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More "Ridiculous" Quotes from Famous Books
... replied the Doctor. 'Don't you know it's always somebody's birth-day? Did you never hear how many new performers enter on this - ha! ha! ha! - it's impossible to speak gravely of it - on this preposterous and ridiculous business called Life, ... — The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... masses. Whether the masses will think certain things wrong, cruel, base, unjust, and disgusting; whether they will think certain pleas and demands reasonable; whether they will regard certain projects as sensible, ridiculous, or fantastic, and will give attention to certain topics, depends on the convictions and feelings which at the time are dominant in the mores. No one can predict with confidence what the response will be to any stimulus which may be applied. The fact that ... — Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... even from infidels; for, in this case, all reasoning became superfluous, when opposed to a plain fact, attested by three-and-twenty witnesses. To assert the doctrine of the fixed laws of nature, was ridiculous, when there were so many people of credit to prove that they might be unfixed. Years rolled on; the story ceased to engage attention, and it was forgotten, unless when occasionally ... — Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... the room and speaking seriously to her brother.] Really, Morris, you are very rude. And it's quite ridiculous to be rude. This gentleman was only practising some tricks by himself in the garden. [With a certain dignity.] If there was any mistake, it was mine. Come, shake hands, or whatever men do when they apologize. Don't be silly. He won't turn ... — Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton
... of old days to enclose their old bones from neighbourhood. In one, under a sort of shrine, we found a forlorn human effigy, very realistically executed down to the detail of his ribbed stockings, and holding in his hand a ticket with the date of his demise. He looked most pitiful and ridiculous, shut up by himself in his aristocratic precinct, like a bad old boy or an inferior forgotten deity under a new dispensation; the burdocks grew familiarly about his feet, the rain dripped all round him; and the world maintained the most entire indifference as to who he was or whither he had gone. ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a meaning had, Sister Helen! It gave strange force to a weird ballad. But refrains have become a ridiculous 'fad', Little brother. And Mother Carey, mother, Has a bearing on nothing in ... — The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... in his day. It is ridiculous to compare him with Burr, which is often done by persons who should know better, because they have all the evidence upon which to predicate a conclusion. The occasion was open to both, equally, to discover to the world what abilities they possessed. They equally filled eminent ... — The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... black, and in the other Mr. Platitude; "there they are; have a good look at them, while I go and get ready." The man in black and Mr. Platitude were walking up and down the yard, Mr. Platitude was doing his best to make himself appear ridiculous, talking very loudly in exceedingly bad Italian, evidently for the purpose of attracting the notice of the bystanders, in which he succeeded, all the stable-boys and hangers-on about the yard, attracted by his vociferation, grinning at his ridiculous ... — The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... had said one night after their return. "It makes us ridiculous in the eyes of anybody but fools." And Jack had flared up about it, and declared that he knew what he could afford, and she had retorted that as for her she would not countenance it. And Jack had attempted ... — Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... three pistols, all of which he put in his belt, and finished this hostile array by adding a huge butcher-knife to the collection. He looked formidable enough to fight a whole army; but he intended only to make a prudent display of force. Mollie thought it was rather ridiculous for a small boy like him to load himself down with so many weapons, which could not avail him, if a conflict became necessary, against sixteen savages, full grown, and accustomed to fighting. But Noddy was general-in-chief of the forces, and she did not remonstrate any further than to ... — Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... great man's censure of the ridiculous—particularly his attacks on the Proboscidae; but, alas! he has no reverence for the Marsupials, and laughs at our way of carrying our young in ... — Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... hero looked more ridiculous than anyone could look by simply putting on a nightcap. He had armed himself with an old rusty knife that his father had used in ... — Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... how ridiculous it is of you to be jealous of a horse? Have you ever heard of anyone else behaving ... — Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Surely you realize how ridiculous the whole affair is. It is only slightly less nauseating than the plot used in the stories of advanced civilizations where the hero is conducted on a sight-seeing tour by the individual in whose path he popped upon entering this new world. I can't believe that more than a handful of my fellow ... — Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... "I shall be ridiculous as the Alighieri, and you must forgive me, Mamie, if I say that one scarcely sees in you a reincarnation ... — Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... missed being what I should have been; doing what I should have done—by a hair's breadth. I did pretty well in college, but thereafter, when things begin to count! Law? I never got over the humiliation of my first ridiculous failure. Business? I made a fortune in six weeks, lost it in a month, and was lucky to get out without having to mortgage a farm. Politics? Wharton won by a dozen votes. I just missed being what my brother is now—I ... — Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... spinning around and around in the water, and banging about among the other furniture as if it had never been at sea before, and finally bringing up against the tea-table with a crash in the stupidest way imaginable, and knocking the tea-set and all the cups and saucers into the water. Dorothy felt very ridiculous as you may suppose, and, to add to her mortification, the Stork ferryman suddenly reappeared, and she could see him running along the roofs of the houses, and now and then stopping to stare down at her from the eaves as she sailed by, ... — The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... full of happiness. His bosom's lord sat lightly on its throne. Natt's face was excruciatingly ridiculous, and Paul laughed at the sight of it. Then Natt laughed, and they both laughed together, each at, neither with, the other. "I don't know nothing, I don't. Oh, no!" chuckled Natt, inwardly. Once he ... — A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... fear from Romanism? But a few days since a gentleman of learning and intelligence when speaking of this subject, exclaimed, "What have we to do with the Jesuits? and what is the Inquisition to us? The idea that we have aught to fear from Romanism, is simply ridiculous!" In reply to this, allow me to quote the language of the Rev. Manuel J. Gonsalves, leader of ... — Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... often makes use of the Talmudic jargon peculiar to Rabbinical scholars, whom he has the skill to transfer to his canvas down to their slightest gestures and mannerisms. But he does not restrain his wit in showing up the ridiculous side of the moderns as well. His best-known novels, which have been translated into Russian and into German, are "Doctor Alfasi", "Mordecai Kisowitz", "The Beginning and the End of a Quarrel", etc. Brandstatter also wrote satires in verse. He has not a few points of resemblance to the painter of ... — The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... advanced cautiously to examine the gate. It occurred to him that it must be fly-time in this region, and he did not wish to make himself ridiculous before all these strangers by trying to bolt through an invisible mesh like the one that had baffled him when he was a little chap. Yet there were no screens, and despair entered his soul. What bitter punishment these poor beasts must ... — Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... outwitted by evil, which is in its turn outwitted by wisdom. There is nothing new in it except the charming exposition which Goldsmith's genius has given to the subject. Thackeray ridiculed "The Sorrows of Werther," and in the light of matured judgment the tale appears ridiculous; but it strikes home to the heart, because we all learn wisdom through such experiences, of which young Werther's is an extreme instance. It was only another example of the close relation that subsists between comedy ... — The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Sunday, dressed up in Sunday clothes, trying to impress her. And he looked ridiculous. She clung to the ridiculous effect of his stiff, ... — The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... quadruped, and man eats the remaining one tenth; therefore, if we want to get clear of the possibility of a crop being overproduced, let us grow something the beast can eat. To say that we will never overproduce food crops for man is ridiculous. It is quite possible, for instance, that we may produce too many Persian walnuts for man's food, but the tree that will produce nuts to feed the beasts is on a firm basis. Pigs are going up and they are going to stay up. If we can get something that ... — Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... prevent a gossip from maligning a woman who loves? What measures can be taken to stop a public rumor? If they say that I ill-treat her, it is for me—to prove the contrary by my conduct with her, and not by violence. It would be as ridiculous to seek a quarrel with Mercanson as to leave the country on account of gossip. No, we must not leave the country; that would be a bad move; that would be to say to all the world that there is truth in its idle rumors, and to give excuse to the gossips. We must neither go ... — Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... they used was the ideal tendencies, which always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge the moment they put their horses of the sun ... — An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... against Caroline for her repeated refusals suddenly subsided; his attachment revived with redoubled force. He protested that he loved her the better for having lost her fortune, and he reiterated this protestation more loudly, because his father declared it was absurd and ridiculous. The son persisted, till the father, though not subject to make violent resolutions, was wrought to such a pitch as to swear, that if Buckhurst should be fool enough to think seriously of a girl who was now a beggar, he would absolutely refuse his consent ... — Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... patience, discrimination, and a certain amount of self-denial before we can discover the grains of solid gold in the dark mines of Eastern philosophy. It is far easier and far more amusing for shallow critics to point out what is absurd and ridiculous in the religion and philosophy of the ancient world than for the earnest student to discover truth and wisdom under strange disguises. Some progress, however, has been made, even during the short span of life that we can remember. The Sacred Books of the East are no longer ... — India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... thunder-clap. They have, of course, at once cried out that, should it receive the sanction of Congress, it would still amount to nothing, because no legislature of a slave State will accept it; an argument as ridiculous as it is trivial. That the South would, for the present, treat the proposal with scorn, is likely enough. But the edge of the wedge has been introduced, and emancipation has been at least officially recognized as desirable. While such a possible means ... — Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... possessed of few ideas, circumscribed in their mental faculties, stupid, brutal, and ferocious, conducting themselves nevertheless, in matters of importance to the community, by the general maxims of reason and justice; and their treaties are always founded upon good sense, conveyed in a very ridiculous manner. Their language is guttural, harsh, and polysyllabical; and their speech consists of hyperbolical metaphors and similies, which invest it with an air of dignity and heighten the expression. They manage their conferences by means of wampum, a kind of bead formed of a hard shell, either ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... June exclaimed vindictively, her anger for the moment getting the better of her sense of the ridiculous, "they 'dealt' in us! More than likely they played poker to decide how to divide us up—to see who should love you and which should love me! As if the heart of a woman can be made to run in a groove cut to order by the hand of any masculine—insect!" she finished, ... — The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... that always seems wrathful, I came very near replying to him, "I salute you, sir," as to a man. I told my father afterwards, at home: "I don't understand it; Stardi has no natural talent, he has not fine manners, and his face is almost ridiculous; yet he suggests ideas to me." And my father answered, "It is because he has character." And I added, "During the hour that I spent with him he did not utter fifty words, he did not show me a single plaything, he did not laugh once; yet I liked to ... — Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... person and office of the Laureate. "The Rehearsal" was acted in 1671. The hero, Mr. Bayes, imitated all the personal peculiarities of Dryden, used his cant phrases, burlesqued his style, and exposed, while pretending to defend, his ridiculous points, until the laugh of the town was fairly turned upon the "premier-poet of the realm." The wit was undoubtedly of the broadest, and the humor at the coffee-room level; but it was so much the more effective. Dryden affected to ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... attainable on the subject, urge them on no account to compromize themselves without the security of an authentic wedding ring. They cite the example of George Eliot, who formed an illicit union with Lewes. They quote a saying attributed to Nietzsche, that a married philosopher is ridiculous, though the men of their choice are not philosophers. When they finally give up the idea of reforming our marriage institutions by private enterprise and personal righteousness, and consent to be led to the Registry or even to the altar, they insist on first arriving ... — Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... clothes—fairly tall and slim, and apparently dark- haired, but stooping so much that he looked almost hump-backed: how different from Aunt Emma, with her womanly figure, and her upright gait, and her sweet old white head! Why, it was clearly ridiculous. ... — Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... don't mean to say that you intend to go on with that ridiculous affair; when, if you marry at all, it ought to be one who will bring ... — That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... absolute fool saying those things; they were ridiculous notions. Imagine a man thinking himself from one place to another! But—I had been on ... — Pythias • Frederik Pohl
... she went on, "since I saw you lying between life and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk of keeping the appointment, in your state of health? An appointment with a shadowy Something in your own imagination, which appears and disappears, and leaves substantial writing behind it! It's ridiculous, George; I wonder you ... — The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... compendium, despite the fact that whenever Keane discovers intelligence in an African he immediately discovers that its possessor is no "Negro." The articles in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica are of some value, except the ridiculous article on the "Negro" by T.A. Joyce. Frobenius' newly published Voice of Africa is broad-minded and informing, and Brown's Story of Africa and its Explorers brings together much material in readable form. The compendiums by Keltie and White, and Johnston's ... — The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... by circuitous styles of expression, seems indeed a born quality of the common people everywhere, evidenced by nick-names, and the inveterate determination of the masses to bestow sub-titles, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes very apt. Always among the soldiers during the secession war, one heard of "Little Mac" (Gen. McClellan), or of "Uncle Billy" (Gen. Sherman.) "The old man" was, of course, very common. Among the rank and file, both armies, it was very general ... — Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... say, it was considerate, but this Ruth is very ungrateful. She was actually ridiculous enough to think they ought to have had a fortune, and I believe blames papa for the way things ... — The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... off in the middle of the enormous sentence to say a most ridiculous and unnecessary thing. "Come in," he said, just as though there was some one knocking at the door. But no single head was turned. If there was an ... — The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... man come out to do either, in a chariot and pair, you ridiculous old vampire?' said ... — Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... ones swim about like the tadpoles of the water newt. Now, to suppose that these utterly useless gills were specially designed is to suppose design without any assignable purpose; for even the far-fetched assumption that a unity of ideal is the cause of organic affinities, becomes positively ridiculous when applied to the case of embryonic structures, which are destined to disappear before the animal is born. Who, for instance, would have the courage to affirm that the Deity had any such motive in providing, not only the unborn young of specially created salamanders, ... — The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... has been indelicate enough to tell you about our family affairs. Of course you have sufficient discretion to disbelieve such ridiculous stories." ... — Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... to make it pleasant, or even tolerable. This is slavery indeed, and where is the man, come from God, who will show us a remedy? I look at the free blacks of the North and South. I say again, this is Abolition! How worthless, how degraded they are, after they imbibe these ridiculous notions. When I behold the Southern country, and am convinced that it is impossible to manumit the slaves, I conclude that here, at least, they are in their natural condition. Heretofore, I feel ... — Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... course you know. When that simple old priest proposed that ridiculous compact I agreed, but I knew quite well that it would soon break down. Not on my side, though. Why should it? A man can afford to wait. But I felt sure you would soon tire of your resistance. And you have, haven't you? Oh, I'm not blind. I've seen what's been going ... — The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... "Yet, Oh! how ridiculous; how empty is all mere human philosophy! This same philosopher who speaks so eloquently again and again of the contempt of riches, was all his life immersed in them; and at his death left thousands behind him. Does it not seem to you ... — The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... Governments in the world in combination, let alone bankrupt Germany, could at the present time raise this amount of new money (that is to say, for other purposes than the funding or redemption of existing obligations) from investors in the world's Stock Exchanges is ridiculous. ... — Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... see she is in a fury with you; and really it is too ridiculous. You told a fib; that is the mighty matter, I do believe. No, it isn't; for you have told her a hundred, no doubt, and she liked you all the better; but this time you have been naughty enough to be found out, and she is romantic, and thinks ... — The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Crompton after dinner. His extreme obesity, though it deprived him of some advantages in the way of "reach," was, upon the whole, a benefit to him. His antagonists lost the sense of his superiority of skill in their enjoyment of the ridiculous and constrained postures in which he was compelled to place himself, and he was well content to see them laugh and lose. None but a first-rate player could have held his own among that company, whose intelligence had been directed to this particular pursuit for most of their natural ... — Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Loo said. "But not pro-American either. I find much that is ridiculous in the propaganda of both the ... — Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... reached the mocker himself and froze the gibes on his lips; for all at once the thought arose that this was a human creature to whom Nature had forbidden any expression of love or tenderness, since such expression could only be painful or ridiculous to the woman he loved. In the presence of such misfortune a Frenchman is silent; to him it seems the most cruel of all afflictions—to be unable ... — Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... an immediate millennium, and of the return of his Master surrounded with divine splendour, judging mankind and adjusting the balance between good and evil. It was a baseless dream, and the enlightened may call it ridiculous. It is anything but that, it is the very opposite of that. Putting aside its temporary mode of expression, it is the hope and the prophecy of all noble hearts, a sign of their inability to concur in ... — Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... common, is the love of finery and a mean and foolish ambition to appear better dressed than becomes their station, in hopes of imposing upon the world as persons of much higher rank than they really are. This inconsiderate, ridiculous pride brings along with it such a numerous train of bad consequences that of necessity it makes the person inflamed by it unhappy and often miserable for life. In the case now before us a was still more fatal by adding a violent ... — Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... that he had told her a rather stupid fairy story. She was too old for such ridiculous things as ladies in their shining hair on a leopard. She remembered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoological garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would care to ride on it. Her mother, she was certain, knew more about love than any man. His words faded ... — Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... name me. My name is Mr. O'Mahony." And Mr. O'Mahony was not a man who could be happy when he was quarrelling with all around him. He was soon worked into a violent passion, in which he made himself ridiculous, but when he had subsided, and the storm was past, he knew he had misbehaved, and was unhappy. And, as he was thoroughly honest, he could not be got to obey his leaders in everything. He wanted to abolish the ... — The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... is a strikers' parade, sir. I heard that they were to organise a march-out to-night. It is rather a ridiculous thing." ... — To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... get up!" she almost screamed, "this is ridiculous in the extreme; if you will not get up, I must really call for some one. I cannot allow you to ... — La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Joan. "A baronetcy has become the distinction of the middle class; a physician, our physician for example, is a baronet; and I dare say some of our tradesmen; brewers, of people of that class. An attempt to elevate them into an order of nobility, however inferior, would partake in some degree of the ridiculous." ... — Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... myrtle warblers, savanna sparrows, tree swallows, purple martins, a few meadow larks, and the ubiquitous turkey buzzard. The boat-tails abounded along the river banks, and, with their tameness and their ridiculous outcries, kept us amused whenever there was nothing else to absorb our attention. The prairie lands through which the river meanders proved to be surprisingly dry and passable (the water being unusually low, the boy said), with many cattle pastured upon ... — A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... has brought about in such habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this ... — A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... said in a faint voice so subdued and contrite as to be ridiculous, "Mickey-lovest, won't you please to rub hard! Rub ... — Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... his own hands and hers was marked enough to be almost ridiculous. Hers were tiny, soft and white. His were large, brown and calloused. He thought to himself, "It is as if two little white mice were playing about an enormous trap which in a moment ... — The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... have followed Luttrell's version of Temple's last words. It agrees in substance with Clarendon's, but has more of the abruptness natural on such an occasion. If anything could make so tragical an event ridiculous, it would be the lamentation of ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ridiculous in the expression 'master of himself;' for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the ... — The Republic • Plato
... creature with something like reverence for the nobility which I now could read so plainly in every line of her face—the nobility which can attach itself only to decency of life and thought and action. In my brief interview with her in the twilight of the evening before I had heard only the ridiculous jargon of a woman without a palate, and I had seen only an old crone with a soot-smeared face. But now the maimed voice echoed in my ears like the sound of the little old melodeon with the broken strings—which ... — The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the city. It was on a scaffolding in front of it that Barneveldt, the grand pensionary of Holland, was beheaded, in 1618, at the age of seventy-two. We also saw the gateway of the tower in which Cornelius De Witt was confined, in 1672, on the ridiculous charge of conspiracy against the Prince of Orange. The populace feared his acquittal, and they by a manoeuvre induced his brother John De Witt, the grand pensionary, to visit him in prison. They then broke in, dragged them forth, and tore them to pieces under the gateway. We went ... — Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... been, though he had lived and wrought through ten thousand summers and winters. This is what Emerson means when he says, "Give me a book, health and a June day, and I will make the pomp of kings ridiculous." When the Athenian youth, beloved of the gods, went forth upon his journey, one friend brought him a wondrous armor, proof against arrows; another brought a horse of marvelous swiftness; another brought a bow of great size and strength. Thus armed, the youth ... — A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... man, who was more quaintly attired than she in the very extreme of that style of dress. I thought to myself that in France, as in England, it is the provincials who carry fashion to such an excess as to become ridiculous. ... — Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... can't bear what's said about us any longer —and I don't wonder! He done his best, and so's we all. The public have just gone daft—in the West End, that is, to-day. As for the papers, well, they're something cruel—that's what they are. And the ridiculous ideas they print! You'd never believe the things they asks us ... — The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... what a man's wits are, and why he has them, and therefore is able to invent and to improve, while even the cleverest ape has none, and therefore can invent and improve nothing, and therefore cannot better himself, but must remain from father to son, and father to son again, a stupid, pitiful, ridiculous ape, while men can go on civilising themselves, and growing richer and more comfortable, wiser and happier, year by year—how that comes to pass, I say, is to me a wonder and a prodigy and a miracle, stranger than all the most fantastic marvels you ... — Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... lofty and god-like being; and so, from the earliest times, human vanity has been pleased to believe in our origin from gods or demi-gods. The Church, with that sophistic reversal of ideas of which it is a master, has succeeded in representing this ridiculous piece of vanity as "Christian humility"; and the very men who reject with horror the notion of an animal origin, and count themselves "children of God," love to prate of their "humble sense of servitude." In most of the sermons that have poured out from pulpit ... — The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... the gospels, has been considered in the 16th ch. of my work; and which may further appear from these circumstances, that Irenaeus considered the Book of Hermas an inspired Scripture as much as he did the four gospels, and that Tertullian contended stoutly for the inspiration of the ridiculous book of Enoch, one of the most stupid forgeries that ever was seen,) the quotations and supposed allusions in the earlier fathers are uncertain, since it is acknowledged by Dodwell, and also by others, that it cannot be shown with any certainty, ... — Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... that had passed. Mrs. Lascelles agreed with Cecilia that they were in no danger of insult; and as they talked over the matter they at last began to laugh; there was a novelty in it, and there was something so ridiculous in all the gentlemen being turned into smugglers. Cecilia was glad that she could not tell her aunt, as she wished her to be so frightened as never to have her company on board the yacht again; and Mrs. Lascelles was too glad to annoy her for many and various insults received. The matter was ... — The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... clear proof that his own eyes and ears had led him astray. Romanes, who had propounded the forgotten theory of physiological selection, charged Wallace with adopting it as his own. This was not only untrue, it was ridiculous; and Wallace, after telling him so and receiving no apology, dropped him out of his recognition. During Romanes' illness Mr. Thiselton-Dyer wrote to Wallace and sought to bring about ... — Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... is in reality a discourse on the philosophy of life and human nature, more suggestive than many approved treatises expressly devoted to that subject'. Well, for the second half of this pronouncement—constat. 'You see, my friend,' writes Goldsmith's Citizen of the World ,'there is nothing so ridiculous that it has not at some time been said by some philosopher.' But for the first part, while a priori Mr. Ireland ought to be right—since Hazlitt, as we have seen, came to literary criticism by the road of philosophical ... — Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the last final argument, that women do not themselves want the franchise, has in the light of recent events become ridiculous. On June 13, 15,000 suffragists paraded through the streets of London and it is said that the woman suffrage meeting of June 21 was the largest public meeting ever held for any cause. Fifty thousand women have just stormed Parliament.... No one now doubts that the women of England want ... — The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... the queen is gone, and the message gone, and yet England standeth not a rush the better. Of which message I thus say, answering again to Gardiner, per inversionem Rhetoricam, that, as he sayeth, it was the greatest—so I say again, it was the lightest—legacy; the most ridiculous trifle, and most miserablest message, of all other that ever came, or ever shall come, to England, none excepted, for us to be reconciled to an outlandish priest, and to submit our necks under a foreign yoke. What have we to do more with him than with the great Calypha of Damascus? ... — Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... followers that they can hypnotize to do their will. They instinctively set themselves off into classes, and while this is useful as a protection from invasion, conditions in India show the evils of class-caste distinctions carried to a ridiculous extreme. The vast, surging, unyielding predatory classes on this earth consist of those who have but lately—comparatively—emerged from the animal kingdom, and have not yet been put through the mill of reincarnation times enough to rid them ... — Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... give me the ring, although I said it was ridiculous for a girl to be engaged without one. He always made some excuse, and only to-night—— But I have him safe now," she added, with a fierce abruptness, ... — A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... British regiments, when not on duty, used to fling themselves into the arms of our venerable chair. Fancy one of them, a red nosed captain, in his scarlet uniform, playing with the hilt of his sword, and making a circle of his brother officers merry with ridiculous jokes at the expense of the poor Yankees. And perhaps he would call for a bottle of wine, or a steaming bowl of punch, and drink confusion to ... — True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... prows or sterns of ships, or to put anywhere before the human eye indoors or out, that which distorts honest shapes, or which creates unearthly beings or places or contingencies, is a nuisance and revolt. Of the human form especially, it is so great it must never be made ridiculous. Of ornaments to a work nothing outre can be allow'd—but those ornaments can be allow'd that conform to the perfect facts of the open air, and that flow out of the nature of the work, and come irrepressibly from it, and are necessary to the ... — Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... defence could be made for Shadrach, that there would be a probability of his getting off upon the proof, there were two or three persons standing about, and some one of them said there might be an interference on the part of the colored people. Mr. Sewall said that would be perfectly ridiculous, and I said so too. It was in that connection, I think, that I said there were but few persons outside. I had come from a meeting of the persons ... — Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... performed the part of Tactus at Cambridge: and some who have written the life of that great man have fixed upon this speech as what first gave him ideas of sovereignty. The notion is too vague to be depended upon, and too ridiculous either to establish or refute. It may, however, not be unnecessary to mention that Cromwell was born in 1599, and the first edition of this play [was printed in 1607, and the play itself written much earlier]. If, therefore, the Protector ever did represent this character, it ... — A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... very happy. For the electric engine which can be run by waterpower is a clean and companionable servant of mankind but the "heat-engine," the marvel of the eighteenth century, is a noisy and dirty creature for ever filling the world with ridiculous smoke-stacks and with dust and soot and asking that it be fed with coal which has to be dug out of mines at great inconvenience and risk to thousands ... — The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... a whole history of strange events since the herb-gatherer, Matt Peke, had befriended him on the road,—and the most curious impression of all was that he had somehow lost his own identity for ever. It was impossible and ridiculous to think of himself as David Helmsley, the millionaire,—there was, there could be no such person! David Helmsley,—the real David Helmsley,—was very old, very tired, very poor,—there was nothing left for him in this world save death. He had no children, no friends,—no one who cared for ... — The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Westminster? We who write, if we want the talent, yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right, where he said, "That no man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented, because the poets will not admit them of their number. Thus the case ... — All for Love • John Dryden
... dodged her and went right through the molasses on the floor. All her four paws were covered. Wherever she stepped she left an imprint. And when the excited Ruth grabbed for her again, she capped her ridiculous performance by leaping right into ... — The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... fall backwards in a divarication posture, to intimate thereby unto us the reality of their consent to the supposed motion of our tacit demands. Or if they should chance to make any countersigns responsory to our propositions, they would prove so foolish, impertinent, and ridiculous, that by them ourselves should easily judge their thoughts to have no excursion beyond the duffling academy. You know very well how at Brignoles, when the religious nun, Sister Fatbum, was made big with child by the ... — Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and it is only a steppe (a thousand miles wide) between Tomsk and Tumen. Travelers from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg consider their journey pretty nearly accomplished on getting thus far along. The Siberians make light of distances that would frighten many ... — Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... indiscretion were ingrained, had gossiped to this lady, what then? Why should he be frowned on by Miss Lawrence, or anybody else? That malicious talk at Simla had soon exhausted itself. His present appointment was a triumphant answer to it all. His slanderers—including Aileen's ridiculous guardians—could only look foolish if they pursued the matter any further. What "trap" was there—what mesalliance? A successful soldier was good enough for anybody. Look at the first ... — Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the head of the two-car train that was waiting at the junction, and, in a little while, after the passengers for Crawford, the terminal station of the road, were all aboard, they pulled out with a great snorting and roaring that amused the girls immensely. But, ridiculous as they looked, the little engines were up to their work, and they took the sharp, steady climb ... — The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... reign appeals poured in from the Pope against his various enemies, from some barons of Apulia against the great Roger of Sicily, from the citizens of Lodi against the tyranny of Milan. These, together with the ridiculous proffer of the imperial crown from the lately formed Republic of Rome, seemed to open an opportunity for the successful recovery of imperial rights. And, much as the Italians resented the spasmodic ... — The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... the presence of his congregation; and even that other fiery orator, Patrick The Great, might have lost his balance had his new peach-colored coat split up the back, when he was hurling death and destruction upon tyrants and pleading for liberty or death. To be ridiculous with equanimity is ... — Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... to be put off. "Why, Joe Mauser, you've acquired a theme song, or whatever you call it. I didn't know you were that well known amount the nit-wits who follow the fracases. Why next they'll be forming those ridiculous buff-clubs." Her laughter tinkled. ... — Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... ships, and the Dutch as many; and that Smith is to command them, who is allowed to have the better of Holmes in the late dispute, and is in good esteem in the Parliament, above the other. Thence home, and there, in favour to my eyes, stayed at home, reading the ridiculous History of my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife, which shews her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him, ... — Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... remain in that felicitous condition until he chose to awake. His order to be "called" in the morning had reference merely to hot water; for at the time of which we write men were still addicted to the ridiculous practice of shaving—a practice which, as every one knows, is now confined chiefly to very old men—who naturally find it difficult to give up the bad habit of a lifetime—and to little boys, who ... — The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... hard-hearted worldliness. Then the highest and holiest part of our nature has a bashfulness of its own. It is a heavenly stranger, and easily shamed. A nimble-tongued, skilful woman can so easily show the ridiculous side of what seemed heroism; and what is called common-sense, so generally, is only some neatly put phase of selfishness. Poor John needed the angel at his elbow, to give him the caution which he is represented as giving to ... — Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... is as elaborately be-metaphored as an island of the Hebrides, with a wilderness of red-deer, Celts, ptarmigan, and other wild animals upon it. Now, this is out of all rule. An elephant's trunk can raise a pin as well as uproot an oak, but it would be ridiculous to employ the same effort for one as for the other. Robins—with reverence to so great a name, be it spoken—does not attend to this. He has yet to acquire the light and graceful touch of the finished artist." Thereupon Bon Gaultier proceeds to illustrate his views by the following, ... — The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... relate the most amazing of adventures. Our train, for instance, had been held up in the night by a band of robbers in black masks, and rescued by a traveller who bore a striking resemblance to my Cousin Robert Breck. He had shot two of the robbers. These fabrications, once started, flowed from me with ridiculous ease. I experienced an unwonted exhilaration, exaltation; I began to believe that they had actually occurred. In vain the astute Julia asserted that there were no train robbers in the east. What had my father done? Well, he had been very brave, ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for him was that no one could laugh more at the whole thing than he himself. No one could find it more ridiculous. His mother's ... — Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... hand in keeping the left hand ignorant of its doings. This has happened through the general decay of snobbishness among us, perhaps. It is certain that there is no longer the passion for a knowledge of the rich, and the smart, which made us ridiculous to Mr. Homos. Ten or twelve years ago, our newspapers abounded in intelligence of the coming and going of social leaders, of their dinners and lunches and teas, of their receptions and balls, and the guests who were bidden to them. But this sort ... — Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... a particular pleasure in quickly giving the lie to the inspired prophet, so we have the affair of Charleston, and some other small disasters. Oh, why has Congress forgotten to pass a law forbidding Seward, for decency's sake, to make himself ridiculous? Among others, hear the following query: Whether this unconquerable and irresistible nation shall suddenly perish through imbecility? etc. O Mr. Seward! how can you thus pointedly and mercilessly criticise your own deeds and ... — Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... influence, they could not have done better. The chronic jealousy and distrust of the time were deepened. And all this was aggravated by what went on in private. A system of espionage, whisperings, backbitings, and miserable tittle-tattle, sometimes of the most slanderous or the most ridiculous kind, was set going all over Oxford. Never in Oxford, before or since, were busybodies more truculent or more unscrupulous. Difficulties arose between Heads of Colleges and their tutors. Candidates for fellowships were closely examined as to their opinions ... — The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... is ridiculous, anyway, and I don't know why I ever agreed to it. Scientific? Nonsense. Where are our controls? For it to make any sense we'd have to work with scores of subjects. Suppose we do agree that the manner in which Don Crowley has reacted is quite harmless. Does that mean ... — The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... lady, and looked at each other in dismay. To Mr. Fogo the tableau might have borne a ridiculous likeness to that scene in Cymbeline where Guiderius and Arviragus stoop over the unconscious Imogen. But Mr. Fogo, as he stood neck-high in water, was far beyond drawing any such comparison; and Peter, instead of adjuring Miss Limpenny to fear no more the heat o' the sun, accinged ... — The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the work, calls on Whittier, death of Luc. Mott, persuades Mrs. Stn. to vote, 525; suggests Natl. Con. be omitted, owns Mrs. Stn. persuaded her, 526; trib. to Luc. Mott, day at her home, her hosts in Philadelphia, ridiculous account of Skye terrier, 527; N. Y. Graphic on terrier, her disgust, 528; love for Mrs. Nichols, wd. not spare parents for children's sake, 529; did not carry out theory, pushing the history, bound to have Rose and Nichol's pictures, 530; valuable work done by Hist. Wom. Suff., ... — The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... abominably wicked by nature and a savage abuser of his power, gave him such poisonous medicines, as though they did not kill him indeed, yet made him lose his senses, and run into wild and absurd attempts and desire to do actions and satisfy appetites that were ridiculous and shameful. So that his death, which happened to him while he was yet young and in the flower of his age, cannot be so much esteemed a misfortune as a deliverance and end of his misery. However, Philip paid ... — Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... battle-axes on long poles in their hands, and helmets on their heads. What use they were of it was difficult to say, for they certainly could not have run after a thief, much less have knocked one down. The signs, also, in front of the shops appeared very ridiculous. Instead of the display of articles made by an English tradesman in his windows, there were large boards over the doors and windows, and their sides, and under the windows, painted with gigantic designs representing the chief articles to be found within. Huge gloves and stockings, and cravats ... — Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... of his work, has the power to call a tear to the eye of sensibility, his sentiment, divested as it is of the Italian's subtle sensuousness, appears perfectly innocuous and at times not a little ridiculous. ... — Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... something still more ridiculous than my piece," said Beaumarchais himself; "that is, its success." Mademoiselle Arnould foresaw it the first day, and exclaimed, "It is a production that will fail fifty nights successively." There was as crowded an audience ... — Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... statutes to hold his court by his own fireside, providing the doors stand open. He was considerably over fifty, tall, and very thin, with bent shoulders. His clothes were rather old-fashioned in cut, but by no means ridiculous. The expression of his face was gentleness itself; but it would not have done to presume upon this gentleness, for his glance was keen and piercing—like the glance of all who are expert in diving into consciences, and discovering the secrets hidden there. Moreover, ... — The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... arrest with which he was threatened, after having written to urge Murat to action with fatal effect, Joseph joined Napoleon in Paris, and appeared at the Champ de Mai, sitting also in the Chamber of Peers, but, as before, putting forward ridiculous pretensions as to his inherent right to the peerage, and claiming a special seat. In fact, he never could realise how entirely he owed any position to the brother he wished to ... — Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... history of his own times; a science which, Fontenelle observes, is almost distinct from any other. It is the result of an active curiosity, which takes a lively interest in the tastes and pursuits of the age, while it saves the journalist from some ridiculous blunders. We often see the mind of a reviewer half a century remote from the work reviewed. A fine feeling of the various manners of writers, with a style adapted to fix the attention of the indolent, and to win the untractable, should ... — Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... repeatedly forced to admit to himself that he had been unable to find any real ground for his tremors. He had never once felt himself in actual danger of being deposed from his position of high priest in that ridiculous temple. When a man is in love with a woman, he cannot be expected to judge her actions or her meaning wisely, and the Baroness's platonics, with the little flashes of earthly fire in amongst them here and there, had always seemed to him to indicate ... — Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... on hand, and they bent their entire energies to their accomplishment. General Sandford held the arsenal, an important point, indeed a vital one, and let him claim and receive all the credit due that achievement; but to assume any special merit in quelling the riots in the streets is simply ridiculous. That was the work of the police and the military under the commissioners and ... — The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... fan-tan place—and he heard of them every day—he must investigate, see that it was closed and the keepers, if he was lucky enough to catch them, duly punished. And the players as well. Now to eradicate gambling from amongst the Chinese is a difficult task, futile and ridiculous, a good waste of time and money. He wondered why his Government should attempt it. Foolish thing for his Government to do—yet what would become of Lawson if the undertaking were abolished? Taste tea, probably—apprentice himself to ... — Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... such an acquisition for the Church, resolved that the young and fatherless maiden, who had no one to defend her cause, should yield, and that she should become the bride of Jaghellon. They declared that it was ridiculous to think that the interests of a mighty kingdom, and the enlargement of the Church, were to yield to the ... — The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... great is the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than ... — A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... exclaimed emphatically. "I can't bear them, silly old things nodding there, with their ridiculous answers to Perseus, saying old things were better than new—and their day better than his—I should have thrown their eye into the sea if I had been he. Do all old people do that?—pretend their time was the best?—do ... — Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... stripped himself of her parcels and her companionship and hobbled home, profusely perspiring, and lame from so much walking on pavements in tight patent-leather shoes. He was weary and footsore; he had had no golf, and, though forgiven, was but a wreck. She had made him ridiculous all the morning with his frock-coat and top-hat and his porterages, and if forgiveness entailed any more of these nightmare sacraments of friendliness, he felt that he would be unable to endure the fatiguing accessories of the regenerate ... — Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... everybody concerned," said the Major, "that we're brought up short. We'd simply have made ourselves publicly ridiculous if we'd ... — General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... everyday life it is not necessary to have the butter sauce so rich, still it is simply ridiculous to thicken a pint of milk, or a pint of water, with a little butter and flour, and then call it butter sauce or melted butter. Suppose we have a large white cabbage, like those met with in the West of England, and we are ... — Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... I heard a husband call his wife: "Ma berline!" She was delighted with it, and saw nothing ridiculous in it: she called her husband, "Mon fiston!" This delicious couple were ignorant of the existence of such things ... — Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... without that safety-valve which a people fully conscious of enjoying their rights can give. And while thus employed, Smooth does not forget that it is a well laid down rule that many small Presidents may talk very large and yet cut very ridiculous figures: hence his first talk with Mr. Pierce, who is well known for general and very respectable characteristics, may be productive of great good to mankind in a mass. In New England educated, (that land where niggers may be white men, and white men too often turn niggers), loving universal ... — The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... perpetually dancing round the Baronet in a chorus of praise. "Was there ever such a man, my Harriet, so good, so just, so noble in his sentiments?" "Ah, my Lucy, dare I hope for the affection of the best of men?" Some people would have begged their friends to cease making them ridiculous, but ... — Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... it was that, after many ridiculous protests, Uncle Remus sat down on the steps, and proceeded to tell his story of the war. Miss Theodosia listened with great interest, but throughout it all she observed—and she was painfully conscious of the fact, as she afterward admitted—that Uncle Remus spoke ... — Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... fell away the crowd which had followed me. I was left, very giddy and dazed, to confront Laputa and his chiefs. The whole scene was swimming before my eyes. I remember there was a clucking of hens from somewhere behind the kraal, which called up ridiculous memories. I was trying to remember the plan I had made in Machudi's glen. I kept saying to myself like a parrot: 'The army cannot know about the jewels. Laputa must keep his loss secret. I can get my life ... — Prester John • John Buchan
... "Make yourself ridiculous, I dare say," interrupted Eugenia, adding, that "there was more than one Mrs. Elliott in the world, and she'd no idea that so elegant a lady as Mr. Hastings's sister ever troubled herself to look after ... — Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... all its wrongs and woe. This drama, however, must not be judged for more than was meant. It is a mere plaything of the imagination; which even may not excite smiles among many, who will not see wit in those combinations of thought which were full of the ridiculous to the author. But, like everything he wrote, it breathes that deep sympathy for the sorrows of humanity, and indignation against its oppressors, which make it worthy of ... — Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... and wiser persons have failed to do,—learned the lesson, which I hope has been learned for your lifetime, that there is no fun in things, however written or spoken, that hurt other's feelings. I have seen you many times thoughtful and tender, when your face was alive with the ridiculous thing you saw or heard. Kate, I feel so much safer to let you go from me now than I should have six, even three months ago. Tell me, will you try ... — Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters. It differs from the serious romance in its fable and action, in this; that as in the one these are grave and solemn, so in the other they are light and ridiculous: it differs in its characters by introducing persons of inferior rank, and consequently, of inferior manners, whereas the grave romance sets the highest before us: lastly, in its sentiments and diction; by ... — Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... should propose to the English a Federal union between the two nations, or an Incorporating union. The first was most favoured by the people of Scotland, but all the Scots Commissioners, to a Man, considered it ridiculous and impracticable, for that in all the Federal unions there behoved to be a supreme power lodged somewhere, and wherever this was lodged it henceforth became the States General, or, in our way of speaking, the ... — The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... be irremediable causes of the irregularity and inconvenience of their final formations or plans—and until this illustrious age of magnanimous projects and improvements, it would have been thought ridiculous to offer any radical expedient for a general improvement in the plans of cities; but now that we see new cities growing round the metropolis, and new towns planned for the distant dominions of Great Britain, it seems to be a convenient season ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... the most ridiculous and most annoying thing in the world happened to me. For four months everything had been going on perfectly; I felt perfectly safe, and I was really very happy, when suddenly, last Monday, the ... — The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... must use his emotions to pay his provision bills; he has no other means; society does not propose to pay his bills for him. Yet, and at the end of the ends, the unsophisticated witness finds the transaction ridiculous, finds it repulsive, finds it shabby. Somehow he knows that if our huckstering civilization did not at every moment violate the eternal fitness of things, the poet's song would have been given to the world, and the poet would have been cared for by the whole human ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... charm—a distinguished carriage, a contempt for poses, and, more than all else, mental tranquillity. Her prettiness was not unlike her gowns, of inexpensive materials, but cut according to the style of the day-rags, if you will, but rags of which fashion, that ridiculous but charming fairy, had regulated the color, the trimming, and the shape. Paris has pretty faces made expressly for costumes of that sort, very easy to dress becomingly, for the very reason that they belong to no type, and Mademoiselle Sidonie's ... — Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... strictness in the outward observance of the Sabbath, as a day of entire rest. The Scribes had elaborated from the command of Moses, a vast array of prohibitions and injunctions, covering the whole of social, individual, and public life, and carried it to the extreme of ridiculous caricature. Lengthened rules were prescribed as to the kinds of knots which might legally be tied on the Sabbath. The camel-driver's knot and the sailor's were unlawful, and it was equally illegal to tie or to loose them. A knot which ... — Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... colonel. He meant to play his trump cards now, and convince the other that the charge made against them was ridiculous, to ... — The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... This ridiculous pre-occupation of Eileen's gave Lady O'Gara something she did not complain of. She had more of her son than otherwise she would have had. Terry had never looked for better companionship than his mother's, but he grumbled about ... — Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... been alone, or if Cutler had not been an attache to the embassy, before whom she was afraid of making herself ridiculous, I am confident that Mrs. Berry would have fainted away on the spot; and that all Berry's courage would have tumbled down lifeless by the side of her. So she only gave a martyrised look, and left the room; and while we partook of the very unnecessary ... — Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A ridiculous thing it is, in fact, that man or woman, endowed with the same nature as Buddha's, born the lord of all material objects, is ever upset by petty cares, haunted by the fearful phantoms of his or her own creation, and burning up his or her energy in a ... — The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... been stated, it will be seen that the Printer's Mark plays a by no means unimportant part in the early history of illustration,—whether the phase be serious or grotesque, sublime or ridiculous, we find here manifold examples, crude as well as clever. Although it cannot be said with truth that the Mark as an institution reached, like typography itself, its highest degree of perfection at its inception, some of the ... — Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... of the long spear shaft in his hand and the sight of the tree beyond the lion gave the lad an idea—a preposterous idea—a ridiculous, forlorn hope of an idea; but there was no time now to weigh chances—there was but a single chance, and that was the thorn tree. If the lion charged it would be too late—the lad must charge first, and to the astonishment of Akut and none the less ... — The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... gave a grudging summary of the reasons Walter had advanced for wishing to go there, and made them appear rather ridiculous reasons. He also produced again such of the arguments he had advanced at breakfast-time as seemed most weighty, and managed to work himself up into a fair return of his morning's feeling of ... — The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... disarmed us. However wicked he might be, one felt it would be ridiculous to imprison this schoolboy. A sound flogging and a month's deprivation of wine and cigarettes was the obvious punishment designed for him ... — Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... a national misfortune if you didn't give us a stiff job," he said, with an airy good-humour which at once made the other's blustering look ridiculous. ... — Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ungodly sinners; if he do not walk upon the grounds of his own extreme necessity, and Christ's sufficiency, he cannot come to Jesus Christ. There is a conceit among people, which, if it were not so common as it is, I would not mention it, it is so ridiculous—how can I come to Christ so unclean and so guilty, nothing but condemnation in me? If I were such and such, I would come to him. Alas! there can nothing be imagined more absurd, or contrary even to sense and reason. If thou wert such and such, ... — The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... foreign princes to send her their portraits, rings, and jewels, and sometimes to come and see her, but she never made up her mind to take them. And as to the gentlemen at her own court, she liked them to make the most absurd and ridiculous compliments to her, calling her their sun and goddess, and her hair golden beams of the morning, and the like; and the older she grew the more of these fine speeches she required of them. Her dress—a ... — Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he abandoned when he saw her moving; no white woman could imitate that Indian trot, nor would remember to attempt it if she were frightened. The idea that she was a captive white, held by the Indians, became ridiculous when he thought of the nearness of civilization and the peaceful, timid character of the "digger" tribes. That she was some unfortunate demented creature who had escaped from her keeper and wandered into the ... — Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... I don't wish to be hard on you; I'm only laughing at the ridiculous figure you cut," he said, giving way to a burst of rough merriment. By the time it was over we reached the door of the berth, where the ... — Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... plan, and Roger, with his peculiar sensitiveness toward being discovered with his car at a disadvantage, said seriously: "I see a racing machine coming, and when it passes us I hope you people will act as if we had stopped here only to lunch, and not because this ridiculous belt chose ... — Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... this was a convenient method adopted for splitting up the Sahu group when it became so large as to include persons so distantly connected with each other that the prohibition of marriage between them was obviously ridiculous. As the number of Sundis in the Central Provinces is now insignificant no detailed description of their customs need be given, but one or two interesting points may be noted. Their method of observing the pitripaksh or worship of ancestors ... — The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... fellows,—they had been gazing lazily at us, singly and in battalions, in the intervals of their rigorous idleness, for the last four and twenty hours,—suddenly taken a languid interest in us about one hour before our departure. The landlord said he was "simply ridiculous." On another occasion, a waiter in a hotel recognized the Russians who were with us as neighbors of his former master in the days of serfdom. He suggested that he would arrange not to have our passports called for at all, since they ... — Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... "Ridiculous, my dear boy—ridiculous! Just look on me as being In your father's place. No, no, Hamilton, there's room for all of us. There's a reasonable profit for all of us in the business—if only we'll be ... — Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... peculiarities, all unreasonable, many ridiculous, attending the demeanour of a man in love. Not the least eccentric of these are his predatory instincts, his tendency to prowl, his preference for walking over other modes of conveyance, and inclination to subterfuge of every kind as to his ultimate destination. Tom Ryfe was going ... — M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and Saltash spent the next half-hour pacing the deck, cursing himself, the youngster, and the insane and ridiculous Fate that had ... — Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... acquitted for lack of evidence; but now, here was the proof! The women themselves, leaders of the malcontents, promulgated and pressed their claim to bifurcated garments, and the whole tide of popular discussion was turned into that ridiculous channel. ... — Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... impalpable distrust, which classed him with the "new fathers" of certain children; and he had a feeling that was at the same time painful and ridiculous, that he was on trial. In olden days the matter might have been settled by a good thrashing, but now things had to be arranged so that they would be lasting; he could no longer buy cheaply. When helping Lasse Frederik in organizing ... — Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that she could be quite contented with a lover such as Mr. Saul. When he had first proposed to her she had almost ridiculed his proposition in her heart. Even now there was something in it that was almost ridiculous—and yet there was something in it also that touched her as being sublime. The man was honest, good and true—perhaps the best and truest man that she had ever known. She could not bring herself to say to him any word that should banish him forever from the place he loved ... — The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... emphasis, accompanied by a sweep of the fingers across the strings. With serious face and deep earnestness Fritz in his broken English would attempt these lines, while his teacher would bend over and hold his sides with laughter at each ridiculous effort. Without intending it, Fritz had his revenge. One day his tormentor's hand was caught in the press when the German boy was turning the wheel. Sam called to him to stop, but the boy's mind was slow to grasp the situation. ... — Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... father, in a changed and hostile tone. Lydia gave a satisfied nod; Pa was taking a stand at last. "You didn't have to say that you would marry Clifford," he went on sternly. "You did so as a responsible woman, of your own accord! Now you propose to make him and your family ridiculous, just for a whim. I sent you money to come on here, after your husband's death, and all your life I have tried to be a good father to you. What is my reward? You run away and marry the first irresponsible scamp that asks you; you show no sign of repentance or feeling until you are in ... — Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... himself into an easy-chair, and crossed his legs: "I am not setting him up as a martyr in the least, but I think that, situated as we are, it is ridiculous to defy this man as you do, from morning till night." She took a cigarette from the mantel-piece, lighted it, and replied: "But I do not defy him, quite the contrary; only, he irritates me by his stupidity ... and I treat him as he deserves." Limousin continued impatiently: ... — The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... laughed easily, not glancing toward me, but permitting her eyes to rest upon the bewildered face of Captain Grant. "Why, that idea is perfectly absurd. Did you tell my father so ridiculous a ... — My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... romantic, ridiculous; from Don Quixote, the hero of a celebrated fictitious work, written by Cervantes, a distinguished Spanish writer, and intended to reform the tastes and ... — A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... like that of murder!" exclaimed Donna Tullia. "Go on with your painting, Gouache, and do not be ridiculous." ... — Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... drop it," said Mrs. Petulengro; "I do not wish to raise my voice, and to make myself ridiculous. Young gentleman," said she, "pray present my compliments to Miss Isopel Berners, and inform her that I am very sorry that I cannot accept her polite invitation. I am just arrived, and have some slight domestic ... — The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... If they be constructed so that water cannot find its way through either walls or floors, where is the necessity of a drain? Surely the floors can be kept clean by the use of so small an amount of water that it would be ridiculous ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... reckon with us; the affair is a ridiculous one in which to involve the United States, and I shall not feel proud of my part, if forced to make the appeal; but General Yozarro will find it is no child's play in which he engages when he attacks us. We have not a very full supply of small arms on board, ... — Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... said. "If he were to look out and see us again, it would be too ridiculous! Come and sit under the plane-tree in the old place. Do you remember how you stared at the trunk and would not answer me when I tried to make you speak, ever so long ago? Do you know, it was because you would not say—what I wanted you to say—that I let myself think that I could ... — Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... mouldering in old churchyards. The blue sandstone monuments, on which Dr. Garlick cut inscriptions fifty years since, are still to be seen in the early cemeteries of the Western Reserve; some are touching enough, but not a few are more ridiculous than mournful. When Nathan Perry became so prosperous that he proposed to remove the old wooden store on the corner of Water and Superior streets and replace it with a brick one, he concluded to expend something upon ornament. He ordered two oval stone signs to be made and to be built into the walls ... — Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... her, asking her to pay me a visit while you girls were here," stated Arline, "but she wrote back voluminous and ridiculous thanks and said the reunion was about as much ... — Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... fear, for that a man with a drawn sword in his hand had stood over them the whole time. A rascally lawyer, whom the party employed, suggested this story; and as the sentry at the cabin door was a man with a drawn sword, the Americans made no scruple of swearing to this ridiculous falsehood, and commencing prosecutions against him accordingly. They laid their damages at the enormous amount of L40,000; and Nelson was obliged to keep close on board his own ship, lest he should be arrested for a sum for which it would have been impossible to find bail. The ... — The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... years of age, assemble in a crowd, and burn an uncouth effigy, which they denominate a "holly boy," and which they obtain from the boys; while in another part of the village the boys burn an equally ridiculous effigy, which they call an "ivy girl," and which they steal from the girls. The oldest inhabitants can give you no reason or account of this curious practice, though it is always a sport ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... they were gay good-byes. Helen Adams, to be sure, almost broke down When she kissed Betty and whispered, "Good-bye and thank you for everything." But the next minute they were both laughing at K.'s ridiculous old telescope bag. ... — Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... speaks for itself, and I can see exactly what sort of a child she is, in proof of which I send her my love and a kiss herewith. It is possible I may be the first (unseen) gentleman from whom she has had so ridiculous a message; but I can't say she is the first unseen child to whom I have sent one! I think the most precious message of the kind I ever got from a child I never saw (and never shall see in this world) was to the effect that she liked me when she read about ... — The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... a mean trick!" cried Darry hotly; and then he began to laugh as the ridiculous features of the situation appealed ... — The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... cannot say I envy them their eternal youth. However, we are not much concerned with tales of this class on the present occasion. Very few of the novelle selected by Painter for translation depend for their attraction on mere naughtiness. In matters of sex the sublime and the ridiculous are more than usually close neighbours. It is the tragic side of such relations that attracted Painter, and it was this fact that gave his book its importance for the history of English literature, ... — The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... "How ridiculous to make herself and other people suffer. If you are her friend you can relieve her of her misery, her illness, and her collapse of strength. The old lady has broken down the arbour, but she has not destroyed passion, and passion will break Vera. You ... — The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... imperfect representation, may every thing be made equally ridiculous. He that gazed with contempt on human beings rubbing stones together, might have prolonged the same amusement by walking through the city, and seeing others with looks of importance heaping one brick upon another; or by rambling into the country, where he might observe other creatures of the ... — The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... very considerably annoyed by the State negro recruiting-agents. Your letter was a capital one, and did much good. The law was a ridiculous one; it was opposed by the War Department, but passed through the influence of Eastern manufacturers, who hoped to escape the draft in that way. They were making immense fortunes out of the war, and could well afford to purchase negro recruits, ... — The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... after several meals. It is generally called the miraculous berry, and whoever eats of it in the morning, must be content at least for that day to forego the flavour of every kind of food, whether animal or vegetable, for all will be alike saccharine to the palate, and the most ridiculous effect is often produced by playing tricks upon those, who are not aware of its peculiar property. Lander himself was one of the dupes, and he relates, that the first time he partook of one of these berries, he thought himself under the influence of witchcraft—the fowl of which he ... — Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... native has no notion of the proper treatment of ponies, his idea being, generally, that this highly nervous animal can be managed by brute force and the infliction of heavy punishment. Sights, as painful as they are ridiculous, are often the result of this error. Unfortunately, the lower-class native feels little attachment to any animal but the Buffalo, or Carabao, as it is called here, and ... — The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... take it and die of it. Mr. Hardcastle found he was too busy at home to have time for neighborly visits, and went around the block rather than pass a door where he saw the doctor's gig. When one has a family, one owes it duties that should not be neglected. Mrs. Upjohn declared the panic to be ridiculous. She shouldn't be scared away by a red flag, like a crow from a cornfield. There had never been a case of typhoid known in Joppa, and places were like people, they never broke out with diseases that were not already in their constitutions. It was all arrant nonsense. However, she was ... — Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... there more who have undergone the same fate, of whom we have no memorial extant. Since, therefore, the opinion of witchcraft is a mere stranger unto Scripture, and wholly alien from true religion; since it is ridiculous by asserting fables and impossibilities; since it appears, when duly considered, to be all bloody and full of dangerous consequence unto the lives and safety of men; I hope that with this my Discourse, opposing an absurd and pernicious error, ... — Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... justifiable, and under ordinary circumstances any such pretence on my part would be ridiculous. But you must remember, monsieur, that I came here from London possessed of special information which was not known even to the police authorities in that city. I am working solely in the private interest of persons high in English Society, and it would not serve ... — The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... of its characters were of no higher rank than Sharpers, it was imagined that (whatever good company they may find admittance to in the world) their speaking blank verse upon the stage would be unnatural, if not ridiculous. But though the more elevated characters also speak prose, the judicious reader will observe, that it is a species of prose which differs very little from verse: in many of the most animated scenes, I can truly say, that I often found it a much greater difficulty to avoid, than to write, ... — The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... said in the ears of the minister by a Parisian wit. Thiers was at the foot of the column—the statue of Napoleon at the top. The height of the column is one hundred and thirty-two feet. Said the wit aloud, "There are just one hundred and thirty-two feet from the ridiculous to the sublime!" ... — Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... unacquainted with the principles of natural justice and the rights of nations, they will bring with them that false taste which they have been for years acquiring, but nothing worthy of the public ear, nothing useful to their clients. They have succeeded in nothing but the art of making themselves ridiculous. The peculiar quality of the teacher [a], whatever it be, is sure to transfuse itself into the performance of the pupil. Is the master haughty, fierce, and arrogant; the scholar swells with confidence; his eye threatens prodigious things, and his ... — A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... to appearance so totally inaccessible, that I expected to have been pulled up by a rope; and sincerely repented having gratified my curiosity to behold my Daughters at the expence of being obliged to enter their prison in so dangerous and ridiculous a manner. But as soon as I once found myself safely arrived in the inside of this tremendous building, I comforted myself with the hope of having my spirits revived, by the sight of two beautifull girls, such as the Miss Lesleys had been represented to me, at Edinburgh. But ... — Persuasion • Jane Austen
... be honest with children and not put them off with ridiculous explanations. Their questions about such matters are generally much more sensible than their ... — Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... absurd and ridiculous to suppose that any person, however great, or learned, or wise, could employ language correctly without a knowledge of the things expressed by that language. No matter how chaste his words, how lofty ... — Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... put round he would find a way of slipping it into Mamma's hand. At once my anxiety subsided; it was now no longer (as it had been a moment ago) until to-morrow that I had lost my mother, for my little line was going—to annoy her, no doubt, and doubly so because this contrivance would make me ridiculous in Swann's eyes—but was going all the same to admit me, invisibly and by stealth, into the same room as herself, was going to whisper from me into her ear; for that forbidden and unfriendly dining-room, where but a moment ago the ice itself—with burned nuts in it—and the ... — Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... in the various State conventions, was based upon expediency among the masses and constitutionality among the few. In the light of the dangers which have confronted the people during a century of experience, some of the objections to the Constitution seem ridiculous. But the objectors were sincere in their apprehensions, being just emerged from a despotic government, and jealous of their hard-earned liberty. It was the old story of individualism fearing to trust its welfare to the general body. That liberty ... — The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... his sympathies were touched ... but that he could hardly be dissuaded from the fulfilment of his good intent. His Nationalism was like a cleansing fire; it consumed every impure thing that might penetrate his life. It was so potent that he did ridiculous things in asserting it.... It was typical of him that he should gaelicise his name, and equally typical of him that he should be undecided about the correct spelling of "John" in the ancient Irish tongue. He had called himself "Sean" Marsh, and then had called himself ... — Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... sapphire, trimmed with silver-fox fur; and my head crowned with a mob-cap, concerning which I am in doubt, and should be nervously glad to have the boys here to enlighten me as to whether it is very becoming or rather ridiculous. The object of the mob-cap is to approximate my age to Roger's, and to assure all such as the velvet and fur leave in doubt, that I am entitled to take my stand among the ... — Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... part and member of the whole) so to co-operate with him, that whatsoever thou doest, shall turn to the furtherance of his own counsels, and resolutions. But be not thou for shame such a part of the whole, as that vile and ridiculous verse (which Chrysippus in a place doth mention) is a part of the comedy. XXXVIII. Doth either the sun take upon him to do that which belongs to the rain? or his son Aesculapius that, which unto the earth doth properly belong? How is it with every one of ... — Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... loyal citizens, the delighted Duchess, swelling in sweeping feathers and almost obliterating the diminutive Princess, read aloud, in her German accent, gracious replies prepared beforehand by Sir John, who, bustling and ridiculous, seemed to be mingling the roles of major-domo and Prime Minister. Naturally the King fumed over his newspaper at Windsor. "That woman is a nuisance!" he exclaimed. Poor Queen Adelaide, amiable though disappointed, did her best to smooth things down, changed the ... — Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... his pedigree Cellini tells a ridiculous story about a certain Fiorino da Cellino, one of Julius Caesar's captains, who gave his name to Florence. For the arms of the Cellini family, see ... — Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... The ridiculous and inadequate reply drew the girl still deeper into the discussion. She began to reason with him quite earnestly. She had always walked a great deal; she loved it. Walking was jolly fun. Everybody knew she was not as dependent upon being taken as the ordinary ... — The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... surname of Desired to a prince, whom the nation had neither called nor expected, moved, that the title of Saviour should be decreed to Napoleon, who had come to save France from regal slavery. This ridiculous motion, smothered by ironical laughter, gave rise to a multitude of sarcasms and offensive reflections, which were reported to Napoleon, and which, without personally wounding him, for he had too high a sense of his glory, to think it affected by such clamours, injured him ... — Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... to nibble at the fish, we might get some food from them," suggested Madden with American delight in the ridiculous. ... — The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... borders of Tyrone and Fermanagh. It was surrounded with wild and barren mountains, and was almost inaccessible by horsemen even in summer time, on account of great bogs, rocks, and precipices which environed it. The popular tradition concerning it is as ridiculous as is to be found in any legend of the Romish Martyrology. After continuing in great credit many years, it began to decline; and in the 13th of Henry the Seventh was demolished with great solemnity, on St Patrick's Day, by the Pope's express order. It, ... — A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... "Don't be ridiculous," retorted Betty, with an angry blush. "Of course, he had a right to stop me, and perhaps he did me a good turn by keeping me inside the clearing, though I cannot imagine why he hid behind the bushes. But he might have been polite. He made me angry. He ... — Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... fitness and propriety of his character, in connection with that of Imogen. He is precisely the kind of man who would be most intolerable to such a woman. He is a fool,—so is Slender, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek: but the folly of Cloten is not only ridiculous, but hateful; it arises not so much from a want of understanding as a total want of heart; it is the perversion of sentiment, rather than the deficiency of intellect; he has occasional gleams of sense, but never a touch of feeling. Imogen describes herself not only as "sprighted with a fool," but ... — Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... replacement centers throughout the United States, to adopt the expedient of mixing black and white inductees in the same units for messing, housing, and training. As the commander of Fort Jackson, South Carolina, put it, sorting out the rapidly arriving inductees was "ridiculous," and he proceeded to assign new men to units without regard to color. He did, however, divert black inductees from time to time "to hold the Negro population ... — Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... he only get free of them altogether! But he could n't—his feet were large. He took a lesson from the foe and jumped—jumped this way and that way, and round about, while large drops of perspiration rolled off him. The small dogs displayed renewed and ridiculous ferocity, often mistaking Dad for the marsupial. At last Dad became exhausted—there was no spring left in him. Once he nearly went down. Twice he tripped. He staggered again—down he was going—down—down, down and down he fell! But at the same moment, and, as though they had dropped ... — On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... in rhyme and song; but an old belief in the mysteriously disappearing bird gave an opportunity to children to await its return in the early summer, and then address to it all kinds of ridiculous questions. ... — A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... revengeful, nor arrogant, nor malignant. He was kind and affectionate to his wife and children, and did his best to be obedient to the Duke of Lerma. Occasionally he liked to grant audiences, but there were few to request them. It was ridiculous and pathetic at the same time to see the poor king, as was very frequently the case, standing at a solemn green table till his little legs were tired, waiting to transact business with applicants who never came; while ushers, chamberlains, and valets were rushing up and down the corridors, bawling ... — The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ignoble calumnies. This is how passion without reason passes through the furnaces of love and hatred, dragging after it all the artificial scaffolding of what man imagines to be his right based on logic, but which is in reality only a tissue of ridiculous contradictions, the automatic and inept product of his emotional state. Such contrasts are so frequent that we can easily recognize the expression of a psychological law, due to the mirages of the ... — The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... everything for you, or else going without... why she'd be working now, a happy, useful woman, bringing up two or three adopted children in a decent home she'd made for them with her own efforts... instead of making her loving heart ridiculous over a cat...." ... — The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... have broken out and strangled somebody. But on every other point I—weakly enough—sacrificed my own feelings to those of Jansenius. I let him have his funeral, though I object to funerals and to the practice of sepulture. I consented to a monument, although there is, to me, no more bitterly ridiculous outcome of human vanity than the blocks raised to tell posterity that John Smith, or Jane Jackson, late of this parish, was born, lived, and died worth enough money to pay a mason to distinguish their bones ... — An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... away her ruined, ridiculous headgear with her free arm. The other, in his, was giving more support to him, she felt, than ... — Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... authorities, I can find no historical foundation. The fiercer Pompeians very nearly killed him for refusing to stay and command them; his life was in fact only saved by the intrepid moderation of Cato; and this is surely not a proof that they deemed his presence worthless. Once more, orators were not ridiculous in the eyes of antiquity. Cicero accepted, and, in a certain sense, served under the dictatorate of Caesar; though he afterwards rejoiced when it was overthrown, and the constitution, the idol of his political worship, was restored; just as we may suppose a French constitutionalist, not of stern ... — Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... haunted by the footsteps of his murdered sweetheart, which even ascended the pulpit stairs behind him, and pattered furtively about him when he knelt to pray for pardon of his sin. He filled his mind with visionary terrors, but they seemed remote or even ridiculous to him, and he said to himself that they were the clever inventions of imaginative people. They were worked up. They were moulded into conventional stories. They pleased the magazines of their time. ... — Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... bit, Burger," said Kennedy; "this is really a ridiculous caprice of yours to wish to know about an old love-affair which has burned out months ago. You know we look upon a man who kisses and tells as the ... — Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... objected to would be over in a few days. His opinion was that de Baville might stifle the expression of his dissatisfaction for a little, to bring about a great good. "More than that," added the marechal, "the impatience of the priests is most ridiculous. Besides your remonstrances, of which I hope I have now heard the last, I have received numberless letters full of such complaints that it would seem as if the prayers of the Camisards not only grated on the ears of the clergy but flayed them alive. I should like above everything to find out ... — Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... so widely from the traditions of his youth, still, this prevailing gloom was lightened, often at very unexpected moments, by flashes of delicious humour, sarcastic but not savage. No one excelled him in the art of making an opponent look ridiculous. Careless critics called him "cynical," but it was an abuse of words. Cynicism is shamelessness, and not a word ever fell from Lord Salisbury which was inconsistent with the highest ... — Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... many people about who idolized Shakespear as American ladies idolize Paderewski, and who carried Bardolatry, even in the Bard's own time, to an extent that threatened to make his reasonable admirers ridiculous. ... — Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... justly celebrated, struck by that fate which may reach us all; but that I cannot recognize a sovereign prince in a general of the Prussian army. After his conduct toward France he cannot expect me to exercise toward him a ridiculous ... — Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... whenever she chose. She told herself grimly that if her aunt died she should be thankful that she had done this duty; yet when, after a journey of several hours, she knew that Dunport was the next station, her heart began to beat in a ridiculous manner. It was unlike any experience that had ever come to her, and she felt strangely unequal to the occasion. Long ago she had laughed at her early romances of her grand Dunport belongings, but the memory of them ... — A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... exactly what he would have to say to Mr. Guiseley, and what Mr. Guiseley would have to say to him. He thought, if the young man were really going down for good, as he had understood this morning, it was only his plain duty to say a few tactful words about responsibility and steadiness. That ridiculous auction would ... — None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... on her that there was actually an official intention to keep her out of France. This stupefied her for a time. One day it came over her that she was herself suspect. This seemed ridiculous beyond words in view of her abhorrence of the German cause in large and in detail. Ransacking her soul for an explanation, she ran upon the idea that it was because of her association ... — The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... your wide-skirted coats and buckled shoes'—this was a sly dig at my worthy uncle, the Captain, sir. 'Ha!' cries he, flapping his empty sleeve at me again, 'and nice figure-heads you made of yourselves with your ridiculous stocks and skin-tight breeches,' and indeed," said his Lordship, stooping to catch a side-view of his imprisoned legs, "they are a most excellent fit, I ... — The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... him any other than "bon enfant." Nevertheless, for some time the popularity of Lafare, established as it was by agreeable antecedents, was fast lowering among the ladies of the court and the girls of the opera. There was a report current that he was going to be so ridiculous as to become a well-behaved man. It is true that some people, in order to preserve his reputation for him, whispered that this apparent conversion had no other cause than the jealousy of Mademoiselle de Conti, daughter of the duchess, and ... — The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... includes lovely lakes, magnificent mountains, pleasant flower gardens, decidedly superior to anything in the physical world; though on the other hand it also contains much which to the trained clairvoyant (who has learned to see things as they are) appears ridiculous—as, for example, the endeavours of the unlearned to make a thought-form of some of the curious symbolic descriptions contained in their various scriptures. An ignorant peasant's thought-image of a beast full of eyes within, or of a sea of glass mingled with fire, is naturally often ... — A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... wanted, Jon, to convince them, don't you see? If we're just as bad when you come back they'll stop being ridiculous about it. Only, I'm sorry it's not Spain; there's a girl in a Goya picture at Madrid who's like me, Father says. Only she isn't—we've got a copy ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning, at least to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that mathematicians are intuitive, and that men of intuition are mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat matters of intuition mathematically, and make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions and then with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning. Not that the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and without technical rules; for the expression of it is ... — Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her hand stepped ... — The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... have given the matter another moment's consideration, and I should be much better pleased if the king had not done so, either, instead of telling the colonel about it, and the colonel speaking to the officers, and such a ridiculous fuss ... — A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... A still more ridiculous incoherency of the same sort is displayed in the logical department of Huxley's Physical Basis of Life; where, after trying to persuade us to put our feet on the ladder which leads in the reverse direction from Jacob's, and to descend with him into ... — Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly ... — Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... yourself ridiculous, Mr. Caudle; I can't say a word to you like any other wife, but you must threaten to get up. DO ... — Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... perfectly, and was aware that the absence of a mercenary spirit on her part made his suit appear almost ridiculous. If her clear young eyes would not see him through a golden halo, but only as a man and a possible mate, what could he be to her? Even gold-fed egotism could not blind him to the truth that she was looking at HIM, and that the thought of bartering herself for ... — An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... effect. He discovers that Lespel is a Torified Whig; but that does not make him a bit more alert. It's to say smart things. He speaks, but won't act, as if he were among enemies. He's getting too fond of his bow-wow. Here he is, and he knows the den, and he chooses to act the innocent. You see how ridiculous? That trick of the ingenu, or peculiarly heavenly messenger, who pretends that he ought never to have any harm done to him, though he carries the lighted match, is the way of young Radicals. Otherwise Beauchamp would be a dear ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... after three hours of laborious investigation, after having undergone the infliction of all the gossip of the country, after receiving evidence the most contradictory, and listened to commentaries the most ridiculous, the following is what appeared the most ... — The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... now gleaned an inkling of the truth. And it was so utterly ridiculous that he felt as though he must soon burst into ... — The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... known is of the essence of knowledge, and that reverence and devotion—to go no further—are of the essence of a right attitude towards God, the idea of holding a formal examination in religious knowledge seems scarcely less ridiculous than the idea of holding a formal examination in unselfishness or brotherly love. The phrase "to examine in religious knowledge" has no meaning for me. The verb is out of all relation to its indirect object. What the Diocesan Inspector attempts to do cannot possibly be done. The ... — What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
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