"Amuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hunting days, and number of horsemen, in full proportion with wealth and population, one cannot help being amused at the simplicity with which Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who comes from a country where people seldom amuse themselves out of doors (except in making money), tells in her "Sunny Memories," how, when she dined with Lord John Russell, at Richmond, the conversation turned on hunting; and she expressed her astonishment "that, in the height of English civilisation, this vestige of the savage ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... present chaos, I have suggested a uniform scheme whereby each man can do the duties fitted to his years and his opportunities. I have nowhere proposed that you should divide the earnings of the workers among the unemployable, nor that you should slack and amuse yourselves and be reduced to beggary while somebody else is fighting for you—for that is ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... armistice expired, French forces were threatening Austria from three sides—from Bavaria, Illyria, and Saxony; and Napoleon's intention seems to have been to amuse the Austrian court with negotiations until he could defeat the Prussian and Russian armies, after which he counted upon overwhelming the Austrians with his entire force. The task of defeating the Prussians was entrusted to his army in Saxony with which Davout was expected to co-operate from ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... enormous and extraordinary contribution made by the United States to this department of human happiness was locked in the bosom of futurity. The young Hawthorne, therefore, like many of his contemporaries, was constrained to amuse himself, for want of anything better, with the Pilgrim's Progress and the Faery Queen. A boy may have worse company than Bunyan and Spenser, and it is very probable that in his childish rambles our author may have had associates of whom ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... attached friends as Henry Goring, Bulkeley, Harrington, or such distrusted boon companions as Kelly—against whom the English Jacobites set all wheels in motion. Charles's refuge at Avignon even was menaced by English threats directed at the Pope. The Prince tried to amuse himself; he went to dances, he introduced boxing matches, {41a} just as years before he had brought golf into Italy. But his position was untenable, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... tires; the new in old, The mended wrecks that need her skill, Amuse her. If the truth be told, She loves the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... be so very serious a matter, for Doctor Eberbach had just read something aloud at which the young Nuremberg ambassador, Lienhard Groland, could not help laughing heartily. It seemed to amuse the others wonderfully, too, and even caused the astute Dr. Peutinger to strike his clinched fist upon the table with the exclamation, "A devil of a fellow!" and Wilibald Pirckheimer to assent eagerly, praising Hutten's ardent ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under what circumstances a strictly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... the stacks and buildings of the Mills. Robin recalled that day she had first likened them to a Giant. That day seemed—so much had happened since and she had grown so much inside—very long ago and she a silly girl thinking stories about everything. Her guardian, to amuse her, had talked about finding a Jack to climb the Beanstalk and kill the monster. She smiled scornfully at the fancy—so futile in the face of the tremendous misery—and happiness—that Giant had the ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... tears when I remember how he used to unlock that storehouse for my pleasure, and ransack his memory for stories either of his own personal perils by flood and field, or of the hairbreadth 'scapes of earlier travellers. For it was his amusement to amuse me; his happiness to make me happy. And I in return loved him with all my childish heart. Nay, with something deeper and more romantic than a childish love—say rather with that kind of passionate hero-worship ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... altogether trustworthy, for it is always his endeavour to make his parents believe that he is well and cheery. Thus he writes, for instance, to his friend Matuszyriski, after pouring forth complaint after complaint:—"Tell my parents that I am very happy, that I am in want of nothing, that I amuse myself famously, and never feel lonely." Indeed, the Spectator's opinion that nothing discovers the true temper of a person so much as his letters, requires a good deal of limitation and qualification. Johnson's ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... as much as I imagined that would have been the worst trouble of all. I think it was just part of the experience. Can you understand? Summer-time, and the lovely country, and the holiday feeling, and nothing to do but laze about, and amuse ourselves together. It seemed—don't laugh!—so ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... pond, and wet himself completely, preparing his parents for a rough reception of his brother when he should return, and hence the treatment he received. Leonard made his young master change his clothes, and after making him comfortable, left him to amuse himself in the open park with his ball, where the light-hearted Charles was soon thoughtlessly happy, and forgetful of the unkindness of Robert and the injustice of his parents. So light are the cares and mishaps of youth, so easily forgotten are its hardships, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... spoke of the brain, you will see that I am obliged to leave phrenology sub Jove,—out in the cold,—as not one of the household of science. I am not one of its haters; on the contrary, I am grateful for the incidental good it has done. I love to amuse myself in its plaster Golgothas, and listen to the glib professor, as he ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... not ask for so much," Madame Martin said. "People that are natural and show themselves as they are rarely bore me, and sometimes they amuse me." ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... them amuse themselves and be gay; to give themselves up to unrestrained chit-chat. It was, therefore, natural for them to laugh, and to appear not to notice the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... on a pole erected in the centre of the green, and then they set to work to amuse themselves with twenty different games. The games, however, did not flourish—the men were too eager to talk of what they had done, and the girls were too willing to listen—they divided themselves into fifty little parties, in which fifty different accounts were given of the ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... we make things taut, hoist fores'l, clap the hellum into the lee becket, and go below and amuse ourselves." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... disorder. Secret desires were excited, and but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate to the life the gestures and convulsions of those really affected, roved from place to place seeking maintenance and adventures, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a type of all the world. The burgesses have arranged it in my honour. At six o'clock this evening there are to be combats at single-stick to amuse the folk; four guineas the prize for the man who breaks most heads. Afterward there is to be a grinning match through horse-collars—a very humorous sport which I must stay here and witness; for I am interested ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... "Who would ever have thought of their hunting me out here? But I shall leave my sister-in-law to amuse you, Gerrard, so ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... genius, no doubt read the tumult of my soul; for when he felt the tether by which he held me strained too tightly and ready to break, he would never fail to say, 'Here, Maurice, you too are poor! Here are twenty francs; go and amuse yourself, you are not a priest!' And if you could have seen the dancing light that gilded his gray eyes, the smile that relaxed his fine lips, puckering the corners of his mouth, the adorable expression ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... "You won't. Go on—amuse yourself." The telephone rang. Still applying the menthol she held the receiver to her ear. "No, nothing to-day, dear. Say, Marie, did you ever take Eezo Pain Wafers for a headache? Keep 'em in mind—they're great. Yes, I'll let you know if ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... that, one hot season, Messer Ricciardo thought he would like to visit a very beautiful estate which he had near Monte Nero, there to take the air and recreate himself for some days, and thither accordingly he went with his fair lady. While there, to amuse her, he arranged for a day's fishing; and so, he in one boat with the fishermen, and she in another with other ladies, they put out to watch the sport, which they found so delightsome, that almost ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... it to win the game, Miss van Huysman," he replied with a gentle smile; "I only desired to amuse you and the other guests of Professor Marmion. Now, it may be that some excellent but ignorant people here may think that that ball is bewitched, as they would call it, so if you will give it to me, I will send it ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... no inducement, you offer no relief from listlessness, you provide nothing to amuse his mind, you afford him no means of exercising his body. Unwashed and unshaven, he saunters moodily about, weary and dejected. In lieu of the wholesome stimulus he might derive from nature, you drive him to the pernicious excitement to be gained from art. He ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... it should please Monte Rosa and her long train of white-robed companions to emerge, I had the city spectacles to amuse me. There was Milan at my feet. I could count its every house, and trace the windings of its every street and lane, as easily as though it had been laid down upon a map. I could see innumerable black dots moving about in the streets,—mingling, ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... One is glad to forget the future and live for the time in the past. Sitting in the Coliseum in the moonlight I could see the gladiators fighting to amuse the civilized man of that period, and gentle women and innocent men dying horrible deaths for truths that have made us what we are, but which we now sometimes ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... crowded in a semicircle around us. Just then it was borne in on us how small our number was. A solid phalanx of the toughest customers in London faced us. Behind this semicircle a line of carts had been drawn up. Unseen enemies from behind this laager now began to amuse themselves by bombarding us with the product of the market garden. Tomatoes, cauliflowers, and potatoes came hurtling into our midst. I saw Julian consulting his watch. "Five minutes more," he said. I had noticed some minutes back ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... down beside the sleeping darling, and cast about her for something to amuse or interest, her eyes brightening into beauty as she recognized a worn and torn copy of the Bible. Eurie would have been surprised to see the eagerness with which she seized upon the book that was to afford ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... dear lady, as long as my poor court can harbour and amuse so fair a visitant!' he said; then, turning to Madame de Ruth, he added in a lower tone, which was yet perfectly audible to most of the assembled company: 'The rain-cloud brought back sunshine to us. A flash of lightning carried her from Elysium ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... replied Shih-yin, as he returned the smile. "Just a while back, my young daughter was in sobs, and I coaxed her out here to amuse her. I am just now without anything whatever to attend to, so that, dear brother Chia, you come just in the nick of time. Please walk into my mean abode, and let us endeavour, in each other's company, to while away this ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Kitty Hampton one evening as they sat alone together in her drawing-room, "things are slow, deadly slow. Why do not you do something to amuse your little cousin?" ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... his friends took the kindest care of me, and endeavored to amuse and instruct me, and also to find out what I would do if left to myself,—taking notes assiduously for the memoirs of their Society. I can assure the reader that I, on my part, was not idle, but took notes of them with equal diligence, at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... it and be damned to you!" he muttered. "You haven't got the dope, and you can't git it, either. Trail that horse if you want to—I'd like to see yuh amuse yourselves ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... at her bidding; self-assertive though he had shown himself to be he obeyed, sans demur, the wave of my lady's little hand. Was it a certain largeness and reserve about him that had awakened her curiosity? From her high social position had she wished merely to test her own power and amuse herself after a light fashion, ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... Inferno, that reminds one of the "Island of Dr. Moreau." One of his biographers, Ottley, tells us that Hunger "TOOK SUPREME DELIGHT" in his physiological experiments; and inasmuch as he suggested in a letter to a friend the performance of the most agonizing experiments as likely to "amuse" him, the statement was undoubtedly true. A man's occupation generally has an influence upon his character, and Hunter's biographer rather hesitatingly admits that "he was not always very nice in his choice of associates," and that among his companions ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... Love can only come near them that loves other people. Sounds queer, honey, but it's the truth; so, when Dinah got to be a likely, big gal, and never thought whether the ole mammy was gittin' tired out, or tried to amuse little Mose, or gave a thought o' pity to her pore daddy who was alone in the world, the fairy Love got to feelin' as bad ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... As I made no Doubt but that you resided somewhere in Memphis, I determin'd to go thither my self, but in Disguise. Beauteous Missouf, said I, you are of a much sprightlier Disposition than I am; you will be able to amuse the gay young Prince of Hyrcania a thousand Times better than I shall. Find out some Way therefore for my Escape; by which you will be sole Lady Regent. You will oblige me to the last Degree, by your friendly Assistance, and at ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... library executive, provide the refreshments—was not allowed to enter a certain number of reading-rooms, and in certain of the rooms where refreshments and smoking were allowed talking was forbidden. Thus people visited the library either to study, to amuse themselves with a book, or to converse with acquaintances, according to their mood. The magnificent airy rooms, particularly those with large verandahs communicating with the central pillared court laid out with flower-beds and shrubs, formed, even in the heat of mid-day, a pleasant rendezvous; ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... river. The people went by boat and then landed at the picnic grove, and spent the afternoon. The little boy, whose name was Peter, went with his mother and aunt, and when they got to the grove his mother said to his aunt, 'I don't see any reason why Peter shouldn't walk around and amuse himself and play with some of those children.' And his aunt said, 'Yes, if he doesn't fall into the river,' and his mother said, 'Peter, you see to it that you don't go near ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... and convenient form, some of the more remarkable or interesting literary facts or incidents with which one individual, in a somewhat extended reading, has been struck; some of the passages which he has admired; some of the anecdotes and jests that have amused him and may amuse others; some of the reminiscences that it has most pleased him to dwell upon. For no very great portion of the contents of this volume, is the claim to originality of subject-matter advanced. The collection, however, is submitted ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... not say all this to make you give up attending lectures. Heaven forbid. They amuse, that is, they turn the mind off from business; they relax it, and as it were bathe and refresh it with new thoughts, after the day's drudgery or the day's commonplaces; they fill it with pleasant and healthful images for afterthought. Above all, they make one ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... at is the expressive, and the way to reach it is by ingenuity; that for this purpose everything may serve, and that a consummate work is a sort of hotch-potch of the pure and the impure, the graceful and the grotesque. Its prime duty is to amuse, to puzzle, to fascinate, to savor of a complex imagination. Gloriani's statues were florid and meretricious; they looked like magnified goldsmith's work. They were extremely elegant, but they had no charm for Rowland. He ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... what we could find to amuse us all day long; but the fact is almost everything was an amusement, seeing that when we could not take a natural share in what was going on, we generally managed to invent some collateral employment fictitiously related to it. But he must not think of our farm as at all like ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... sacrifice of goats (and formerly of human beings) to Kali.[416] But on the other hand the growing idea of Bhakti, that is faith or devotion, imported a sentimental element and the worshipper endeavoured to pet, caress and amuse ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Madrid. I didn't accompany them, for I'm not fond of companionship; but I told them to wait me here, and here they are. What place could be more excellent? All sorts of vagabonds come hither from all parts of the world at fair-time. How natural that your admirable master should amuse his leisure by visiting the fair, and in so diverting himself be struck by a beautiful gypsy girl's resemblance to the features of his dear dead friend! It is all a romance, friend Peyrolles, and a very good romance. ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... trees, the branches of which nearly form a junction over the heads of the passengers below. At different distances, there are seats for persons to repose themselves upon; and at each end of the walks, are circular seats, on, which, in the evenings, the inhabitants amuse themselves in singing to the music of guitars. This city ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... said the consul deliberately. "Tell them you're Bob Gray, with more money and time than you know what to do with; that you have a fine taste for yachting and shooting and racing, and amusing yourself generally; that you find that THEY amuse you, and you would like your luxury and your dollars to stand as an equivalent to their independence and originality; that, being a good republican yourself, and recognizing no distinction of class, you don't care what this may mean to them, who are brought up differently; ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... appropriate, however extravagant it be. His vivid and varied knowledge of life and character supplies him with touches enough of nature and truth to make the fortune of a dozen ordinary dramatists; and withal you feel as you read that he is writing, as Augier says of him, to amuse himself merely, and that he could an if he would be solemn and didactic with all the impressiveness that a perfect acquaintance with men and things and an admirable dramatic aptitude can bestow. The fact ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... myself sitting beside the bleached anatomy of some stranded leviathan, and gazing at the mountains of Squillace that glowed in the soft lights of sunset. The shore was deserted save for myself and a portly dogana-official who was playing with his little son—trying to amuse him by elephantine gambols on the sand, regardless of his uniform and manly dignity. Notwithstanding his rotundity, he was an active and resourceful parent, and enjoyed himself vastly; the boy pretending, as polite children sometimes ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... reason for you to replace him. It is settled, I am Henri, and you are Francois. I will play the king, while you dance and amuse yourself a ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... those in distress, not chloroform itself a greater. Our fine old sea-captain's life was justified when Carlyle soothed his mind with "The King's Own" or "Newton Forster." To please is to serve; and so far from its being difficult to instruct while you amuse, it is difficult to do the one thoroughly without the other. Some part of the writer or his life will crop out in even a vapid book; and to read a novel that was conceived with any force is to multiply experience ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... called the "Piagnoni." The second consisted of men who had shared power with the Medici, but who had separated from them; who wished to possess alone the powers and profits of government, and who endeavored to amuse the people by dissipations and pleasures, in order to establish at their ease an aristocracy. These were called the "Arabbiati." The third party was composed of men who remained faithful to the Medici, but, not daring to declare themselves, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... and ninety-nine of the thousand will tell you, that they know nothing at all of the matter. This is not history; a list of battles and a string of intrigues are not history, they communicate no knowledge applicable to our present state; and it really is better to amuse oneself with an avowed romance, which latter is a great deal worse than passing one's time in counting ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... conditions ("pilis seu scophis mollibus et manu, ac cum silentio et absque clamoribus tumultuosis"). The use of dice was, as a rule, absolutely prohibited, but the statutes of the College of Cornouaille permitted it under certain conditions. It might be played to amuse a sick fellow on feast days, or without the plea of sickness, on the vigils of Christmas, and of three Holy Days. But the stakes must be small and paid in kind, not in money ("pro aliquo comestibili ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... buildings on the great forum. These works involved vast labor and expense, and must have been very burdensome to the people. Like other oppressive monarchs, Tarquinius planned games and festivities to amuse them. He enlarged the Circus Maximus, and imported boxers and horses from his native country to perform at games there, which were afterwards celebrated annually. Besides these victories of peace, this king conquered the people about him, and greatly added to the number of his ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... better. It will amuse you: the first thing which has a tremendous effect is giving them titles. Nothing has more influence than a title. I invent ranks and duties on purpose; I have secretaries, secret spies, treasurers, presidents, registrars, their assistants—they ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... smile her face used to wear in dear papa's life-time. Floy became very tired of that close room. There were no pretty pictures on the walls, like those in Floy's house in the country; the chairs were hard and uncomfortable, and little Floy had nothing to amuse her. Mamma couldn't spare time to walk much, and Floy was not allowed to play on the sidewalk, lest she might hear naughty words, and play with naughty children. Mamma's pen went scratch—scratch—scratch—from sunrise till sunset,—save ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... that which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares; they cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... by his side. Scarcely had he done so, when his eye fell on a piece of board floating by. He stretched out his hand and got hold of it. That instant the idea flashed into his mind, that this board might enable him to communicate with his shipmates. It very soon dried, and then, as if to amuse himself, he took out his knife and began cutting away at it. If he could carve but a few words, they might be sufficient to signify where he had gone. He carved, in no very regular characters, "A prisoner, up south branch.—Jack R." As soon as he had done this, pretending ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... York before the Revolution, and had kept a riding school there. As soon as the war broke out he took the royal side. It was he who had in charge the summary execution of Nathan Hale. He would often amuse himself by striking his prisoners with his keys and by kicking over the baskets of food or vessels of soup brought for them by charitable women, who, he said, were the worst rebels in New York. He died miserably in ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... talk and that sort of thing. And how shy he was! You recall his awful fear of Professor Razzler, who used to teach him mathematics. All that, of course, will be changed now. Tom will have come back a man. We must ask the old professor to meet him. It will amuse Tom to see him again. Just think of the things he must have seen! But we must be a little careful at dinner not to let him horrify the other people with ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... him!" Which was true,—Aubrey had no "go." "Go" means, in modern parlance, to drink oneself stupid, to bet on the most trifling passing events, and to talk slang that would disgrace a stable-boy, as well as to amuse oneself with all sorts of mean and vulgar intrigues which are carried on through the veriest skulk and caddishness;—thus Aubrey was a sad failure in "tip-top" circles. But the "tip-top" circles are not a desirable heaven to every man;—and Aubrey did not care ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... something else; that duel is one of my painful thoughts. But why did I come up? It was certainly not to talk of the Companions of Jehu, nor of M. Laurent's exploits—Ah! I came to ask how you would like to spend your time. I'll cut myself in quarters to amuse you, my dear guest, but there are two disadvantages against me: this region, which is not very amusing, and your nationality, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... after Alfred Monkton came of age I left college, and resolved to amuse and instruct myself ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... sorry I told you anything about it, ma'am, if it gives you such a turn. I did hope it would amuse you while you sipped your tea. But la! there! some ladies ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... more than three hundred ships and transports. A distant day was appointed for assembling this mighty force in the harbor of Brindisi; and a previous attempt was risked with a detachment of three hundred knights, who invaded Albania, and besieged the fortress of Belgrade. Their defeat might amuse with a triumph the vanity of Constantinople; but the more sagacious Michael, despairing of his arms, depended on the effects of a conspiracy; on the secret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bowstring [39] of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... traditions and its sentiments. Indeed, at that moment, when the enemy at the gates was knocking over the fortresses of Poland like ant-hills, intrigues for place and honour were rife everywhere, and Maklakoff was playing the "panther" to amuse ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... of us, and beginning to want home," the Frenchwoman said in rather offended tones two days later, when Barbara declined to go with her to Dol. "I am sorry we have not been able to amuse you sufficiently well." ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... fine scarlet cloth to a child's farthing whistle; indeed he appeared to be particularly pleased with the latter article, for he no sooner made it sound, than he put on a horrible grin of delight, and requested a couple of the instruments, that he might amuse himself with them in his leisure moments. Although he had received guns, ammunition, and a variety of goods, to the amount of nearly three hundred ounces of gold, reckoning each ounce to be worth two pounds sterling, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... to amuse two boys who were standing by. Looking up with some indignation, Paul recognized in one of them the boy who had cheated him out of ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... progress, when suddenly her parents took her out of the school, and gave her to a man in marriage. After the festivities of the marriage week were over at her husband's house, she went home to visit her mother, taking her dolls with her to amuse herself! ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... the plant has some better reason for this peculiar obedience to every breath that blows than to amuse windy-cheeked boys and girls. Is not the ready movement useful during stormy weather in turning the mouth of the flower away from driving rain, and in fair days, when insects are abroad, in presenting its gaping lips where they can best alight? We all know that insects, like ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... The rain was over; the lovely light of a fair September morning was beautifying everything it shone upon. Ellen had been accustomed to amuse herself a good deal at this window, though nothing was to be seen from it but an ugly city prospect of back walls of houses, with the yards belonging to them, and a bit of narrow street. But she had watched the people that showed themselves at the windows, and the children that ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... against him for fishing in his water, called Moysich (Dead-branch) leading into Tame, towards Scarford-bridge (Shareford, dividing the shares, or parts of the parish, Aston manor from Erdington, now Sawford-bridge) which implies a degree of unkindness; because William could not amuse himself in his own manor of Birmingham, for he might as well have angled in one of his streets, as in the river Rea. The two lords had, probably, four years before been on friendly terms, when they jointly lent their assistance to the hospital ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... little Greek," said Brown. "I was away two days last week, and I want to make up the lessons. You may find something on that bookcase to amuse you. Stretch yourself out in that armchair and ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... in a row and the first begins by saying, "I am going on a journey to Athens," or any place beginning with A. The one sitting next asks, "What will you do there?" The verbs, adjectives, and nouns used in the reply must all begin with A; as "Amuse Ailing Authors with Anecdotes." If the player answers correctly, it is the next player's turn; he says perhaps: "I am going to Bradford." "What to do there?" "To Bring Back Bread and Butter." A third says: "I am going to Constantinople." "What to do there?" "To Carry Contented Cats." Any one ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... many channels and with good effect. Its lectures, classes, competitions, smokers, Bohemian nights, receptions, ladies' nights, expeditions to places of interest, and finally its exhibition of last month have all been excellently chosen to instruct, interest, and amuse its members, and incidentally promote the general cause of architectural education. The long list of attractions has held the interest of its members without flagging. In the classwork it has had the services and advice of the best and most competent ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 06, June 1895 - Renaissance Panels from Perugia • Various
... amazed the native confessed his fault, but asked his master how he had discovered it. The Spaniard replied: "The leaf which you yourself have brought me has told me everything. Moreover, you reached my friend's house at such an hour and you left it at such another." In this way our people amuse themselves by mystifying these poor islanders, who think they are gods, with power to make the very leaves reveal what they believe to be secret. Thus the news spread through the island that the leaves speak in response to a sign from the Spaniards; and this obliges ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Exmoor's kind proposal. I saw her about it the same morning we got Hilda's letter; and she offers 200L. a year, which, of course, is mere pocket money, as your board and lodging are all found for you, so to speak, and you'll have nothing to do but to dress and amuse yourself.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the kitchen everybody looked very strange, and Jack sat down in the corner and listened for an explanation. As a rule the conversation of the grown-up people did not amuse him, but tonight he felt that something had happened, and that if he kept quiet he might find out what it was. He had noticed before that when the grown-ups talked they always said the same things over and over again, ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... jugglers", who went through the country or were attached to the lord's court to amuse the company, were a despised race because of their ribaldry, obscenity, cowardice, and unabashed self-debasement; and their newfangled dances and piping were loathsome to the old court-poets, who accepted the harp alone as ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... impudence peculiar to their race. The foxes have selected one of the prettiest tracts of the wood for their breeding-earth. It is dug in a gentle hollow, and at a height of some forty feet above the Thames. From it the cubs have beaten a regular path to the riverside, where they amuse themselves by catching frogs and young water-voles. The parent foxes do not, as a rule, kill much game in the wood itself, except when the cubs are young. They leave it early in the evening and prowl round the outsides, over the hill, and round the Celtic camp above, and beat the river-bank ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... which some people yield to social temptations, as where they drink too much, or bet, or play cards, when they know that they will most likely lose their money, out of a feeling of mere good fellowship; or where, from the mere desire to amuse others, they give parties which are beyond their means. The gravest example is to be found in certain cases of seduction. Instances of men making large and imprudent sacrifices of money for inadequate objects are very rare, and are rather designated as foolish than wrong. With regard to all the ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... of all routine duty, and was henceforth detailed to foregather with, amuse, instruct and casually keep an eye on my Mohican. In other words, my only duty, for the present, was to act as mentor to the Sagamore, keep him pleasantly affected toward our cause, see that he was not tampered with, and that he had his bellyful three times a day. Also, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... to amuse you, fair huntress? I might apologise for it—since I can assure you it is not my own conception, nor is it to my taste any ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... one takes up to beat his neighbor and not for application to his own back. Come, now! who the devil are you angry with? In one day chance has worked a miracle for you, a miracle for which I have been waiting these two years, and you must needs amuse yourself by finding fault with the means? What! you appear to me to possess intelligence; you seem to be in a fair way to reach that freedom from prejudice which is a first necessity to intellectual adventurers in the world we live ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... said, "they amuse me! Dissolve them all in a giant test-tube, and the keenest analysis must fail to detect one single ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... nerve. He being both critical and susceptible, a girl with Jean's distinctive aroma was dangerous company with a job of this kind on hand. And playing the whisky-enfeebled fool in a dirty black beard ceased entirely to amuse me when the other party was Miss Rendall. However, this morning Mr. Hobhouse felt braver, and stepped out briskly, resolved to ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... devoted to the means of life, and what proportion to superfluities, luxuries and the means of death. But it is a very simple matter with which the reader, who is doubtless a better arithmetician than I am, may amuse himself, to estimate the number of married women of reproductive age in the community, and allowing anything in reason for illegitimate motherhood and nothing at all for infertile wives, to satisfy himself that the total cost which would be involved ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... chain-ladder, the man cannot fall to the ground, but would be swung by the chain attached to the belt round his body. The men are also frequently practised in ascending and descending by single chains. The firemen here are very fond of the above exercise; the bagging each other seems to amuse them exceedingly.[I] ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... corner of the earth, much affected formerly by French crowned heads, and by the “Sun King” in particular, who in his old age grew tired of Versailles and built here one of his many villas (the rival in its day of the Trianons), and proceeded to amuse himself therein with the same solemnity which had already made vice at Versailles more boresome ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... they all demand equal service in return. Thus a large part of mankind keeps itself in constant motion like bubbles of water racing around a pool at the foot of a water-fall—or like rabbits hurrying into their warrens and immediately hurrying out again. Whereas, while these antics amuse and sadden us, we for the most part remain where we are. Hence our wants are few; they are generally most courteously supplied without our asking; or, if we happen to be momentarily forgotten, we can quickly secure anything in the neighbourhood by a little judicious squalling. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... skating was one of the joys of her life. She telegraphed her wish to Meg, but the eyebrows went up so alarmingly that she dared not stir. No one came to talk to her, and one by one the group dwindled away till she was left alone. She could not roam about and amuse herself, for the burned breadth would show, so she stared at people rather forlornly till the dancing began. Meg was asked at once, and the tight slippers tripped about so briskly that none would have guessed the pain their wearer suffered ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... quite seriously. As she seldom looked serious either, one could hardly hear her say it was the loveliest party she ever was to without suspecting her of a humorous intention. By the sly gleam of her eye one should know she was doing it to amuse you, imitating a child, a country-woman, a shop-girl, for the sake of promoting an easy pleasantness. With her bearing of entire dignity, her honest handsomeness, her air of secure and generous wealth, she was truly not one whom the ordinary public would feel disposed to seek reasons for excluding. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... will not: we will do every bit out of our own heads, and it shall be almost all Fred and Alex; Henrietta and I will scarcely come in at all. And it will so shorten the evening, and amuse every one so nicely! and ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... payment to more leisure; we're Men of business now. My Mother, knowing of a Consultation of Physicians which your Father has this day appointed to meet at his House, has bribed Monsieur Turboone his French Doctor in Pension, to admit of a Doctor or two of her recommending, who shall amuse him with discourse till we get ourselves married; and to make it the more ridiculous, I will release Sir Credulous from the Basket, I saw it in the Hall as I came through, we shall have need of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... amuse themselves with theatrical converse, arising out of their last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery, admire the terrific combat, which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the inimitable manner in which Bill Thompson can 'come the double monkey,' ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... machine. He used to lie the whole day long on the fragrant straw, with fresh, delicately smelling apples in heaps at his side, looking out in every direction to prevent the village boys from stealing fruit; and he used to whistle and sing meanwhile, to amuse himself. He knew no end of songs, and had a fine voice. When peasant women and young girls came to ask for apples, and to have a chat with him, Vassily gave them larger or smaller apples according as he liked their looks, and received eggs or money in return. The rest of the time he ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... to amuse him. At any rate, with one of those almost infantile changes of mood which are common to savages of every degree, he ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... returned from a stroll of two hours through Westminster Abbey. We entered the building at a door near Poets' Corner, and, naturally enough, looked around for the monuments of the men whose imaginative powers have contributed so much to instruct and amuse mankind. I was not a little disappointed in the few I saw. In almost any church-yard you may see monuments and tombs far superior to anything in the Poets' Corner. A few only have monuments. Shakspere, who wrote of man to man, and for man to the ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... take care of him. All the time that her mother was sorting, counting, and arranging where things should go, she sat in the window sullen and unhappy, looking out at the pansy-bed. Peter grew tired of a companion who did nothing to amuse him, and began to sprawl and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the people, having no great public events to interest them, entered eagerly into every new amusement and occupation; and this mysterious theory possessed no little attraction, professing, as it did, to cure invalids, restore mind to the fools, and amuse the wise. ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... went to sleep he would take the nine tiny piglets from his pocket and let them run around on the floor of his room to amuse themselves and get some exercise; and one time they found his glass door ajar and wandered into the hall and then into the bottom part of the great dome, walking through the air as easily as Eureka could. They knew the kitten, by this time, so they scampered over to where ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... longer looked upon Jan as a mere playmate, a being whose diversion was to amuse and to love her. He had become a man. In her eyes he was a hero, who had gone forth to fight the death of which she still heard word and whisper all about her. Croisset's wife and Iowaka told her that he had done the bravest thing that a man might do ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood |
