. She laughed with her whole body and soul, and burst the abscess, and ...

— Spare Hours • John Brown

... retired discomfited, and there was rather an awkward period, in which the General made a faint effort to induce his daughter to say something civil to Guy. This, however, was another failure, and in a sort of mild despair he resigned himself to her wayward humor. ...

— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... Boer into further good humor. "Hah—we have an audience! Bring down the prisoner, Gutierrez! Let us see if his wits can get him out of this plight. ...

— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... good-by! At last he's gone! I'm unfortunate, unfortunate! They say one ought to love one's husband; but how can I love him? He's vulgar, uneducated—and he fondles me as a bear would! Sits there—and swaggers like a peasant; and I have to pretend to love him, to humor him; how disgusting! I'd give anything on earth not to have to do that. But how can I help it! I have to submit to one I don't love! [Silence] I wonder where everybody is? Here I am all alone! Such loneliness! [Sits down at the window] Even the streets are deserted, and there's no one to look ...

— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... myself away from the bonds which are dragging me down to destruction; evil companions, strong drink, and exciting play. Excitement is now necessary to my existence. I cannot live without it. This is why we have no more of this kind of enjoyment. To-night I relish it because I'm in the humor; but as a general thing it is unbearable—too tame ...

— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... the skill with which it gets into that world of the boy so shut away from the adult world. It is entirely unlike anything else by Phillpotts, equal as it is to his other volumes in charm, character study, humor and interest. It is one of those books that every reader will want to recommend to his friends, and which he will only lend with the express proviso that it must be returned."—New ...

— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... the camp. His guess was a good one. Pasquale himself, arm in arm with Ochampa, made the rounds and stopped for a moment to speak to the sentries in front of the prison. The man crouched in the bear grass could tell that Gabriel was in high good-humor. He jested with the men and clapped them on the shoulder jovially. He laughed as heartily at his own witticisms ...

— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... there who will charge a stranger, or even a neighbor, three or four prices for some commodity, and then if he ventures to protest against the extortion, will invariably answer him with that ancient bit of alleged humor, so familiar to the ears of travelers in the far West, to the effect that they are not out there ...

— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields

... Tacit. Germania, c. 45. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvii. 13. The latter observed, with some humor, that even fashion had not yet found out the use of amber. Nero sent a Roman knight to purchase great quantities on the spot where it was produced, ...

— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... is in his pleasantest vein, full of his quiet humor clothed in the neatest expressions. It is international; the contrast of American and foreign ways runs through it, and Mr. Howells has added the contrast of the old and the new Americanism. The hero is a Western journalist, a Mugwump, much given to banter of the American ...

— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... tall, very straight-limbed, showing both activity and strength. His head was smaller than usually is the case, which gave him the appearance of great lightness and agility. His countenance was very pleasing, being expressive of continual good humor, which was indeed but corresponding to his real character. He was dressed in a sort of hunting-coat of deer-skin, blue cloth leggings, a cap of raccoon's skin, with a broad belt round his waist, in which he ...

— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... so as not to be too undignified, and George saw the humor of the situation. He did not want to pursue the subject any further, and John graciously turned the conversation by announcing the discovery of the ...

— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... officer had a sense of humor," remarked Blake, half sarcastically, "or we might have had to send back for a special passport for ...

— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... sure!" she said, laughing at his humor. "I should have said, where any of the others live. Of course you will give me your address, after being so kind as to see me to—some point ...

— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... In fact, the good humor of the young man was imperturbable. He sat there, as Nora observed, smiling and spreading his hands out over the genial blaze and seeking to talk amicably with Hannah, and feeling compensated for all the rebuffs he received from the elder sister whenever ...

— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... as she entered. Flossy was in too exalted a frame of mind, too bubbling over with the desire to recite her triumphs, to have in mind either her doubts concerning Selma or the need of being more than mildly apologetic for her lack of devotion. She felt friendly, for she was in good humor, and was naively desirous to be received in the same spirit, so that she might unbosom herself unreservedly. Sweeping into the room, an animated vision of smiling, stylish cordiality, she sought, as it were, to carry before her by force of ...

— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... him a tyrant and a relentless task-master even in his infancy. As his baby-will developed he found it supreme. His nurse was obliged to be a slave who must patiently humor every whim. He was petted and coaxed out of his frequent fits of passion, and beguiled from his obstinate and sulky moods by bribes. He was the eldest child and only son, and his little sisters were taught to yield to him, right or wrong, he lording it over ...

— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... eagerly upon her work. When on the other hand she is spoken to and speaks with any one she is quick to laugh. Work seems to her the only field where quiet earnestness is in place. 'That must be so,' she says. Toward everything else she is angry or in a good humor, mostly the latter. Only toward me is she short and often spiteful. It has been a great joke for her that I had the ill luck to have to go into the water with that stupid beast. If she only dared she would ...

— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... bears evidence in every chapter of the fresh, original, and fascinating style which has always enlivened Mr. ADAMS' productions. We have the same felicitous manner of working out the plot by conversation, the same quaint wit and humor, and a class of characters which stand out boldly, pen ...

— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... Ensayo Historico-Critico, p. 388) quotes a popular satire of the fifteenth century, directed, with considerable humor, against these abuses, which lead the writer in the last stanza to envy even the summary ...

— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... my soul), and be pure as a lily for my lover, I would not hesitate a moment! What sort of devotion has rewarded mine? You have housed and fed me, just as you give a dog food and a kennel because he is a protection to the house, and he may take kicks when we are out of humor, and lick our hands as soon as we are pleased to call him. And which of us two will ...

— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac

... got herself away in great good-humor and kept that humor until the following day, when Jane came to announce the ...

— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... might prove too much for a man of his habit. She regarded him thoughtfully, and when he returned at one o'clock to dinner, and encountered instead a violent dust-storm which was raging in the house, she noted with pleasure that his sense of humor was more under control. ...

— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... profusion of plantation life with the elegance of a traveled scholar and "picked man of countries." Colonel Byrd was rather an amateur in literature. His History of the Dividing Line is written with a jocularity which rises occasionally into real humor, and which gives to the painful journey through the wilderness the air of a holiday expedition. Similar in tone were his diaries of A Progress to the Mines and A Journey to the Land of Eden in ...

— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... and figured marble, so beautiful and evasive in aspect, that you must touch ere you are certain of its firmness. The motion of his mind is like that of dancing, but it is the dance of an elephant, or of a Polyphemus, with his heavy steps, thundering down the music to which he moves. Hence his humor often seems forced in motion, while always fine in spirit. The contrast between the slow march of his sentences, the frequent gravity of his spirit, the recondite masses of his lore, the logical severity of his diction, ...

— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... THE KING). Perhaps it were wise to humor him, O king. After thou hast thrown thy crown away I can go outside and bring it to ...

— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... at his heels. He told me that when he began a novel he rarely knew how many people were to figure in it, and, to use his own words, he was always very shaky about their moral conduct. He said that sometimes, especially if he had been dining late and did not feel in remarkably good-humor next morning, he was inclined to make his characters villanously wicked; but if he rose serene with an unclouded brain, there was no end to the lovely actions he was willing to make his men and women perform. When ...

— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... dining-room, the Squire, Judge Rawdon, and Mr. Nicholas Rawdon were all standing, evidently just finishing a Conservative argument against the Radical opinions of John Thomas. The young man was still sitting, but he rose with smiling good-humor as ...

— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... by sympathy but it is even born of sympathy. The world is composed of two kinds of people: those who make one laugh and those who are made to laugh, these latter being infinitely more numerous. How many there are, indeed, who have no sense of humor, and who, of themselves, would not think of laughing at things at which they do nevertheless laugh heartily because they see others laugh. As for those who have a ready wit and a sense of the comic, do they not enjoy the success of their jokes as much, if not more, ...

— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... madam; I am not much acquainted with the women world, and I dare say they might easily lead me astray." Benjamin did not exactly believe what the Quakeress said, but he was a little given to humor, and so ...

— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... was to be done by three witnesses,—himself, Michael Lovell, and Abel Noble, assisted by Dr. Franklin. But on their first meeting at the Doctor's house, the three "chosen vessels" got into a violent controversy on points of doctrine, and separated in ill-humor. The philosopher, who had been an amused listener, advised the three sages to give up the project of converting the world until they had learned to ...

— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... said Lady Helen, feeling that the visit needed to be accounted for in some shape, and that her sister was in the humor for speaking nonsense—"we called to see Miss Brunton: we thought we should ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... Spanish, Rumanian, and Swedish military attaches are luxuriously quartered a mile and a half out of town in the handsome villa of M. Noll, the landscape painter, present whereabouts unknown. The attaches all have a sense of humor, "otherwise," said one of them, "we could never stand being cooped up here together." The gardener's daughter, a pretty young Frenchwoman, the only servant who remained behind when the household fled at ...

— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... the words out of his mouth when something struck him on the back and began to pull his hair out by the roots. It was Miss Polly who had dropped like a torpedo and who was screeching, pecking and clawing him at a great rate. She was in a bad humor that day as they had forgotten to feed her her ...

— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery

... bottle of rum, which he offered to his neighbors. They all coldly refused except Loiseau, who took a sip, and returned the bottle with thanks, saying: "That's good stuff; it warms one up, and cheats the appetite." The alcohol put him in good humor, and he proposed they should do as the sailors did in the song: eat the fattest of the passengers. This indirect allusion to Boule de Suif shocked the respectable members of the party. No one replied; only Cornudet smiled. The two good sisters had ceased to ...

— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... dream, with more flowers, the Scotch rose and many rare things among them. Mr. Doughty [the artist, who had consented to give Sophia lessons] came, as bright as possible. The cool breezes, the flowers, etc., put him into excellent humor. He said it was luxury to sit and paint here. He created a glowing bank in broad sunshine. Mr. Russell called, and came up into my studio. He thought such a studio and such an occupation must cure the headache. Then I prepared to make several calls, but on my way was arrested by Mr. George ...

— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... and, wending on its way, Beside my path a stream was playing; And down its banks, in humor gay, A ...

— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... and, with healthy cheerfulness, he derived pleasure from books, from philosophy, from conversation,—now administering consolation to the sorrower, now indulging in light-hearted gayety. In his intercourse, the universality of his perceptions bore, perhaps, the character of humor; but, while he clearly discerned the contrast between the grandeur of the universe and the feebleness of man, a serene benevolence saved him from contempt of his race or disgust at its toils. To superficial observers, he might have seemed as an alien from speculative truth, ...

— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... on ahead. But it was mid-afternoon before anything happened. Jacqueline meantime had shown some pettish ill-humor. Those who had fought to be her escort were now singularly indifferent. Driscoll was idly curious and quietly contemptuous, but he detected no fright in her manner. "Fretting for her silver-braided Greaser," he said to himself. "A pretty scrape she's ...

— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... clothes are not of showy material or fashionable cut, one hand is generally employed in holding a clay pipe, from which he draws comfort and inspiration, and which rarely leaves his lips when on the street, except to utter some bit of dry humor, in which he especially delights. That is Melancthon Barnett, one of the "oldest inhabitants" of the Forest City, and whose well known figure and quaint jokes will be missed by his many friends out of doors, as will his wise counsels ...

— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... alone could perform; indeed, to reconcile liberty and necessity were a task for which he seemed providentially set apart. But beneath these arguments, which rise Alp on Alp, there lurked a quiet perception of humor, and the reductio ad absurdum, which he occasionally drives home, showed the keenness of Puritan wit. How he must have smiled, nay even laughed, in the midst of his abstractions at that[E] metaphysical animal which illustrates the absurdity ...

— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... glad to welcome visitors. He possesses a noble character and is admired by his friends and neighbors. Tall, straight, lean of body, his nose is aquiline; these physical characteristics he inherited from his Indian ancesters. His gentle nature, wit, and good humor are characteristics handed to him by his mother and fostered by the gentle rearing of ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... ignoramus. The result was both comic and pathetic. There was then in Congress the most famous stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times, a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor; powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite wit and humor, and, unfortunately for General Crary, a Whig,—Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. Mr. Crary's heavy, tedious, perfunctory arraignment of General Harrison being ended, Corwin rose and began an offhand speech on "The Military Services of General Isaac M. Crary.'' In a few ...

— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... Andrews, with a tinge of humor. "You must bring that rogue back with you into the engine. When he barks in a place where there's supposed to be nothing but powder the thing doesn't seem quite logical. It throws discredit on an otherwise plausible story. Let us stop a couple of miles ...

— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... most unhappy of all the many youths, who were intrusted to my care," said Ameni, "and I believe I know why,—he never had a childlike disposition, even when in years he was still a child, and the Gods had denied him the heavenly gift of good humor. Youth should be modest, and he was assertive from his childhood. He took the sport of his companions for earnest, and his father, who was unwise only as a tutor, encouraged him to resistance instead of to forbearance, ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... pairs of boys' boots scuffling on her cherished parlor carpet, the fringed cover of the centre table hanging by one corner, and the plush photograph album unceremoniously laid aside, indignation took the place of good humor in Mrs. Maslinsky's ample bosom, and she ordered the boys to clear out, threatening "Ike" with dire vengeance if ever again he ventured to enter the ...

— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... Jack quickly answered the question. Then two or three other questions were asked by other cadets. It was plain, however, that to all of the cadets the use of "sir" to so young a boy appealed, at least, to their sense of humor. ...

— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham

... inclination over the delicate hand she held out. Age had but slightly spoiled her beauty; she had still a striking presence, and a manner in which a trace of stateliness was counterbalanced by gentle good-humor. Lisle was strongly impressed, but, as Millicent noticed, he ...

— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... be worse off than we are, but I don't see how it's possible!" shouted Dick in return, a certain grim humor ...

— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... not a man of culture, nor were his tastes elevated, but there was a rough honesty about him, and a good humor, which made him an agreeable companion. Besides, he knew the country, and Ben felt secure in leaving the conduct ...

— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... hast angered him," said Josceline. "But no matter. He will not harbor anger long." And so it proved. For before the two had finished striking he had returned to the tilt-yard apparently full of good humor. ...

— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... of livelihood? What positions had I filled since I went out into the world? What countries had I visited? What books had I read? What books had I written? To what magazines and reviews had I contributed? Who were my friends? Was I fond of music, of painting, of the drama? Had I a sense of humor? Had I a good temper or a good control of a bad one? What languages could I speak or read? Did I enjoy good health? Was I of a nervous disposition? Had I tact and discretion? Was I a good horseman, a good sailor, a good talker, a ...

— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland

... a genuine child of that nation from whom came forth the loftiest, richest, and most impassioned songs the earth has ever witnessed—the nation of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Solomon, and Job. He has little humor, but a vast ...

— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... which was boiling and frothing with the excitement of gold-maddened men, and was congratulating himself that he would soon be at the camps west of the Peace, when the thing happened. A drunken Irishman, filled with a grim and unfortunate sense of humor, spotted Shan Tung's wonderful cue and coveted it. Wherefore there followed a bit of excitement in which Shan Tung passed into his empyrean home with a bullet through his heart, and the drunken Irishman was strung up for his misdeed fifteen minutes later. Tao, the Great ...

— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... pleasant and talkative humor, this bright-faced and stalwart young fellow, with his proud, fine features and his careless air. One could easily see how these old folks had made a sort of a pet of him. But while he went on with this desultory chatting ...

— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... evening, tea was dispatched in the gayest humor in the little Bartlett dining-room. Rose and Phil disappeared in the kitchen to "do" the dishes while Nan and Kirkwood communed in the ...

— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... the vices of cowardice and secrecy. Caustic Forsyth, speaking of the Romans, begins with the bitter remark, that "the national character is the most ruined thing at Rome"; and in the same section he adds, "Their humor is naturally caustic; but they lampoon, as they stab, only in the dark. The danger attending open attacks forces them to confine their satire within epigram; and thus pasquinade is but the offspring of hypocrisy, the only resource ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... he thought it was his duty to humor his wife's fancies. And then he loved her tenderly—he had given up country and home for her. She was so good and kind, and her beautiful hair! Chaske called her "The Mocassin Flower," for her golden ringlets reminded ...

— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... without taking leave of his parents, made his way to Gibraltar, and taken passage thence to Lisbon on a Sardinian sloop. The discomforts of this journey are graphically described in one of his prose works, "De Gibraltar a Lisboa: viaje histrico." The writer describes with cynical humor the overladen little boat with its twenty-nine passengers, their quarrels and seasickness, the abominable food, a burial at sea, a tempest. When the ship reached Lisbon the ill-assorted company were placed in quarantine. ...

— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... for an exchange of their better feelings. The honest heart of the English tar dilated with ill-concealed delight at his approach to the termination of labors performed with credit and honor, and his smiles and good humor, which partly proceeded from the feelings of a father and a friend, were daggers to the heart of his ...

— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... good carriage, to take the drive from Naples to Rome—one of the most charming drives that the whole tour of Europe affords, and yet not one of them was in a condition to enjoy it. Every one was dissatisfied, out of humor, and unhappy. The Russian gentleman was displeased with Mr. Howland for asking him to give up his seat, and he felt uncomfortable and ill at ease in being shut up with two ladies, who he knew were displeased ...

— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott

... now, for he saw the humor of the situation, and he could not help admiring the nerve of the queer ...

— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... solitary cottage, the boatman furnished us with a few details of the history and character of its last inmate, an Orkney fisherman, that would have furnished admirable materials for one of the darker sketches of Crabbe. He was, he said, a resolute, unsocial man, not devoid of a dash of reckless humor, and remarkable for an extraordinary degree of bodily strength, which he continued to retain unbroken to an age considerably advanced, and which, as he rarely admitted of a companion in his voyages, enabled him to work his little skiff alone, in weather when even better ...

— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... a fac, sar', said Joe, a quiet humor twinkling in his eye. 'One ob Cunnel Dawsey's folk came to me tother day—his wife had been sold down Souf, an' he wanted to say to har, dat dough ribers rose, and mountins run atween 'em, he'd neber hab nuffin to do wid no oder 'ooman—so he come ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... large Wadsworth jewelry works, and then took to a road leading to Coburntown, some miles distant. The air was cold but clear, with the bright sunshine sparkling on the snow, and all of the young people were in the best of humor. ...

— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... certain quantity of foliage, and a certain quantity of sky, and a certain quantity of water,—a little bit of all that is pretty, a little sun, and a little shade,—a touch of pink, and a touch of blue,—a little sentiment, and a little sublimity, and a little humor, and a little antiquarianism,—all very neatly associated in a very charming picture, but not working together for a definite end. Or if the aim be higher, as was the case with Barrett and Varley, we are generally put off with stale repetitions of eternal composition; a great ...

— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... is it; I am here, and with one word I could dispel the illusion," he acquiesced. "But I know myself; I am cursed with a peculiar, sinister sense of humor, and I am afraid I would not say the word. Hence, when the husband enters we are all silent. Then I say, 'I regret to have arrived at such an inopportune moment.' I take my hat and walk out, leaving you, madam, your husband ...

— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... each at one end of a long saw, cutting wood for an appetite. The joyous, uncouth singing and shouting of the newcomer aroused the late sleepers. Then in to breakfast, where the homely, captivating humor of the young lawyer kept the table in a roar, and detained every inmate. "Never was there such an actor lost to the stage," Jeremiah Mason, his only rival at the New Hampshire bar, used to say, "as he would have made." Returning in ...

— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... they roped up straw, tightened straps, and otherwise got ready for departure. Then Anastasio Murguia appeared coming up the street, just from his lately recorded interview with Fra Diavolo. The weazened little old Mexican was in a fretful humor, and his glance at the lounging Southerner was anything but cordial. He would have passed on into the meson, but the other ...

— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... Flat. I am aware that something more might be made of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy Bar,—in the gulches and bar-rooms,—where all sentiment was modified by a strong sense of humor. ...

— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... much of her barbed speech was humor and how much was serious, so he said nothing. He showed her to an empty cabin—she did lock the door—then looked for Ihjel. The Winner was in the galley adding to his girth with an immense gelatin dessert ...

— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... of blackberry wine for supper that night. Here was the chance to liberate myself from drudgery. I talked over the matter very seriously with Louisa. We agreed that I must resign my place at the store and devote myself to humor. ...

— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... host in idle gossip. Mr. Cleggett knew all about the Barony and its owner, Nat Ferris. Ferris was a youngish man, just married. Carrington experienced a quick sinking of the heart. A fleeting sense of humor succeeded—had he interfered between man and wife? But surely if this had been the case the girl would not ...

— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... hate to see him lower his youthful standards, but I should like to see him less in the clouds. I should like to see him leaven the lump with a sense of humor. To be self-consciously dedicated to noble things and yet unable to smile at one's ego is to be censorious, and to be censorious is to ...

— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... in the world," says Commynes, "of which the king was more fearful than lest any word should escape him to make the English think that they were being derided; at the same time that he was laboring to gain them over, he was careful to humor their susceptibilities;" and Commynes, under his schooling, had learned to understand them well: "They are rather slow goers," says he, "but you must have a little patience with them, and not lose your temper. . . . I fancy that to many it might appear that the king abased himself too much; ...

— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... fretfulness, and then ashamed. His mother, who had dreaded the long holiday, wondered at his content. Katherine wondered a little too. The Forest of Arden made a very nice game, and it was pleasant to have Maurice in a good humor, but she did not ...

— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... the Lieutenant, after the interruption, "and that spring near the house is a splendid place to rest our horses and eat our dinners; so fall in." The Lieutenant slowly mounted Calhoun's horse, for his fall had made him sore, and in none the best of humor, he gave the ...

— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... good humor, rubbing his hands, and ate with zest. When one of his comrades remarked with surprise at his being in a frock-coat, he ...

— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... a sportive humor, indulged in various conjectures, an official of the palace announced the approach of a Roman herald, 'who craved permission to address the Queen of Palmyra.' ...

— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... clearness of her complexion were such as absolutely to render necessary the old comparison of the rose and the lily to do them justice. To these were added a voluptuous figure, agreeable manners, the graces and vivacity of wit, and the still more enduring attractions of good humor, purity, and benevolence. A female like her could not but be dear to all who enjoyed her intimacy, and a strong friendship sprang up between her and Baron d'Holbach. Greatly pleased with him at first, Marguerite was afterwards as greatly ...

— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... to demonstrate that she has capacity for high literary effort. In the process of that demonstration, I am fully persuaded that the Anglo-African—with his brilliant wit and humor, his highly imaginative disposition and his innate fondness for literary pursuits—will contribute largely to give the South an enviable and ...

— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... is golf. I have been teaching papa at the Springs. It is a great resource, and it increases your sense of humor." ...

— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... I implore you to humor me in this. . . . You have not already despatched an answer to Buckingham?" ...

— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... heated now; to-morrow, or perhaps the next day, you may come to me, and I trust that you will then be in a better humor than ...

— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray

... the least, might not the disciples steal away the body, and spread abroad the report that He had risen, and so the last error would be worse than the first? A deputation was therefore appointed to wait on Pilate representing their fears. Tired of them and the whole case, he was in no humor to please them. "Ye have a guard," said he, brusquely, "go, make it as sure as you can!" This they did. They passed a strong cord across the stone, and sealed its ends, and then placed soldiers to keep due watch and ward that none should lay ...

— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... prompted by a conscious effort of the will. But this book is one of the least results of that momentary sweep of the eye. Another was, that Van Berg did not enjoy the symphony at all, and was soon in a very bad humor. That casual glance had revealed, not far away, a face that with his passion for beauty, at once riveted his attention. His slight start and faint exclamation, caused Ik Stanton to look around also, and then, with a mischievous ...

— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... traveling salesmen who are but little known to the world at large, especially to those who inhabit our large cities. In country places the traveling auctioneer is looked for as a matter of course, and he is treated according to the humor of the inhabitants, or rather, according to the merits or demerits of the "bargains" offered on ...

— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... holidays and special days in the English calendar. You should read it with a sharp lookout for the play on words. Each day supposedly acts in keeping with its character, and so the New Year's dinner party is kept in high mirth. But you cannot appreciate the humor until you understand what each ...

— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he held him up to the derision of his associates—with the usual result. His wild flowers of speech—King had an unpleasant tongue—-restored him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle's latter end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he must come up for judgment when called upon, went to ...

— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... turned down her thumb to mark the number of times she had heard it, since Split and she had made a wager on it. Inwardly, though, she was nauseated by the thought that she was being laughed at. As nearly destitute as a Madigan could be of humor, she would so much rather have been flayed alive, she thought in the depths of her puritanical ...

— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... and in no mood to humor us any more than necessary. A man of perhaps forty, with the portly flabbiness which often accompanies success in the financial markets, he was accustomed to obtaining rather than yielding obedience. A bachelor, ...

— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... eyes and gripped me like a vise with her hand so that I knew that I was to stay put. One man involuntarily started and then checked himself. He was so patently a Frenchman though that everybody laughed. The major domo chuckled and marched away, much pleased with his playful humor. ...

— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So a Merry ...

— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... ordered. You know how the Bohemian feast of reason keeps up with the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with the soup; repartee with the entree; brag with the roast; knocks for Whistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; the ...

— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... seem like folks begin to see a little fun ahead in lettin' him try it—which I don't see thess how they could 'a' hindered him, an' it a free school, an' me a taxpayer. But they all seemed to be in a pretty good humor by this time, an' when Sonny put it to vote, why, they voted unanymous to let him try it. An' all o' them unanymous votes wasn't, to say, friendly, neither. Heap o' them thet was loudest in their unanimosity was hopefully expectin' ...

— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... men filed back into the hut again, disconsolately, without swearing and without mirth. They had put the sun to bed with proper military decency. They would have seen humor—perhaps—or an excuse for blasphemy in the omission of such a detail, but it was much too hot to swear at ...

— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... weil, "through his skill, ability, and experience as an engineer that Major Whistler was particularly qualified for and eminently successful in the important task he performed so well in Russia. His military training and bearing, his polished manner, good humor, sense of honor, knowledge of a language (French) in which he could converse with officers of the government, his resolution in adhering to what he thought was right, and in meeting difficulties only to surmount them, with other admirable personal qualities, made him soon, ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various

... "Picture of New York." To read Irving's chapters today is to witness one of the rarest and most agreeable of phenomena, namely, the actual beginning of a legend which the world is unwilling to let die. The book made Sir Walter Scott's sides ache with laughter, and reminded him of the humor of Swift and Sterne. But certain New Yorkers were ...

— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... with the crescent flag, the Padishah was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that "might have been" had he not sold his honor and the life of his only friend to gratify the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the Sultan trembled, for the humor of the ...

— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... lay in attracting the attention of some kindly disposed literary man, and for some reason he chose Vergil. The Eclogues were not yet out, but the Culex was in circulation, and he made the pastoral scene of this the basis of an epode—the second—written with no little good-natured humor. Horace imagines a broker of the forum reading that passage, and, quite carried away by the succession of delightful scenes, deciding to quit business for the simple life. He accordingly draws in all his moneys on the Calends—on the Ides he lends them out again![2] What Vergil wrote ...

— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... surprising promptness. He had been mayor so long that his first term was now almost forgotten. By ability, courage, and fairness he was easily the leader in the community. Broad and strong, with a ruddy, good natured face, a fine tenor voice, a keen sense of humor and repartee, he was universally popular. No one had known Filmer to complain or repine, though there must have been moments when he longed for touch with those of his own caliber. His was the case of a big man who though bigger than his surroundings accepted them cheerfully. Thus, when ...

— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... lives happy in a blooming and interesting wife: reconciled to a middle sphere of life, as he was to a humbler and a higher one before. He has shaved off his whiskers, and accommodates himself to an apron with perfect good humor. A gentleman connected with this establishment dined at the "Wheel of Fortune" the other day, and collected the above particulars. Mr. Plush blushed rather, as he brought in the first dish, and told his story very modestly over a pint of excellent ...

— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... heard the disturbance and thought the Kid was being spanked for the accident, which put every man of them in a fighting humor toward Chip, the Little Doctor, the Old Man and the whole world. Pink even meditated going up to the White House to lick Chip—or at least tell him what he thought of him—and he had plenty of sympathizers; though they advised ...

— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... it repeated itself in a different way. 'Thanase was in gay humor that morning. He kissed his wife, tossed his children, played on his fiddle that tune they all liked best, and, while Zosephine looked after him with young zest in her eye, sprang into the saddle and galloped across the prairie ...

— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... The audience looked at the little boy with amazement, while the judges joked and laughed at him. But without being discomposed, he explained the purpose of his visit. The incident put Robespierre in good humor, and he told the child that his teacher had not taught him anything. Immediately, as a proof of the contrary, the youngster began to recite his lessons. Robespierre was so delighted that, in the midst of general laughter, he lifted up the boy and kissed him. The ...

— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... Francis Vaux Wilson. Twenty skits, presenting people with their foibles. Sympathy with human nature and an abounding sense of humor are the requisites ...

— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford

... they drew nearer, Lavinia—with a sudden pounding of her heart—realized the cause of the slight friction between the two women. The cart bore Cesare Orsi, and Mochales the bull-fighter, the Flower of Spain. It was a part of Anna Mantegazza's humor that the men, so essentially antagonistic, should arrive together clinging precariously on the high ...

— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... over your head at night, which is no small matter. One is often disqualified for enjoying the woods after he gets there by the loss of sleep and of proper food taken at seasonable times. This point attended to, one is in the humor for ...

— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... tarantass where the air was cool and pure. I arranged my furs, fastened the boot and hood of the carriage, and slept comfortably in a keen wind. At daylight the yemshicks attached horses and called the captain from the house. He complained that he slept little owing to the heat. Boika was in bad humor and opened the day by tearing the coat of one man ...

— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... open air. The keys that were to be made use of in this journey, to gain us a passage through many a tower, stair, and postern, were in the hands of the authorities, whose subordinates we never failed to coax into good humor. ...

— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... the irremediable with grim humor; "what must be, must. I don't pretend to be glad to see you, but—you're free to stay as long as you find the climate agreeable. I warn you I shan't whine. Lots of men, hundreds and hundreds of 'em, have slept tight o' nights ...

— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... ill-health, weakness, and excessive corpulency. She narrated to him the chronique scandaleuse of the imperial court; she reminded him of the old affairs of his youth, which the king knew how to relate with so much wit and humor, and which he so loved to relate; it devolved upon her to examine the letters of the "black cabinet," and to read the more interesting ones to ...

— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... lips, quiet, steel-gray eyes, a tracery of blue veins showing on his full temples, he suggested the ascetic no less than the soldier, while his incisive brevity of speech, flavored now and then with pungent humor, without any inflection in his dry voice, was in keeping with his appearance. He arrived with the clerks in the morning and frequently remained after they were gone. His life was an affair of calculated units of time; his habits ...

— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... croak, whatever else we do. If we are to be sent to the bottom of this bay, we will go down with the best grace possible," added Felix, who was certainly in as good humor as ever he was, in spite of the brass gun that protruded at the side of the Fatime. "Do you suppose Captain Scott ...

— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... Acadia had a triangular face with square temples and pointed beard, its crisp fleece also concealing his mouth except the thin edges of his lips. It was a handsome nervous face of black tones; one that kept counsel, and was not without humor. He noticed his subordinate approaching with the friar. The men sent to execute Klussman were dispersed to ...

— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... the voice that drawled a syllable to twice its length here, to slide over mouthfuls of words there, had an upward inflection at the end of sentences that brought tears to one's eyes. There was no pose about her, but the whole effect of her was pathetic—illogically, for she caught the glint of humor from every side light of life, which means pleasure that other people miss. The old warning against vice says that we "first endure, then pity, then embrace"; but Lindsay differed from vice so far that people never ...

— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... the Countess. "You know, Markham, I don't mind your being bearish with me. In fact, I've taken it as the greatest of compliments. I thought that humor of yours was my special prerogative of friendship. But now alas! When I see how uncivil you can be to others I have a sense of lost caste. And you—instead of being amusingly whimsical and entt—are in danger ...

— Madcap • George Gibbs

... champion of their cause in the East, where distance from the scene, lack of intimate knowledge of "the system," and a strong popular dislike of the South gave unwonted strength to the new evangelism. William Lloyd Garrison, son of a Massachusetts sea captain, was in a humor to reform a world which "sat in darkness." He declared negro slavery the one great evil of his generation, and the Federal Constitution, which protected it, "an agreement with Hell." After some ...

— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... most base and simple education of all others; the extremitie of their age giuing them leaue to dote, their pouertie to beg, their wrongs to chide and threaten (as being void of anie other waie of reuenge) their humor melancholicall to be full of imaginations, from whence cheefelie proceedeth the vanitie of their confessions; as that they can transforme themselues and others into apes, owles, asses, dogs, cats, &c: that they can flie in the aire, kill children with ...

— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... continued his tramp. His ill humor made the monument with which the Bourbon restoration had adorned the old cemetery of the Madeleine, appear uglier than ever to him. Time was passing, but she did not come. Every time that he turned, he looked ...

— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... sew and waited with her eyes fixed on the wrinkled face of Mother Bontemps. When Honore returned to breakfast he seemed quite satisfied, and even in a bantering humor, for he was carrying in his wheat ...

— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... the work of Harting, van Hoytema, and Haverman do not fall much below his standard. There is young Israels (Isaac) with some very snappy sketches. Nieuwenkamp is intensely interesting in the few things he has there, with a certain sense of humor which is conspicuous for its absence in most Dutch work. The woodcuts of Veldheer are vital and unusually free from any academic feeling. Considering the relative size of the Netherlands, they have a remarkably ...

— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... question he answered, and he pointed straight as the needle of a compass into the north. And then, as if his crude sense of humor had been touched by the other thing Philip had asked, he burst into a laugh. It made one shudder to see laughter in a face like Bram's. It transformed his countenance from mere ugliness into one of the leering gargoyles carven under the cornices of ancient buildings. ...

— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... began telling with droll good-humor how, after not sleeping all night, he had, wearing an old fur-lined, full-skirted coat, ...

— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... writer's cramp," said Cleggett, indulging the pleasant humor that was on him. He was really thinking that, with $500,000 of his own, he had written his last headline, edited his last piece of copy, sharpened ...

— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... have you my supper ready?" he said, not unpleasantly, for his victory over Kit and the meditated revenge of the next day had put him in good humor. ...

— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.

... had never before seen, nor in good sooth heard of, such an instrument. For weeks past almost all night curious groups took possession of it at intervals, and doubtless it did much to enlarge their idea of science and knowledge of celestial phenomena, for often Dr. Kane's idle humor induced him to stand by and explain the various theories touching comets,—their velocity, their substance or lack of substance, their recurrence, their status in the astral economy,—and cognate themes. As he was a man of very ...

— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... and serious, and surely was not wholly bad— even Mephisto is not bad all of the time. Mrs. Gainsborough once said she would prefer Mephisto to Thicknesse, because Mephisto had a sense of humor. Very often they naturally referred to Thicknesse as "Thickhead"—the joke was too obvious to let pass entirely, until each "took the pledge," witnessed ...

— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... sure you would understand it: but what could a fellow do with a cocked revolver flourished before his eyes by a man who was in just the right humor ...

— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various

... they have them already, and blessed by the bishop of Malaga. I told you before, wife, that this war is a holy war, which will rejoice St. Ferdinand in heaven. But you are in a crying humor, it seems," he added impatiently, seeing that his wife and daughter were still shedding tears. "Why, what would you have? That they should remain here like women, instead of going to throttle those accursed Moors who don't believe in Christ, who deny His Holy ...

— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... mad and headstrong humor. He that knows better how to tame a shrew, Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show." ...

— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... who had "a gift for preaching" as well as for many other things not exactly compatible with holy orders. He sometimes brought with him a tame crow, a shrewd, knavish-looking bird, who, when in the humor for it, could talk like Barnaby Rudge's raven. He used to say he could "do nothin' at exhortin' without a white handkercher on his neck and money in his pocket,"—a fact going far to confirm the opinions of the Bishop ...

— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... was in his bloodiest humor, he wore into court a red cap, which was the sure death warrant of ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... those who were watching him noticed a sudden change in Lovell's face. The good humor and bonhomie called up by this last evening amongst his old friends had disappeared. His face had fallen into graver lines, his eyes seemed fixed with a curious introspective steadiness on a huge calendar which hung from the wall. When at last he turned towards Aynesworth, ...

— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... metempsychosis is strikingly fitted for the purposes of humor, satire, and ethical hortation; and literature abounds with such applications of it. In Plutarch's account of what Thespesius saw when his soul was ravished away into hell for a time, we are told that he saw the soul of Nero dreadfully tortured, transfixed with iron nails. The ...

— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the time to stop, when one has made a bull's-eye in any sort of achievement, I take it. And Tish is nobody's fool. She took off her spectacles and wiped the perspiration and gunpowder streaks from her face. She was immediately in high good humor. ...

— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of childish humor will find many delightful examples of it among the games, as where little Jacky Lingo feeds bread and butter to the sheep (Who Goes Round My Stone Wall?); or the Mother, trying the Old Witch's apple pie, discovers that "It tastes exactly like my child Monday!" The tantalizing "nominies" or "dares," ...

— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... a fox and thought I'd shoot him——but he ran away," said Snap. He was in no humor to tell about the empty shotgun, for he did not wish his chum to have the ...

— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill

... Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good-humor, dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle laughing. Meantime the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood stock still before the Moorish palace, and ...

— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... had taken no part in the attack of Mason and Brent, but the Susquehannocks were not in the humor to make nice distinctions. In seeking revenge for the murder of their braves they held all whites equally guilty, and fell immediately upon the nearest plantations. Thus were the Marylanders made to suffer for the rashness ...

— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... just three minutes at the window, and this he continued until they had had enough, and the grateful mother had enjoyed a needed rest. Apparently he bore ill-will toward no one, and his ever-ready humor helped him to view the lives of others without harshness. Thus it is not only as a great literary artist, but as an American of the most worthy type, that ...

— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... and in evidently bad humor, cried to the king, as he entered, "Sire, is it your majesty who has given orders ...

— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... US Jim Wolfe and the cats Kissed each other, something hitherto unknown Less than a cent an acre Man who has that eye doesn't need to go armed Never affiliate with inferiors; always climb Not Mark Twain's habit to strive for humor Nothing that glitters is gold Out of the window, and I carried the sash along with me. Perfect air of not knowing it to be humorous Ready acknowledgment of shortcoming Seeing them in print was a joy Seek companionship among men of superior intellect and character Sick were made well, and the ...

— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger

... sight of a small body of Mexicans. The young Lieutenant instantly ordered a charge and, dashing across the open ground, captured the party only to discover that they were merely stragglers left behind by other American troops who had already charged over the same ground. No one appreciated the humor of this exploit more than Grant. It reminded him, he said, of the soldier who boasted that he had been in a charge and had cut off the leg of one of the enemy's officers. "Why didn't you cut off his head?" inquired his commander. "Oh, somebody ...

— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and dignified. The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the kindly good-humor of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the dinner, the position of the doctor and his niece would have been almost intolerable. At dessert, seeing Ursula turn ...

— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... monthly accounts, and it was perhaps not the most favorable moment for finding him in his best humor. At the first sight of his old friend, Danglars assumed his majestic air, and settled himself in his easy-chair. Morcerf, usually so stiff and formal, accosted the banker in an affable and smiling manner, and, feeling sure that ...

— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... himself with a very slight embroidery of outward manners,—the faintest possible counterfeit of real life,—and endeavors to create an interest by some less obvious peculiarity of the subject. Occasionally a breath of Nature, a raindrop of pathos and tenderness, or a gleam of humor, will find its way into the midst of his fantastic imagery, and make us feel as if, after all, we were yet within the limits of our native earth. We will only add to this very cursory notice that ...

— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of contagion, by which certain maladies spread from individual to individual, had been a total mystery, quite unillumined by the vague terms "miasm," "humor," "virus," and the like cloaks of ignorance. Here and there a prophet of science, as Schwann and Henle, had guessed the secret; but guessing, in science, is far enough from knowing. Now, for the first time, the world KNEW, and medicine ...

— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... a person affected in this manner was not allowed by the Twelve Tables to have the management of his own affairs; therefore the words are not, if he is mad (insanus), but if he begins to be raving (furiosus). For they looked upon madness to be an unsettled humor that proceeded from not being of sound mind; yet such a person might perform his ordinary duties, and discharge the usual and customary requirements of life: but they considered one that was raving as afflicted with a total blindness of the mind, which, ...

— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... on Johnny's chest, soberly made reply as he tenderly flirted with a raw shin. "It's the mescal. I'm going to slip some of that stuff into Pete's cayuse some of these days," he promised, happy with a new idea. Pete Wilson had no sense of humor. ...

— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... chapter in colonial history without its flashes of humor and ridiculousness, as one follows the absurd and unbridled testimonies which have been chosen as completely illustrative of the whole series in the years of the witchcraft nightmare. They are in part cited here, for the ...

— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... and passion, like the channels of headlong torrents that have foamed themselves away. The old gentleman is in excellent preservation, considering his time of life. He has that crickety sort of liveliness,—I mean the cricket's humor of chirping for any cause or none,—which is perhaps the most favorable mood that can befall extreme old age. Our pride forbids us to desire it for ourselves, although we perceive it to be a beneficence of nature in the case of others. ...

— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... poor Pudd'nhead Wilson, of all people in the world! Lord, it will be pathetically funny to see him grubbing and groping after that woman that don't exist, and the right person sitting under his very nose all the time!" The more he thought the situation over, the more the humor of it struck him. Finally he said, "I'll never let him hear the last of that woman. Every time I catch him in company, to his dying day, I'll ask him in the guileless affectionate way that used to gravel him so when I inquired how his unborn law business was coming along, 'Got on her track ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... pertinently asks, "what other race ever equaled them in getting up corn-huskings, log-rollings and quiltings?—and what hosts of queer stories are connected with them!" Fond of fun, there was a grotesque humor about them, which in its way ...

— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... the universal humor in the squirearchy of Brandenburg; not of good omen to Burggraf Friedrich. But the chief seat of contumacy seemed to be among the Quitzows, Putlitzes, above spoken of; big squires in the district they call the Priegnitz, in the country ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... sufferings and hardships of his initiation. Many other pastimes were indulged in by the members of the bureaus, which, however, cannot be touched upon here. Suffice it to say that they were characterized by the humor and roughness of the age. Despite repeated attempts of the Hansa and of the several cities to put an end to these sports, they nevertheless continued to be practised for centuries, upon the rather ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... a trick towards you, pause in the act to smile disdainfully upon your opponents. They may not admire a spectacular arrangement of your features, and if they happen to be in a bad humor your facial expression may be ruined ...

— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... has fighting men in abundance, England behind it has guineas; Austria has got injuries, then successes:—there is in Austria withal a dumb pride, quite equal in pretensions to the vocal vanity of France, and far more stubborn of humor. The First Nation of the Universe, rashly hurling its fine-throated hunting-pack, or Army of the Oriflamme, into Austria,—see what a sort of badgers, and gloomily indignant bears, it has awakened there! Friedrich had to take arms again; and an unwelcome ...

— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... things, spice and piquancy must always be excluded. Engineering evidently labors under the conviction that the heavier it can make its discussions, the more profoundly will it be able to impress its readers. Hence, we are equally astonished and gratified to find a gleam of humor flashing out from the ordinary sober-sided composition of our learned contemporary. The article came to us just as we were laboring under an attack of dyspepsia, and its reading fairly shook our atrabilious ...

— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... appearance prepossessing—one of Froude's "tonsured peasants," as I looked down at the square shoulders, the stout, short figure and the broad beardlessness of the face of the padre. But his voice, rich and mellow, attracted me in spite of myself. His eyes were sparkling with kindly humor, and ...

— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell

... no man had hitherto seen, the form of Jehovah, for it appears that Jehovah was so pleased with this murderer, charlatan, and wizard that he allowed him to glimpse His hind quarters. At least, Jehovah had a sense of humor! ...

— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... slightest change visible in his countenance; he seemed as pleasant and unruffled as ever, and showed no displeasure at our behavior. As soon as he had taken his seat, he inquired, with his accustomed good humor, what were the motives of our flight? I remarked to him that I wished, first of all, to declare that I alone was responsible for the course we had pursued, and that it was against their will that my companions had obeyed my orders; if they had refused to do so, they would be liable ...

— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... matters as they had seen or heard in the public places of resort and the streets of the city; in others the conversation turned upon the various charms of the fair sex, with a mixture of wit and humor, producing cheerful smiles on the countenances of all present; in others they talked about the news relating to courts, to public ministers, and state policy, and to various matters which had transpired ...

— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... was, without effort or self-consciousness. Whether playful or serious, she was always real. Beneath a reserved and rather quiet manner there lurked a piquant unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would come uppermost, had a strange attraction for him. He had grown accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of the sweetest ...

— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... other man to get seasick out here where we can't get enough water to drink?" she asked, with a sudden tangent of humor that made Bud laugh uproariously, and seemed to relieve the ...

— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... the Sioux warrior tend to make him lordly, proud, and somewhat taciturn and morose, although he is not without a strong sense of humor. He is a good husband and indulgent father, but not at all demonstrative in his affections. Very little billing and cooing is noticeable among the nearest relations, and none between lovers. A kiss is regarded more as a ceremony ...

— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... in the prime of life, and their presence in that puckered face of age which confronted Chris was horribly disconcerting. Chris blinked and looked again. Yes, they were still there. Eyes so deeply brown they might well have been black, but clear, sparkling, and with a decided glint of humor and mischief. While the boy had been too frightened to move at the sight of Mr. Wicker's ancient cheeks, pinched nose, and hairless head, he was encouraged by the friendly eyes. Chris could not help but like those eyes, even though it was ...

— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... and to make the best reparation in his power for the atrocities of which he has been adjudged guilty. But it appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives. The sketch might, perhaps, have been wholly omitted, ...

— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... difference in Spawn's manner toward me now. He seemed far more wary. Outwardly he was in a high good humor. He asked nothing concerning my morning at the Government House. He puttered over his electron-stove, making me help him; he cursed the heat; he said one could not eat in such heat as this; but the ...

— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... our hats to all the loyal, anonymous, untiring men and women who have worked in private employment and in Government and who have endured rationing and other stringencies with good humor ...

— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... "Rebeck me!" and "Ods Boddikins!" when his hawk bit his finger or something else put him out of humor, he would have exclaimed, "Oh, pshaw!" or, "Botheration!" Instead of playing with a hawk, he would have had a black-and-tan terrier,—if he had any pet at all; and his wife would not have been bothering herself with a distaff, ...

— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... occasion was, at best, but semi-official, and he was so far under the influence of the warm liquors of the cotes as to burn with the desire of putting forth still more liberally his flowers of eloquence and his stores of wisdom. He received the inroad, therefore, with an air of perfect good-humor, a manifestation of assent that encouraged still greater innovations on the limits until the space occupied by the principal actors in this closing scene was reduced to the smallest possible size that was at all compatible with their movements and comforts. ...

— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... She saw that his good-humor had returned. At least there was no immediate danger of his doing anything desperate. The nervous tension was over for the time being. Rising and going near to him, ...

— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... my vote, because I think it makes the multitude too familiar with the actions and counsels of their superiors, too pragmatical and censorious, and gives them not only an itch, but a kind of colorable right and license.... A gazette is none of the worst ways of address to the genius and humor of the common people, whose affections are much more capable of being turned and wrought upon by convenient hints and touches in the shape and air of a pamphlet than by the strongest reason and best notions imaginable under any other ...

— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... This stern humor did not last long. Arnolfo himself had other notions; much more Cimabue and Giotto; most of all, Nature and Heaven. Something else had to be taught about Christ than that He was wounded to death. Nevertheless, look how grand this stern form would be, restored to its simplicity. It is ...

— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... chest seemed tremendous, and a long mail-shirt reached to his knees; his hair was short-clipped and brown, and beneath his curly brown beard Brian made out a massive face, wide-set brown eyes, and an air not so much ruffianly as of cheerful good-humor. ...

— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... much as he ever is, at anything I do." For the moment, Phebe's sense of humor asserted itself. Then she grew grave again. "It is settled that I am to work with him till summer. Then, next fall, if I really want to go on with it, I am to go to Philadelphia to study there. Hope will be shocked, and Hu will make all manner of ...

— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... among the days of yore There's many a pleasing tale in store, Rich with the humor of the time, That sometimes jingle well in rhyme. Of these, the following may possess A claim on 'hours of idleness.' When Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, Like Abram Lincoln, straight and tall, Presided o'er ...

— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... restless lake, and in soft weather people sit at little tables there; otherwise they take their ices inside the cafe, and all the same look out on the Dent-du-Midi, and feel so bored with everybody that they are just in the humor to be interested in anybody. There is a very pretty theatre in the Kursaal, where they seldom give entertainments, but where, if you ever go, you see numbers of pretty girls, and in a box a pale, delicate-looking ...

— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells

... principle, I suppose," answered Dr. Surtaine, with entire good humor. "In the Pierce matter you left it. How do you ...

— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... far-away past, that seems so sad and strange and near. I am even out of humor with pictures; a bit of broken stone or a fragment of a bas-relief, or a Corinthian column standing out against this lapis-lazuli sky, or a tremendous arch, are the only things I can look at for the moment,— except the Sistine Chapel, which ...

— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... Frowning had no effect, and toward the end of his outburst I even protested in words. But it was no use. He spoke quickly, and he spoke very loudly, and not a word was lost on Bainbridge. Bainbridge had a fine sense of humor; but like many other humorists, he did not relish jocosities of which he was the subject. Any levity in any manner connected with Hili-li, I knew would be to him unendurable. He had from the beginning taken the Peters disclosures, and ...

— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... hill. At first he was very angry as he thought of what Peter had done, and he made up his mind that Peter should be taught a lesson he would never forget. But as he ambled along, the funny side of the whole affair struck him, for Jimmy Skunk has a great sense of humor, and before he reached the bottom of the hill his anger had all gone and he ...

— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... first important conference with the natives. If it was not rich in results, it served at least the temporary purpose of putting these allied tribes in a good humor by satisfying their sense of their own dignity. Nothing more was to be expected. It is well to say outright, as a commentary upon all meetings such as this, that no council with Indians, however ceremonious ...

— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton

... a different tone, "I have dug up something interesting. We're going to visit a friend of mine, Matthew Breen. A young man, still unknown, who, in my opinion, is one of our greatest physicists. Matt is a kind of savage, so he may take to you. If he does—and if he's feeling in a good humor—he may show you some laboratory stunts that will afford you plenty of distraction. Come along—you're wearing out my rugs with your infernal pacing ...

— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst

... when a nation has no surrounding nations to fight, it will, as we have just proved, fight itself. When it can have no foreign war, it will get up a domestic war; for the human animal, like all animals, must work off in some way its fighting humor, and the only sure way of maintaining peace is always to be prepared for war. A regular standing army of forty thousand men would have prevented the Mexican war, and an army of fifty thousand well-disciplined ...

— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... certain of its firmness. The motion of his mind is like that of dancing, but it is the dance of an elephant, or of a Polyphemus, with his heavy steps, thundering down the music to which he moves. Hence his humor often seems forced in motion, while always fine in spirit. The contrast between the slow march of his sentences, the frequent gravity of his spirit, the recondite masses of his lore, the logical severity of his diction, and his determination, ...

— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... who had just finished a long discussion with the pilot and was not in the best of humor, looked a ...

— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Petro, now in evident good humor at his anticipated success, "you should have chosen the pistol, to have placed yourself in any possibility on ...

— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... kind of a novel. Earnest, thoughtful, sincere, lacking in humor and in technical finish, yet holding one's attention by the complete preoccupation of the author in her theme, and by the ...

— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... countess was a very different character. She had, indeed, a well-bred air of good humor, but that, with her youth (she was but twenty years of age), was her only qualification; for her capacity was narrow, her disposition selfish and grasping, and she was so inveterate a manoeuvrer, that, when she had no intrigues of her own on foot, she was always ready to ...

— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... features may be, even though they repel, if a smile shows vivacity associated with a keen, intelligent personality, one cannot be otherwise than attractive. John Bunny, with features rough, unchiseled, ugly, almost uncouth, yet possessed a personality that spread its contagious good humor to millions of people in all quarters of the world who mourned his recent death as that of a personal acquaintance. On the other hand, even though a man or woman possess regular features, the lack of animated expression, of vivacity, causes the person to be regarded as "cold" and "repellent." Speaking ...

— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... they rode off, however, they doffed their Scot accouterments and took back their own garments, after which Cathbarr led the way over the hills to Kilkieran Bay, and Turlough took command of the force in sullen ill-humor. ...

— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... boys 'druther ye stayed in town after dark," the other called back; then, as the mare stumbled into a trot, "Well, come out and see us—if ye kin spare time from the jedge's." The latter clause seemed to be an afterthought intended with humor, for Bowlder accompanied it with the loud laughter of sylvan timidity, risking a joke. Harkless nodded without the least apprehension of his meaning, and waved farewell as Bowlder finally turned his attention to the mare. When the flop, flop of her hoofs had died out, ...

— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... through the gorge was accompanied by all the original drawbacks. Our driver had released the check-reins of the horses, but he ostentatiously checked them up again as we appeared. He had entirely recovered his good humor, and contemplated our dishevelled ...

— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... This phrase proceeded from Tom, who kept on repeating it, parrot-fashion—an exact imitation, but with no idea of its meaning. I had heard the baby whimpering a little time before, and Tom had remarked that these four words produced the happiest effect in restoring good-humor; so he learned them, accent and all, on the spot, and used them as a spell or charm on the next opportunity. I think even the poor baby was puzzled. But one cannot feel sure of what Tom will do next. A few evenings ago I trusted him to wheel the perambulator about the garden-paths, but, becoming ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... of the history and character of its last inmate, an Orkney fisherman, that would have furnished admirable materials for one of the darker sketches of Crabbe. He was, he said, a resolute, unsocial man, not devoid of a dash of reckless humor, and remarkable for an extraordinary degree of bodily strength, which he continued to retain unbroken to an age considerably advanced, and which, as he rarely admitted of a companion in his voyages, enabled him to work his little ...

— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... in geology and archaeology, Charles Whittlesey is identified with Cleveland, where the girlhood of the gifted novelist, Constance Fenimore Woolson, was passed. There, too, Charles F. Browne began to make his pseudonym of Artemus Ward known, and helped found the school of American humor. He was born in Maine; but his fun tastes of the West rather than ...

— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... was wretchedly ill during this period, he wrote letters which are good to read for their humor and for their pictures of foreign cities. Rome he writes of as an idle, afternoony sort of place from which it is difficult to depart. He worked as eagerly over the historic remains in Rome as he would over a collection of geological specimens. "I ...

— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... followed me for so many years, and listened to my conversation—I should think it possible. But your royal highness will permit me to observe, that he is so proud of passing himself off for a man, that when he is to be in a proper humor—and he must be so to answer well—he must be treated quite like ...

— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen

... word was absurd. One used what fell into one's hands. If Tembarom had followed his lead with any degree of docility, he would have felt it wiser to save his ammunition until further pressure was necessary. But behind his ridiculous rawness, his foolish jocularity, and his professedly candid good humor, had been hidden the Yankee trickster who was fool enough to think he could play his game through. Well, he ...

— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... epoch in the history of his life; he had felt his power and the calling of his genius; he had perceived, though in a dim distance, the course he had to run and the laurels he had to gain. When he saw that the humor of the Duke was not likely to improve, he fled from a place where his wings were clipped and his voice silenced. Now, this flight from one small German town to another may seem a matter of very little consequence at present. But in Schiller's time it was a matter of life ...

— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... with complete good humor, and becoming attentive, clear, and businesslike in his tone] By all means, Mr Barnabas. What we have to consider first, I take it, is what prospect there is of our finding you beside us in the ...

— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... remained unchanged for the ladies, save for the additional burden of years and the pleasant news that Edgar was expected home daily. Adelaide, now twenty-four, took the news as a personal grace, and blossomed into smiles and glad humor of which only Josephine understood the source. But Josephine held her tongue, and received the confidence of her young friend with discretion. As she had never dispossessed her own old idol, she could feel for Adelaide, and she was not disposed to look ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... a wonderful good humor, and helped with all her might, so that my preparations went on very successfully. Grandmamma felt so much better that I asked her advice, and this was the bill of ...

— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... unpretentious, and deals with the simplest and most conventional of themes; but the character-drawing is uncommonly strong, especially that of Miss Melinda, which is a remarkably vigorous and interesting transcript from real life, and highly finished to the slightest details. There is much quiet humor in the book, and it is handled with skill and reserve. Those who have been attracted to Mrs. Campbell's other works will welcome the latest of them with ...

— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... inquisitive eyes. He could read his plebeian name in the mere movements of their lips, and hear the anticipatory criticisms made in the blunt, provincial fashion that too often borders on rudeness. He had not expected this prolonged ordeal of pin-pricks; it put him still more out of humor with himself. He grew impatient to begin the reading, for then he could assume an attitude which should put an end to his mental torments; but Jacques was giving Mme. de Pimentel the history of his last day's sport; Adrien ...

— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... Williams was in high good-humor. He chuckled as he talked with his foreman, and the foreman chuckled in return. Simeon Phinney did not chuckle. He was anxious and worried, and even the news of Gertie Higgins's runaway marriage, brought to him by Obed Gott, who—having been so recently ...

— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... existed between Custer and his father were lacking where Mrs. Shrimplin was concerned. She was unromantic, with a painfully literal cast of mind, though Custer—without knowing what is meant by a sense of humor, suspected her of this rare gift, a dangerous and destructive thing in woman. Privately considering her relation to his father, he was forced to the conclusion that their union was a most distressing instance of the ...

— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... three hours, and it required no retouching. One of his comrades said: "Sir Edwin has a fine hand, a correct eye, refined perceptions, and can do almost anything but dance on the slack wire. He is a fine billiard player, plays at chess, sings when with his intimate friends, and has considerable humor." ...

— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... great creations, from the humor, the wit, the naturalness, the vividness of description, and the beauty of the sentiments displayed in them, although sullied by occasional vulgarities and impurities, which, however, in all their coarseness do not ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... jest is excused because it has in it some savor of real humor; but it would be well for us to 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 ...

— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray

... air and in the soil. Good viscera and an abundance of blood are closely related to meteorological conditions, unction of character, and a flow of animal spirits, too; and I suspect that much of the dry and rarefied humor of New England, as well as the thin and sharp physiognomies, are climatic results. We have rain enough, but not equability of temperature or moisture,—no steady, abundant supply of humidity in the air. In places in Great Britain it is said ...

— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... men bucketing about big pastures in the moonlight. But as it was given, very softly at that bad time in that terrible camp of death, it was the one thing in the world that could have restored, as it did restore, shaken men back to their pride, humor, and self-control. [Cheers.] This may be an extreme instance, but it is not an exceptional one. Any man who has had anything to do with the service will tell you that the battalion is better for music at every turn, happier, more easily handled, with greater zest in its ...

— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the way thereto is by tears, yet all ends in a shout. But wisdom wears no weeds; woe is more merry than mirth; 'tis a shallow grief that is sad. Ha! ha! how demoniacs shout; how all skeletons grin; we all die with a rattle. Laugh! laugh! Are the cherubim grave? Humor, thy laugh is divine; whence, mirth- making idiots have been revered; and therefore may I. Ho! let us be gay, if it be only for an hour, and Death hand us the goblet. Vee-Vee! bring on your gourds! Let us pledge each other in bumpers!—let us laugh, laugh, ...

— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... am now settled with a widow woman, who has a great many children and complies with my humor in everything. I do not remember that we have exchanged a word together for these five years; my coffee comes into my chamber every morning without asking for it, if I want fire I point to the chimney, if water, to my basin; ...

— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... big man, both physically and mentally. A friend describes his countenance as full of fire; "when he smiled it was like the sun bursting out of a black cloud. It was a sudden flash of intelligence, wit and good humor, which illumined his countenance, which I have hardly ever seen in any other." He could relish a joke, and had a keen sense of humor. Few things outside his work interested him; but he was fond of the theater, and liked to go to picture sales. ...

— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... as a spruce despite the burden of her years, and a suggestion of girlhood's bloom still colored her cheek; but the features of her crafty countenance were tightly drawn; the blue eyes glinted with metallic light; and the mouth was saved from cruelty only by its upward curve of humor. ...

— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... "Care for you? That is just the trouble! I care for you—have always cared for you—too much. I have sacrificed my self-respect to humor you, and it's all been a mistake. I see it now ...

— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... Lights were appearing in the shop-windows of the Tverskaia as Michael, muffled comfortably in his sables, entered the celebrated street and walked along it, leisurely, in a direction leading directly away from his distant palace. He had no definite goal in mind. He was in the high humor of immediate success. Many-colored Moscow lay all about him: his city, wherein he was known to and feared by, nearly every man. Labyrinth though it was, there was scarcely a corner, an alley, a court-yard in that most jumbled of cities that he did not know. ...

— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... devoid altogether of many brilliant qualities which his rival possessed, Lincoln nevertheless outreached him by the measure of the two gifts the other lacked: the twin gifts of humor and of brooding melancholy. Bottomed by the one in homeliness, his character was by the other drawn upward to the height of human nobility and aspiration. His great capacity of pain, which but for his buffoonery would no doubt have made him mad, was the source of his rarest excellencies. Familiar ...

— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... before the dawn, as we had a journey of thirty-five miles before us. He was in a bad humor; for a man, whom he had requested to keep watch over his tent, while he went into the village, had stolen a fork and spoon. The old Turk, who had returned as soon as we were stirring, went out to hunt the thief, but did not succeed in finding him. The inhabitants of the village ...

— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... the baby was grappled with by its great aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something at which even the infant himself winked. A delicious hit of humor. ...

— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... bottle of Jamaica rum. While he did this he began to grumble over the loss of his sewing-machines, and to swear picturesquely at Captain Leeds, bragging of the awful things he meant to do to him. But when he had tasted his drink and lighted a cigar, his good-humor returned, and he ...

— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... still trusting in Divine Providence; King trusting only in the iron Destinies, and the stern refuge of Death with honor: Dialogues evidently symbolical only. In fact, this is not, or is not altogether, the King's common humor. He has his two Nephews with him (the elder, old enough to learn soldiering, is to be of next Campaign under him); he is not without society when he likes,—never without employment whether he like or not; ...

— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... kind of irresistible humor, he told stories that went to the heart of humanity, he amused, he warmed, he cheered the world. We almost think that modern Christmas was his invention, such an apostle was he of kindliness and brotherly love, of sympathy with the poor and the struggling, of ...

— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... the Vicar of Wakefield, was by nature a lover of happy human faces, and she could be playful herself on occasion; but she had little if any of the saving sense of humor. ...

— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking ...

— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... shovel in here an' lift this pickle, an' no' stand there gapin' like a grisly ghost at the door o' hell! Fling it into her gapin' mouth, if you think she's goin' to bite you!" and the others laughed uneasily at Archie's sardonic humor. ...

— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... heard only the echo of the hoarse laughter after his stories. They found when he spoke in Cooper Union that he had a mind that would have sat unembarrassed and luminous in the company of the men of the age of Pericles. But he had a sense of humor that, had he been there, would have saved Socrates from the hyssop. Mr. Bryce says, that all the world knows the Americans to be a humorous people. [Footnote: Bryce, "American Commonwealth," 2:286.] "They are," he has said, "as conspicuously ...

— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... a touch of unconscious humor in the final paragraph which clamored for quotation. But it was plainly written in ...

— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... chatting and telephoning and lunching, the day soon passed. Carley went to dinner with friends and later to a roof garden. The color and light, the gayety and music, the news of acquaintances, the humor of the actors—all, in fact, except the unaccustomed heat and noise, were most welcome and diverting. That night she slept the sleep ...

— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... thirty-four years of age, a man of medium height, of inoffensive mien, and who affected an unvarying good-humor. ...

— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... April, the ordinance which convoked the electors to appoint a member of the municipal council on the 20th of the same month was inserted in the "Moniteur," and placarded about Paris. For several weeks the ministry, called that of March 1st, had been in power. Brigitte was in a charming humor. She had been convinced of the truth of all la Peyrade's assertions. The house, visited from garret to cellar by old Chaffaroux, was admitted by him to be an admirable construction; poor Grindot, the architect, who was interested with the notary and Claparon ...

— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... coat is a marvel both in cut and in texture, but his linen is irreproachable, and what hair nature has still left him is most carefully brushed. There is, too, in his small gray Irish eyes a mischievous twinkle, and a fund of honest good humor that goes far to defy the ravages of time. In spite of his seventy years and his quaint attire, he still at times can hold his own with many ...

— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... impressed by her dignity. But he could not help watching her as she appeared to be volubly recounting her late interview to her companions; and, still unconscious of any impropriety or obtrusiveness, he lounged down lazily towards her. Her humor had evidently changed; for she turned an honest, pleased face upon him, as she girlishly attempted ...

— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... returned to Colby Hall, both Jack and Fred were in unusual good humor, for, not only had Ruth said she would try to get down to New York during the holidays, but May had told Fred that if Spouter came down to the metropolis she would try ...

— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... tugging viciously at his gloves. He was in very bad humor. The policeman at the Mulberry Street door got hardly a nod for his cheery "Merry Christmas" as ...

— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... to Madame Gianclis, had not put her in a humor to concede Madame Blavatsky's soul, or any part of it, to Mrs. Athelstone. Promptly on hearing of her pretensions, so rumor had it, the Boston woman had announced the reincarnation of Theosophy's high priestess in herself. And Boston believers were inclined to accept her ...

— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... the British commanders killed their leading prisoners of war in cold blood morning after morning with an effect of long-drawn-out ferocity. Really it was only the usual childish petulance in which John Bull does things in a week that disgrace him for a century, though he soon recovers his good humor, and cannot understand why the survivors of his wrath do not feel as jolly with him as he does with them. On the smouldering ruins of Dublin the appeals to remember Louvain were presently supplemented by ...

— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw

... confidence in his master, and the most unlimited devotion to his interests, even anticipating his wishes and orders, which were always intelligently executed. In fine, he was a Caleb without the growling, and a perfect pattern of constant good-humor. Had he been made on purpose for the place, it could not have been better done. Ferguson put himself entirely in his hands, so far as the ordinary details of existence were concerned, and he did well. Incomparable, whole-souled Joe! a servant who orders your dinner; who likes ...

— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... not always so warmly dressed in its habiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken into the reader's mind without a shiver. Whether from lack of power or an unconquerable reserve, the author's touches have often an effect of tameness; the merriest man can hardly contrive to laugh at his broadest humor, the tenderest woman, one would suppose, will hardly shed warm tears at his deepest pathos. The book, if you would see any thing in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly ...

— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... various phrases to them; to see them giggle and bend double, no theater was ever so funny. When I got to my last bite, I inquired the name of the food, and said it and "Sayonara"—good night. This old gag was a triumph of humor. They are certainly a good-natured people. I have watched the children come out from a public school near here, and never yet have I seen a case of bullying or even of teasing, except of a very good-natured ...

— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... broadly as if my replies suited the humor he was in. I knew that I had made an impression that was not detrimental to me in his eyes, and thought that I began to see through the puzzle. The succeeding few moments convinced me that I was ...

— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... torture you to-morrow," Dame Ysabeau said, presently, to Darrell, as these two rode side by side, "or else I mean to free you. In sober verity I do not know. I am in a holiday humor, and it is as the whim may take me. But do you indeed love this Rosamund Eastney? And of ...

— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... rising dearness of the necessaries of life, and on the ever increasing difficulty to earn the needed cash. On the flaming altar, where the soup kettle bubbles, youth and mental ease, beauty and good humor are sacrificed; and who recognizes in the old care-bent cook, the one-time blooming, overbearing, coy-coquette bride in the array of her myrtle crown? Already in antiquity the hearth was sacred, near it were placed the Lares ...

— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... take on alarming probability. But at this point some sound, smiling, active boy or girl comes in with a cheerful greeting, and pessimism retires into the background. And all this reminds me of one more quality which the children's librarian must have—a sense of humor. It is literally saving ...

— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... I asked him what there was in Lang Tammas to smile at, and admitted that he could not tell me. However, I have always been of opinion that the thought of the precentor in his box gave Cree a fleeting sense of humor. ...

— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... with a divine mission Like the Hebrew prophets, with whose writings his whole soul was imbued, it was back to the old worship and the God of the fathers that he called his people, and not Isaiah himself was more destitute of that humor, that sense of ludicrous contrast, which is an essential in the composition of a sceptic. In Dante's time, learning had something of a sacred character, the line was hardly yet drawn between the clerk and the possessor of supernatural powers, it was with the next generation, ...

— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... and Growth of American Politics" is a well-studied work. Henry A. Miller's "Money and Bimetallism" is a conscientious statement of his investigations of that question. Judge Marshall Brown has written two books, "Bulls and Blunders" and "Wit and Humor of Famous Sayings." Frank M. Bennett's "Steam Navy of the United States" is ...

— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church

... seven cheer returned with the realization that Jane was not getting ready the white-and-gold bed. Still in a very bad humor, and touched up smartly by a fresh cap and a dainty apron, the nurse put Gwendolyn into a rosebud-bordered mull frock and tied a white-satin ...

— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... 'Never mind, you'll grow to it.' Let me tell you, I got dat dress off in a hurry 'cause I was 'most skeered to death for fear dat if I kept it on it would grow to my skin lak I thought she meant. [HW in margin: Humor] I never put dat dress on no more for a long time and dat was atter I found out dat she jus' meant dat my dress would fit me atter I had growed ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... the boundaries eastward, so that something of the unfruitful Baltic Plain was reclaimed. Letters awoke and Philosophy. Soon the greatest of all human exponents, St. Thomas Aquinas, was to appear. The plastic arts leapt up: Color and Stone. Humor fully returned: general travel: vision. In general, the moment was one of expectation and of ...

— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... pretty sister, Jane, to go about suspecting me this way, and accusing me of intrigue and hypocrisy, and all kinds of black-hearted wickedness. What would I want to deceive you for? You know we all have to consider Clarice, and humor her: she is an orphan, and we are her nearest friends. She amuses herself with me sometimes, for want of another man at hand, and then throws me aside when the ...

— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... account of being so poor and hungry and all that and not having a good home. So he was going up to your house anyway and Skinny cried and hung onto him, and begged him not to. I guess he went on kind of crazy, but he said he was sure because he knew the Morse Code. Anyway, just to humor him, I guess, Jake promised him he'd wait till early in the morning, and meanwhile you came ...

— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... just returned from Dover, where I stayed four days to see Crane off for the Black Forest. There was a thin thread of hope that he might recover, but to me he looked like a man already dead. When he spoke, or, rather, whispered, there was all the accustomed humor in his sayings. I said to him that I would go over to the Schwarzwald in a few weeks, when he was getting better, and that we would take some convalescent rambles together. As his wife was listening he said faintly: 'I'll look forward to ...

— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... came home he found the house filled with the fumes of boiled beef, and it put him in a good humor at once. He was hungry, having had nothing all day but a glass of ...

— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman

... forgets blows, however severe, inflicted on him with the fist, a cudgel, or a tomahawk. A remarkable ethnological peculiarity of the prognathous race is, that any deserved punishment, inflicted on them with a switch, cowhide, or whip, puts them into good humor with themselves and the executioner of the punishment, provided he manifest satisfaction by regarding the offense ...

— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... They are continually spreading themselves too, to settle and enlighten less favored quarters. Dr. Franklin is a New Englander." When I remarked that his observations were flattering to my country, he replied, with great good humor, "Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your country the cradle of free principles, not their armchair. Liberty in England is a sort of idol; people are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see little of its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is between high walls; ...

— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... field. When at rest or listening, his legs and arms seemed to hang almost lifeless, and his face was care-worn and haggard; but, the moment he began to talk, his face lightened up, his tall form, as it were, unfolded, and he was the very impersonation of good-humor and fellowship. The last words I recall as addressed to me were that he would feel better when I was back at Goldsboro'. We parted at the gangway of the River Queen, about noon of March 28th, and I never saw him again. Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess ...

— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... His humor was vastly improved, and he watched the passing throngs with an expression more suited to his boyish good looks than that of anger and mortification which had rested upon him ...

— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... a very small room, whose only furnishings consisted of a table—at which he was writing—a couple of rough chairs, and the universal feather-bed, this time made on the floor in one corner of the room. On my remarking upon the limited character of his quarters, the Count replied, with great good-humor, that they were all right, and that he should get along well enough. Even the tramp of his clerks in the attic, and the clanking of his orderlies' sabres below, did not disturb him much; he said, in fact, that he would have no grievance at all were it not for a ...

— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan

... even yet: The so-called "infidel" is often a man of great gentleness of spirit, and his disbelief is not in God, but in some little man's definition of God—a distinction the little man, being without humor, can never see. ...

— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... resourceful, intelligent and amusing. An ingenious plot that keeps the interest suspended until the end, and has a quick and shrewd sense of humor."—Boston Transcript. ...

— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... and simple prose! Eleven good books given to the circulation and received not only with admiration but with gratitude—books where there are more or less good or sincere pages, but where there is not one on which original humor, nobleness, charm, some comforting thoughts, some elevated sentiments do not shine. Some other author would perhaps have stopped after producing "Quo Vadis," without any doubt the best of Sienkiewicz's books. But Sienkiewicz looks into the future and cares more about works which ...

— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... securely in both hands, mimicked the minister's self-conscious entrance. She copied his pompous and anxious expression in the dim parlor in such delicious fashion that Miss Harriet, who could not always extinguish a ready spark of the original sin of humor, ...

— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett

... anything except a caricature of the censor himself in "Kladderadatsch." That it was left unmasked was my first proof that that gentleman, individually and collectively, was not deficient in a sense of humor. The sketch represented a disheveled scribe seated three quarters submerged in a bottle of ink, from the half-open cover of which his quill pen projected like a signal of distress. This was accompanied by an inscription to the effect that as the Russian censor had blacked so many other people, he ...

— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood