"Amused" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... showing it is a condition of all species of power. You cannot diversify happiness by the cares of property or the occupations of a family. If you do not make your husband share your social interests, if you do not keep him amused you will fall into a dismal apathy. Then begins the SPLEEN of love. But a man will always love the woman who amuses him and keeps him happy. To give happiness and to receive it are two lines of feminine conduct which are separated by ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... company as cheerful as it was in their dull, sodden nature to be. He had a floating eye that harmonised with his queer, mobile face, and played round on the different figures, but mostly upon Lemuel's dogged, rustic industry as if it really amused him. ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... stream among the Alleghanies, called Lycoming Creek, beside which the family spent a summer in a decadent inn, kept by a tremulous landlord who was always sitting on the steps of the porch, and whose most memorable remark was that he had "a misery in his stomach." This form of speech amused the boy, but he did not in the least comprehend it. It was the description of an unimaginable experience in a region which was as yet known to him only as the seat of pleasure. He did not understand how any one could be miserable when he could catch ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... three brothers, laughing and talking. Coryston first, then James, then Arthur. Lady Coryston rose to meet them, and they all kissed their mother. Then Coryston, with his hands on his sides, stood in front of her, examining her face with hard, amused eyes, as much as to say, "Now, then, for the scene. Let's get it over!" He was the only one of the three men who was not in evening dress. He wore, indeed, a shabby greenish-gray suit, and a flannel shirt. Marcia noticed it with indignation. "It's not respectful ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry,[242] travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes,[243] in Palmyra,[244] his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... affront, but simply that he did not regard it as an affront, and this completely conquered and captivated the boys. He had one characteristic which made all his schoolfellows from the bottom class to the top want to mock at him, not from malice but because it amused them. This characteristic was a wild fanatical modesty and chastity. He could not bear to hear certain words and certain conversations about women. There are "certain" words and conversations unhappily impossible to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... is, but not in moral development—and so have another opportunity of passing the self-constituted barrier. The suggestion may appear very ridiculous, and no doubt lends itself to humorous comment; but what if it should be true! what if the amused reader should himself be getting ready to follow the remanded ancestor! Upon it, however, I do not care to spend thought or time, least of all argument; what I care to press is the question—If we believe in the progress of creation as hitherto manifested, also in ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and the Strand. His characteristic talk, with its keen observance of detail and subtle power of inference held me amused and enthralled. It was ten o'clock before we reached Baker Street again. A brougham was ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... admirable keeping with his wife's attire. It was a landscape, begging the word, after Turner's own heart. "Them's two dummies from the asylum, I know," she continued. "Let's watch 'em make signs." And she gazed upon us from the serene heights of green sward with an amused, patronizing smile. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... asked Mrs. Moss, amused but still anxious, for the sunburnt face was very thin, the eyes hollow with hunger or pain, and the ragged figure leaned on the wheel as if too weak or weary ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Grape, who wrote the music, was born in Baltimore, Md., May 6, 1833. His modest estimate of his work appears in his remark that he "dabbled" in music for his own amusement. Few composers have amused themselves with better results. ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... bristly hedgehog than you when I came into the world, but I have gradually grown to be one. At first all the quills in my case pointed inward, and people found pleasure in pricking and pinching my soft smooth skin, and were amused to see me flinch when the points penetrated into my very heart and bowels. But the thing did not appeal to me; I turned my skin inside out and then the quills pricked their ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... The boys amused themselves laying out an imaginary bill of fare. The merits of sundry inviting dishes were zealously discussed. Roast turkey was eloquently extolled by one; another set forth the attractions of a table ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... bunk he examined that in the same careful and painstaking way. Sandy and George pretended to be very much amused at his alleged posing as an investigator, but the boy paid no attention to their smiles ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... into life as a mere follower of the Duke." How unpromising as a party politician Shelley was may be gathered from the fact that in 1811, the same year in which he dined with the Duke, he not only wrote a satire on the Regent a propos of a Carlton House fete, but "amused himself with throwing copies into the carriages of persons going to Carlton House after the fete." Shelley's methods of propaganda were on other occasions also more eccentric than is usual with followers ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... amused at my astonishment, for he laughed a little while softly to himself, and then went on with his tale-telling. "Simone's red gills winced, like a dying fish, but he was too drunk to qualify. He swore a foul oath, 'I will marry this lily,' says he, 'within ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 7,000 fruit-trees, then one of Mr. Rhodes's favourite hobbies; and in the stud-farm for improving the breed of horses in South Africa. If I asked the profession of any of the smart young men who frequented the house where we were staying, for games of croquet, it amused me always to receive the same answer, "He is something in De Beers." The town itself boasts of many commodious public buildings, a great number of churches of all denominations, an excellent and well-known club; but whatever the edifice, the roofing ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... "Coffee" around. Their sunshade kept revolving about that way, and sometimes their heads revolved a little bit, too. We could hear a word occasionally and knew they were having a great deal of fun at our expense; but we were amused ourselves, so we didn't care. They would drive along slowly until we almost reached them; then they would whip up and raise such a dust ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... have thought it. He was a short, thick-set man, of about five feet and two or three inches, shabbily dressed; and his unsteady lurch, swollen features, and odorous breath, told plainly of a heavy debauch. Amused by his manner, I entered into conversation with him. He was, it appeared, a sailor, a Lancashire man, and, if he was to be believed, very respectably connected in Manchester. I gathered that he had ended a boyhood of contumacy by running away to sea, his ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... men, leaving me to do her work. When I spoke to her she simply laughed in my face; the children couldn't endure her and screamed whenever she came near them. So I was obliged to do nursemaid whilst she danced and amused herself—and all at my expense. She made no secret of the fact that she was on the look out for a husband; and she has gained her end—for she ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... struck by a pistol-ball at the lower angle of the left lower jaw, this bullet issuing on the other side of the neck. As exemplary of the easy manner in which he bore his many injuries during a somewhat protracted convalescence, it may be added that he amused his comrades by blowing jets of water through the apertures on both sides of his neck. Beside the foregoing injuries he received many minor ones, which he did not deem worthy of record or remembrance. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... at her, an amused kind of expression playing about the corners of his mouth. It was only with an effort that he controlled the muscles of his face. What a comedy, he thought to himself! Here was this sweet little woman breaking her heart over something which, as far ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... pages, the re-arranged phrases. As I typed, the interest and pleasure in the story lasted just through that process. It still seemed pretty good to me, the wedding still touched me, the whimsical ending still amused me. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... amused way of the attempts of his political opponents at Albany, during his early career as a member of the Assembly, to besmirch his character. His outspoken criticisms and denunciations had become intolerable to them, so they laid a trap for him, but he was not caught. His innate ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... for drawing from him those famous letters to the States in which he was made to approve the Five Points and to admit the possibility of salvation under them. These epistles had brought much ridicule upon James, who was not amused by finding his theological discussions a laughing-stock. He was still more incensed by the biting criticisms made upon the cheap surrender of the cautionary towns, and he hated more than ever the statesman who, as he believed, had twice ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... feathery lichen, which every rooster in that yard was determined to stand on, or perish in the attempt; and Holmes would watch, through the quiet, bright mornings, the frantic ambition and the uproarious exultation of the successful aspirant with an amused smile. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... added Dick, respectfully, "after a time." The boy's lids dropped to avoid revealing his amused recollection of the incident; and his lordship's quick eye ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... not; I did not mean to convey that; but once a rogue always a bad lawyer holds good in every country," was Crozier's comment in a low, quiet voice which stirred and amused the audience again. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sometimes so large that asses and mules were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars, and sometimes in the form ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... a day, since I was a boy of ten until I was nearly twenty, sailing a schooner-rigged yacht on Windermere. My companion and tutor was a retired commander of the Royal Navy, and he amused himself by teaching me navigation. I learnt it better than any of the orthodox sciences I had to study at school. You see, that was my hobby, while a wholesome respect for my skipper led me to work hard. I have not forgotten what I was taught, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... contempt, fail to inform itself, our country, not only in its glorious history and more glorious destiny, but in the minuter details of the picture, must be understood and acknowledged. This charge of ignorance is not unfounded. Often have I been not a little amused when an intelligent German has inquired of me as a New Yorker, with the sure hope of news from his friend in Panama, or another to learn how he might collect a debt from a merchant at Valparaiso, or a third to be informed why he received no answers ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... said because he saw that it was necessary under the circumstances to propitiate Mark. The telegraph boy understood his uncle's object very well and was amused, but remained ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... with two men, who were employed upon the school estate, and whose services were so often required in the boats that they were good oarsmen. I comprehended the principal's plan at once. He intended to chase me in the boat, and bring me back by force. I was rather amused at the idea, and should have been more so if there had been a ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... attract them. By accident we discovered one that has a virtue more extraordinary still,—that of attracting at a distance, and without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron. This peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it. At last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when magnetized to a certain degree. One day we went to a fair, where a juggler, with a ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the apology have been expressed in words, when up he bounces again to his hind feet and begins executing a series of antics, so fantastic and undog-like that they who witnessed them were quite as much astonished as amused. Jervis Whitney himself, than whom there was not a man in the hunter's paradise more deeply versed in dogs and their ways, and who thought he knew his own dog from head to tail and back again, was even more astonished than the rest. ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... heat. From the first blue of morning, while the streets were still cool and marble front steps moist from housemaids' sluicings, crowds of Bishop Chuff's marchers came pouring into the city. At the prearranged mobilization points, where bands were stationed to keep the throngs amused until the immense procession could be ranged in line, the press was terrific. Every trolley, every suburban train, every jitney, was crammed with the pan-antis, clad in white, carrying the buttons, ribbons and ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... the family had remained on the outside, suspicious of Uncle's venture. As he returned, led out in rather an undignified way by the guard, Uncle did not relish the amused looks of his family and the ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... remarks and prejudices of a young man; for which @the only excuse the author can pretend to make, is, that as some future reader may possibly be as young as he was when he first wrote, he hopes they may be amused with what graver people (if into such hands they should fall) will very justly despise. Who ever has patience to peruse the series, will find, perhaps, that as the author grew older, some of his faults became less striking." * They are marked ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the statues, all the glorious souvenirs of the poet-laureate, came to Barcelona to adorn the sailor's home. The little Telemachus amused himself pulling apart the old wreaths of the troubador, and tearing out the old prints from his volumes with the inconsequence of a lively child whose father is very far away and who knows that he is idolized by two indulgent ladies. Besides his trophies, the poet left Ulysses an old house ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... our school often amused themselves in recess by collecting into little groups for singing. As there seemed to be a sufficient power of voice, and a respectable number who were willing to join in the performance, it was proposed one ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... authorized French version of her works. At that time she had, however, written nothing original, and had attracted no general interest. While she stayed with M. Durade and his wife, the Swiss painter amused himself by making a small portrait of her in oils—a head and shoulders. This painting remains in the possession of M. Durade, who has not merely refused to sell it, but will not allow it to be photographed or reproduced in any form. He has, however, we understand, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... mystery?" Grace went on, with an amused smile. "You haven't told me, you know. Has she lost her jewels, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... that had chosen the spot for their winter abode. This was the reason for such different tastes: the vixen, when a cub, had often basked in the sun near a snails' favourite resort, and had there acquired a liking for the snails; while the fox, on the other hand, had times out of number amused himself, in the first summer of his life, by leaping and snapping at the flies as they buzzed among the leaves when the mid-day sun was hot, and at the beetles as they boomed along the narrow paths in the thicket near the "earth" ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... much disgusted as amused with this charlatanism. And yet I verily believe the fellow was sincere—self-deluded only. I had by this time lost my faith in him, though not in the great Arcadian principles. On reaching home, after an hour's walk, I found our household in unusual commotion. ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... fascinated. It is true that the tension relaxes from time to time, that the monster's strange education and the Godwinian precepts that fall so incongruously from his lips tend to excite our mirth, but, though we are mildly amused, we are no longer merely bored. Even the protracted descriptions of domestic life assume a new and deeper meaning, for the shadow of the monster broods over them. One by one those whom Frankenstein loves fall victims to the malice of the being he has endowed with ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... banknotes were extracted with some effort from the hand-bag into which they had been stuffed. Captain Hannaford and Schuyler counted while the others watched, Carleton with amused interest, Mary with comparative indifference, because the actual money meant less to her than the thrill of winning it, and Madame d'Ambre on the verge of tears. She considered that she was being robbed of her rights, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... very low prices to intending settlers. These small buyers were those who ultimately suffered by the transaction, as they found they had paid for worthless claims. The speculators reaped the richest harvest; and it is hard to decide whether to be amused or annoyed at the childish and transparent rascality of the French Creoles. [Footnote: State Department MSS., Nos. 30 ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... military stores, arms, &c. of which the Tower was then, as now, the magazine; and, although he had brought with him the usual number of his courtiers, only three or four attended him on the scrutiny which he intended. Whilst, therefore, the rest of the train amused themselves as they might in other parts of the Tower, the King, accompanied by the Dukes of Buckingham, Ormond, and one or two others, walked through the well-known hall, in which is preserved the most splendid magazine of arms in the world, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to make his meaning plain to everybody. Just before he finished, three or four out of the half-a- dozen outsiders who were present whistled with all their might and ran down the stairs shouting to one another. As we went out they had collected about the door, and amused themselves by pushing one another against us, and kicking an old kettle behind us and amongst us all the way up the street, so that we were covered with splashes. Mrs. M'Kay went with us, and when we reached home, she tried to say something about what she had heard. The ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... reading to us from your diary, which you kept for the Social Select Circle while you were in Virginia," explained Robert Dale. "We were much entertained anent the account of your bashful friend, Fairfax Johnson. Betty amused us by telling just what she would have done with him had she ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... hot and exhausted. I have now been three months continuously in the water, which is certainly a long time. Much amused with a toy called ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... extravaganzas. Thus, imagine a dreaming Court intrenched behind a triple line of moats where the lotus blooms in summer—a Court whose outer fringe is aggressively European, but whose heart is Japan of long ago, where a dreaming King sits among some wives or other things, amused from time to time with magic-lantern shows and performing fleas—a holy King whose sanctity is used to conjure with, and who twice a year gives garden-parties where every one must come in top-hat and frock coat. Round this Court, wavering between the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... here have ditches on either side. It was pitch dark, I did not know the road, and it was too dark to see the turnings oft. I missed my way and went miles. I hated it. I don't mind a German, but I don't like the dark. Thursday: We amused ourselves, and at 3-0 I went to see the Brigade Major of the Brigade, to which we were attached for instruction, and he sent us to the reserve billets, within a mile or so from the firing line, which they have a stupid habit of shelling. It keeps waking ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... suppose how happy the poor child was to get it; and while he was eating it, a grey owl marched from her nest in the wall, and began picking up the crumbs. This greatly amused little Henry; and, in a few minutes after, there came a great set of sparrows, and a robin-redbreast, and two of them began to fight. And this made Henry laugh; and, on the whole, they so occupied him all day, he was less unhappy than the day before: and, when night came, ...
— The Adventures of Little Bewildered Henry • Anonymous
... cases where ministers had meddled with medicine,—sometimes well and sometimes ill, but, as a general rule, with a tremendous lurch to quackery, owing to their very loose way of admitting evidence,—that I could not help being amused. ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... but a few inches a-jar; it let pass only the round little nose of the round little wife, between two wide-open blue-flowers of eyes. "What are you doing, Goosie?" she repeated in a tone slightly amused but rich with a large tolerance; "what are you ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... landed a relic, they'd bring it out on the veranda or in to dinner and gloat over it loud and pointed, while the Smalls would pipe all hands to unload sarcasm. And the same vicy vercy when 'twas t'other way about. 'Twas interesting and instructive to listen to and amused the populace on rainy days, ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him and imitated his manner. It was a good thing. He was glad, too, that Reanda was not married, for it would have been a nuisance, thought Dalrymple, to have the man's wife always about and expecting to be amused. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... his errands; his ushers, who introduced strangers to him; his "tasters," who tried the various dishes set before him lest they should be poisoned; his cupbearers who handed him his wine, and tasted it; his chamberlains, who assisted him to bed; and his musicians, who amused him with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised various classes of guards, and also doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms, cooks, and other domestic servants in great abundance, together with a vast multitude of visitors ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... to remember many of the details of our stay in England and Scotland, I find it necessary to take refuge for information in my daughter's diary. It amused Dr. Talmage very much as he read it page by page. I find this entry made in Manchester, where she was not well enough to ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... much amused at this statement. 'Oh, no, my son, it doesn't always turn out that way; but you know it wouldn't do for me to promise to have it just as soon as we get back,' she objected. 'I am always very busy just at our return. It might be very inconvenient for me to prepare for a children's ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... proceeded farther, for the officers were evidently amused. It appeared that both were also riding from Port Said to Cairo to see the British minister plenipotentiary and to receive final instructions for a long journey which soon awaited them. The younger one was an army surgeon, while the one who spoke to Stas, Captain Glenn, had an order from his ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... intimacy of their youth, when studying the rudiments of science together, under the paternal uncle of the voyager; and adds that if the present narrative should not altogether please his Majesty, he must plead to him as Pliny said to Maecenas, that he used formerly to be amused with his triflings. ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... idea, however, as she perceived her was instantly to suggest that she should do something else, that at any price some one should take her to have some tea, or make her eat or walk, or do anything, in fact, but stand still. Rachel, however, at the moment she was swooped down upon, was well amused; a smile was unconsciously playing on her lips as she listened to an absurd conversation going on between a young man and a girl just in ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... the project, and questioned young Ried, until he assured them that he began to feel like a veritable professor. Apparently the boys were forgotten. This very fact put them at their ease, and they listened, interested and amused over the thought that these ladies and gentlemen ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... "But the game amused me. I liked to see the Herr Englander playing the spy against me, the master of them all. Do you know, you fool, that old Schratt knows English, that she spent years of her harlot's life in London, and that when you allowed her a glimpse of that passport, your own passport, the one ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... Stra. Amused me! Oh, yes! while their likeness to their mother would every hour remind me of my past happiness! No. For three years I have never seen them. I hate that any human creature should be near me, young or old! Had not ridiculous ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... first read this singularly vapid poem years ago, in mid-Atlantic, I wondered if the author had ever laid eyes on any piece of water wider than the Thames at Greenwich, and in looking over Barry Cornwall's "Life and Letters" I am not so much surprised as amused to learn that he was never out of sight of land in the whole course of his existence. It is to be said of him more positively than the captain of the Pinafore said it of himself, that he was hardly ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... amused than impressed by the old woman's earnestness, and was only prevented from laughing during her oration by the fear of hurting her feelings. When she was gone I took a good look at the stone which she ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... studies being completed, in 1799, he entered himself of the Temple, with a view to make the law his profession, and was called to the bar. In these moments, when he was not occupied with the dry technicalities and quibbles of legal writers, he amused himself with translating the Odes of Anacreon, which he published with copious notes, in 1800. Such was Mr. Moore's youthful appearance at this time, that being at a large dinner party, and getting up ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 12, No. 349, Supplement to Volume 12. • Various
... Republic. I walked through the streets, and the crackers and flags amused me like a child. Still it is very foolish to be merry on a fixed date, by a Government decree. The populace is an imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious revolt. Say to it: "Amuse yourself," and it amuses ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... falling from their horses, and making themselves objects of derision and ridicule. The consequence was, that the enemy, who at first had been alert, and ready on their posts, in case of an attack, now, for the most part, laid aside their arms, and sitting down amused themselves with looking at them. The Numidians often rode up, then galloped back, but still contrived to get nearer to the pass, as if they were unable to manage their horses, and were carried away against their will. At last, setting spurs to them, they broke out ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... kind of congratulation, but also much amused by it, as if there could be nothing so ludicrous as the idea of May not marrying a man who loved her as he loved, Gabriel ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... was like that of a little old man with uncanny shrewdness. His week among them had wrought changes in the head office boy. For Bennietod was ambitious to be a gentleman. His covert imitations had always amused St. George and Amory. Now in the comparative freedom of The Aloha his fancy had rein and he had adopted all the habits and the phrases which he had long reserved and liked best, mixing them with scraps of allusions to things which Benfy had encouraged him to read, and presenting ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... putting the bicycle in some conspicuous position, as an inducement for the crowd to remain and concentrate their curiosity upon it, otherwise there would be no keeping them from following us about the village. We set it up in plain view on the bala-khana, and returning from our walk, are amused to find the old farrash delivering a ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and capacity, trousers of the coarsest plaid, hobnailed shoes and leather gaiters, and a habit of handling his gun that would have been respected on the Mississippi. My own appearance in high-heeled French boots and other corresponding gear, for a tramp over stubble and marsh, amused him equally; but my wardrobe was exclusively metropolitan, and there was no alternative.' It was hard and exciting work, the novice discovered, to trudge through peas, beans, turnips, and corn, soaked with showers, and muddied to the knees till his Parisian boots were reduced ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... was well agreed to get back to the fair camp by the river, and so pleased with them were their new comrades in arms, that he was amused to see more than one dame of the village trudging homewards across the mesa:—they forgot to doubt the new allies who had helped send the Navahu running to the hills. When he reached Povi-whah he rallied ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... became more temperate, he continued and even increased his licentiousness—one devil went out, and seven entered in. He pursued low amours in disguise; he practised occasionally as a quack doctor; and at other times he retired to the country, and, like Byron, amused himself by libelling all his acquaintances—every line in each libel being a lie. Notwithstanding all this, he was a favourite with Charles II., who made him one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and comptroller of Woodstock Park. In his lucid intervals ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... I was amused by considering with how much ease and coolness he could write or talk to a friend, exhorting him not to suppose that happiness was not to be found as well in other places as in London[1143]; when he himself was at all times sensible of its being, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... first made wrathful answer, and even made as though he would turn his back on us, each time we made shift to hold him fast. Nay, or ever we had ceased he had taken his foot from the stag's neck, and at length we walked with him back to the forest lodge, half amused, yet half grieved, with the mocking words he tormented us with. Then he bid us quit him, promising that he would once more examine into the matter of that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... himself, who was very willing to rejoice in the relief from all immediate danger, the restoration of the surrounding country, and even the victory itself, if only they would have left him in quiet where he was, sufficiently comfortable, amused, and happy, without forcing necessary dangers. Jeanne's successes and her unseasonable zeal and the commotion that she and her train of captains made, pouring in, in all the excitement of their triumph, into the midst of the madrigals—seem to have been anything but welcome. ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... the time was a mere matter of form, as a dead calm prevailed. Our philosopher therefore amused himself and Polly with commentaries on the ghost-subject which ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... merely amused by Bottger's hostility. She scorned her scorn, and with the utmost scientific and ethnological support declared that clothes were immoral in origin, and the cause of immorality and extravagance, since they were not the human integument. Jambers was not quite sure what "integument" was, but ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... wished to be amused was at once at home, on the same footing with him.... More spontaneous than the first troubadours, he banished from his writings abstract and general types, "romanticized" life itself, and not myths, those eternal legends that stray through the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... had raised my expectations, but I quickly discovered that it was an exceptional day, and that the rule would be disappointing. A little experience introduced me to the various characters of the elephants which composed our pack, and I amused myself by arranging them according to their qualifications, the heavier and slower animals in the centre, and the more active at either end of the line. Each elephant was to retain invariably the same position every day, as the mahouts and their beasts would ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... passage, which was very quick, Mr Vanslyperken amused himself as usual, in copying the letters to Ramsay, which contained the most important intelligence of the projects of the Jacobites, and, from the various communications between Ramsay and the conspirators, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he seemed ready to come to my hand for the tit-bits I can give him. The world likes to be feted, likes good dinners and high-class balls; but above all it likes to be amused. I'm going to ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... morning; and when her father had been up himself, as well as his wife, to see that her room was comfortable and the fire burning, she prepared to retire for the night. No sooner, however, was she in bed than her momentary sleepiness took itself off, and she wished she had stayed up longer. She amused herself by listening to the old familiar noises that she could hear to be still going on down-stairs, and by looking towards the window as she lay. The blind had been drawn up, as she used to have it when a girl, and she could just discern the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the amused but sometimes impatient Abraham started an exceedingly foolish suspicion. When, asked the sisters of one another, did Abe ever help any one, save Blossy, shell dried beans or pick over prunes? When had he ever been known to hold wool for ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... his office of Master in Chancery, and that of Attorney-General for Lancaster the following year, when "he retired to a small place at Purser's Cross, in the parish of Fulham, where he had early in life amused himself in horticultural pursuits, and where there are several foreign trees of his own raising remarkable both for their beauty ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... you first insist on my giving a toast, and then laugh at it when given?" cried Mr. Hardinge, half-amused, half-serious in his expostulations. "Peggy is an excellent woman, and one of the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... inconvenience, and it was some time after he came to us before he could wear shoes, as his feet swelled when he first began again to wear them. After he had got the better of his melancholy, he sometimes amused himself with carving his name on the trees, together with the date of his being left there, and the time of his solitary residence. At first he was much pestered with cats and rats, which had bred there in great numbers from some of each species which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... amused scorn of her laugh annoyed her husband. However, at that moment their small house-parlourmaid entered with the tea-tray, and Doris rose to make a place for it. The parlourmaid put it down with much unnecessary ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Trinity Church," said Colonel Allen, intensely amused. "Rather severe for a woman who ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... will have conveyed only the ridiculous side of his appearance; but the ridiculous and the sublime are near, and the grotesque fiendishness of Chowbok's face approached this last, if it did not reach it. I tried to be amused, but I felt a sort of creeping at the roots of my hair and over my whole body, as I looked and wondered what he could possibly be intending to signify. He continued thus for about a minute, sitting bolt upright, as ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... broad; of these crevices three were disposed parallel to one another, and at different heights. They wanted only clearing out; the produce was abundant, and though slightly flavoured with iron and sulphur, it was drinkable. The thirsty mules amused us not a little: they smelt water at once; hobbled as they were, all hopped like kangaroos over the plain, and with long ears well to the fore, they stood superintending the operation till it was their turn ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... conscious of making any tremendous sacrifice. Nevertheless, she adopted easily this sentimentalized view of her marriage. And Vivie Norton went about among their friends proclaiming Milly's heroism. Some people were amused; some were sceptical; a few pitied the young man. "Milly, a poor man's wife—never! For he is poor, isn't he, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... desecration, to my mind. But, Israfil, you will certainly be the rage. One so seldom sees a good-looking man! Good-looking women are common enough and they make themselves still commoner nowadays," which remark coming from such a quarter amused the Tenor, whereupon the Boy became irate. "Oh, jeer away!" he exclaimed; "but when you know Angelica as well as I do you will respect my knowledge of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of a smile. She might not like to be pursued by jealousy incarnate, but she was, he saw, rather amused ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... thirteenth of September—and the time was deemed appropriate for the execution of so determined an enemy of the worship of that sacred emblem. While Coligny's escutcheon was dragged in dishonor through the streets by four horses, the hangman amused the mob by giving to his effigy the traditional tooth-pick, which he was said to be in the habit of continually using—a facetious trait which the curate of St. Barthelemi, of course, does not forget to insert in his brief diary.[718] Nevertheless, that ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... his children's precocity, and, provided they amused him, they could make him do anything. So after the conference he announced that he had been questioning Angelica, and had found that she really was too far advanced for a governess, and he had therefore decided that she should share Diavolo's lessons with the tutor. The ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of this conversation lay quiet upon his bed, thrilling and amazed at being so championed by the cowboys, delighted with Belding's idea of employing him, and much amused with the quaint seriousness ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... triumph; hold jubilee &c (celebrate) 883; make merry &c (sport) 840. laugh, raise laughter &c (amuse) 840. Adj. rejoicing &c v.; jubilant, exultant, triumphant; flushed, elated, pleased, delighted, tickled pink. amused &c 840; cheerful &c 836. laughable &c (ludicrous) 853. Int. hurrah!, Huzza!, aha!^, hail!, tolderolloll!^, Heaven be praised!, io triumphe!^, tant mieux! [Fr.], so much the better. Phr. the heart leaping with joy; ce n'est pas etre bien ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... with a child's prattle. She might have amused herself by encouraging this chatterbox to go through the list of their acquaintances, and pick out a goodly choice of suitors. She might have encouraged her to give expression to her profound views of the chances ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... so very sick, Lone would have laughed at her naive method of identifying the spot. But he was too sorry for her to be amused at the vagaries of her sick brain. He did not believe anything she had said, except that she had been coming to the ranch and had left her bag under a bush beside the road. It should not be difficult to find it, if he followed ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... cast the Minister's suspicions, in order to be able to make use of his friend when his reinstatement was evidently out of the question. The Ministry put their faith in Corentin; they enjoined him to keep an eye on Peyrade, which amused Louis XVIII. Corentin and Peyrade were then masters of the position. Contenson, long attached to Peyrade, was still at his service. He had joined the force of the commercial police (the Gardes du Commerce) by his friend's orders. And, in fact, as a result of the sort of zeal that is inspired ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... greeted this morning, when I came down to breakfast, with a question that surprised and amused we very much. "Pray, Fanny," said John, "did you ever thank Mr. Bacon (one of the editors of the Times) for his book (the "Life of Francis I." which Mr. Bacon had been kind enough to send me); for here is a very abusive ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... game as it was played by University students as a barbaric spectacle, dangerous to limb, if not to life. Horace has always been more or less of a pepper-pot, but he is not exactly a croaker, and he served in the war with distinction. Hence his diatribe made me frown, even though it rather amused me. It was written in the autumn of the year before Fred went to Cambridge, and I read it aloud to the family circle as being of interest ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... allows us a few glimpses into two friendships, which, to a nature like hers, we cannot but think must have been nobly precious. One, celebrated in her poem of "Cyprus Wine," was with Hugh Stuart Boyd, who amused himself during some weary periods in his blindness with the grateful occupation of teaching her to read Greek. The other was with her cousin, John Kenyon, author of "A Rhymed Plea for Tolerance," to whom she so expressively inscribes ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... just tied my handkerchief on a table-leg in the passage as I went down, and counted the doors, and when I came up and saw my handkerchief I knew I was all right. The head housemaid came up-stairs with me and she was most amused." ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... home I have missed the society and fondness of my father, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and more than beforehand I should have thought possible: I long to see them all again. Even when I am most amused I feel a void, and now I understand what an aching void is, perfectly well. You know they are going back to Prince's Buildings to the nice house we had last winter; and Emmeline writes me word that the great red puddle which we used to call the Red Sea, and which we were forced ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... which had been "voted a failure" was evidently not a failure. At the same time men of high character conducted a vigorous campaign of speeches for Lincoln. General Schurz, the German revolutionary Liberal, who lived to tell Bismarck at his table that he still preferred democracy to his amused host's method of government, sacrificed his command in the Army—for Lincoln told him it could not be restored—to speak for Lincoln. Even Chase was carried away, and after months of insidious detraction, went for Lincoln on the stump. In the elections ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Fox written in one letter, ending, "O Oliver, take heed of undoing thyself by running into things that will fade, the things of this world that will change; be subject and obedient to the Lord God." There was something in all this that really reached Cromwell's heart, while it amused him; and, though he would begin by bantering Fox at an interview, sitting on a table and talking in "a light manner," as Fox himself tells us, he would end with some serious words. Both to Fox personally, and to the letters from ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... better say surprised and a little sore, but she tore it open and read it at a glance almost, which is why I say it must have been only a note. But while she was reading it she frowned, then smiled, as if something had amused or—or—" ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... later there was a little dinner given at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon, and strange to say, Helen and Worthington were among those present. From that time on it was Jack who chased away the shadows and kept Helen amused. There was something wonderfully sweet and soothing about this strong, self-reliant man of the West. Life cannot exist without sunshine, and this man was slowly becoming the sunshine of Helen's life, with each walk in the moonlight along the banks of the Truckee, ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... with Cat. Fanshawe, and was highly amused by the account she gave of Mme. de Stael bolting up to her while standing speaking to Lord Lansdowne and some others at Mrs. Marcet's,[23] and saying, "I want to be acquainted with you. They say you have written a minuet. I am not a judge of English poetry, but those who are told me it is very good. ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... candle prayer the women generally read in some book of devotion, while we children amused ourselves in the quietest manner, till the men returned from synagogue. "Good Sabbath!" my father called, as he entered; and "Good Sabbath! Good Sabbath!" we wished him in return. If he brought with him a Sabbath guest from the synagogue, some poor man without a home, the stranger was welcomed ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... away, Emily stood at the window looking after them. There was one customer in the shop, but Miss Emily had a feeling that he would keep himself amused until she was ready to wait on him. She had intuitions about the people who came to buy, and this tall spare man with the slight droop of his shoulders, his upstanding bush of gray hair, his shell glasses on a black ribbon was, she was aware, having the time of his life. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... of going with him," she adds,—how domestic and personal these little royal plannings seem,—"after the quiet of Lent, so as to keep him amused and look after him and help him with his affairs; for when one is away for his health at the baths, he ought to live like ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... one looked at the young man. He sat staring at Titian, a look half amused and half perplexed in his dark eyes. The look broke and ran. "Is it ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... themselves in a steady stare at the man's face, till he felt the skin of his cheeks creep at their sinister beauty. It seemed to him as if a spirit hostile and evil had threatened him from beneath those shining eyes; and he was amused to experience, for all his interest, a sense of half-relief when the four beautiful wings hurtled crisply ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the rail, pulled back now and then by an anxious mother, during the short sail. Alice had brought some crumbs of bread with her, and they amused themselves by throwing these into the water for ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White
... upon him, and all the schemes and designs that he had been carrying out, with the joyful zest of a child—his toy-castle, his feudal circle, his wide estate—were suddenly suspended, he wrote with an almost amused surprise that he found how little he really cared, and that the people who spoke tenderly and sympathetically to him, as though he must be reeling under the catastrophe, would themselves be amazed to find that he found himself ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... watched in the Tube, after the theatres, a man and a small eager-faced boy talking about something they had been to see. Although sitting exactly opposite them, I have no idea what they said, but they amused each other immensely as they recalled this joke and that. Nothing extraordinary in this, you will say. But there was. The reason why I was so profoundly interested to be a witness of the scene was that they were deaf and ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... the Hebrew vowel-points were perplexing, and the boy found better amusement in putting shrewd questions on what struck him as impossibilities or inconsistencies in the Old-Testament narrative they were reading. The old gentleman was infinitely amused, had fits of mingled coughing and laughter, but made little attempt at solving his pupil's difficulties, beyond ejaculating Er narrischer Kerl! Er narrischer Junge! He let him dig for solutions, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... embers with haggard eyes—picturing, remembering. He was intimately acquainted with Paris, with two at least of its multifarious aspects—the brilliant Paris of the rich, and the cruel Paris of the struggling student. And yet, after all, what did his knowledge of the latter amount to? It had amused him for a time to live in the Latin quarter—it was in a disreputable cabaret on the south side of the river that he had first come across John Locke—he had mixed there with all and sundry, rubbing shoulders with the riff-raff of nations; he had seen ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... herself liked the sight of Hetty's pretty face, and was amused by her prattle; but she was not a woman to think much about the feel of a child's arms around her neck. Mrs. Kane, perceiving that she was not understood, sprang up from her seat and went to fetch a ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... men—merciless with their associates and dubbed as fish-blooded coroners by their enemies—were like gullible children following a lovely and willful Pied Piperess. But Mark's sister with her vanities and fibs irritated and amused him by turns. Perhaps he resented her sharing this material triumph instead of the tired-faced ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... a fragment of some one of the surrounding icebergs that had amused us. It bore the resemblance of a huge polar bear, reposing upon the base of an inverted cone, with a twist of a seashell, and whirling slowly round and round. The ever-attending green water, with its aerial clearness, enabled ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and the quietness with which he made himself at home on the subject of his little Epicurean comforts, amused the ladies, but particularly Miss Mannering, who immediately gave the counsellor a great deal of flattering attention; and more pretty things were said on both sides during the service of the tea-table than we ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... light of the window, and glancing at it, the thought struck me that I now knew why Miss Putney did not wish me to stop at the Holly Sprig Inn. I almost laughed as I turned away my head to write my name. I was amused, and at the same time I could not help feeling highly complimented. It cannot but be grateful to the feelings of a young man to find that a very handsome woman objects to his making the acquaintance of an ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... It amused Cautley to talk to Miss Quincey. She wore such an air of adventure; she was so fresh and innocent in her excursions into the realms of gold; and when she sat handling her little bits of Tennyson and Browning as if they had been rare nuggets ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... ceiling, but soon sat down again, as he was tired with all his exertion. Then, taking George on his knee, he made him ride a-cock-horse. The child laughed and clapped his hands and shouted with pleasure, as did his father, who laughed until his big stomach shook, for it amused him almost more than ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the page brought the tea, and John Eames amused himself by swallowing three slices of very thin bread ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... home. There is no space here to tell of many incidents. Great chiefs who had not been to the council came hundreds of leagues across wide rivers that they might see with their own eyes this man who had made peace without gold, and these had to be amused ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Lessard he still stood at the end of the desk, industriously paring his fingernails. An amused smile wrinkled the corners of ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... (says our friend) till he had almost begun to enjoy it: till the tale of his stupidities amused him, and the entanglements before him, which he saw so clearly, began to shape themselves into an amusing story ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... halted us for inspection before dismiss. When he came to Mr. Appleby, he turns to his captain and says: 'Where did you get this nigger in uniform, Ford?' The captain looked at him and roared, for poor Mr. Appleby was as black as Maguffin. The gentlemen had amused themselves corking him ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Notwithstanding that I was amused at his mistake, the label he had supplied me with was something to be grateful for, and I am now finding a use for it. And I think that if he, my labeller, should see this sketch by chance and recognise himself in it, he will say with his pleasant ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... But that was in the days before Dorgan had acquired a country place on Long Island and a taste for golf and expensive motors. Now, in his way, Dorgan was quite as fastidious as any of those he had once affected to despise. It amused Langhorne. But it had not furthered his ambitions of being taken into the inner circle of Dorgan's confidence. Hence, I inferred, this bitter internecine strife ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... a bridge. The rest, after having pillaged the hovels and the gardens, met along the route wherever the train stopped, either yawned, their lips puffed out with wine, and their eyes swollen, or amused themselves by throwing from one side of the carriage to the other branches of shrubs and ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve. We are amused to read how Ben Jonson engaged, that the dull masks with which the royal family and nobility were to be entertained should be "grounded upon antiquity and solid learning." Can there be any greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... of the Philadelphia Project exceeded anything he had seen before. There were gray-haired veterans of the old Manhattan Project here, men who had worked with Fermi at Chicago, or with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, twenty years before, and they swore in amused exasperation when they thought of how the relatively mild regulations of those days had irked them. And yet, the very existence of the Manhattan Project had been kept a secret from all but those engaged in it, and its ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... of the successful captors, having spent a laborious day in the main-chains for the purpose. At eventide he was found teaching little Jay how to hold a line, and how to manage when a bite came. Her mistakes and her delight amused him: both lasted till a small panting ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and easily into the outward life of the people among whom he is,—while he always reserves within himself a cold, stern individuality; he often is angered when he should be amused, and retorts with resentment when he should reply in repartee. Still, the American is not sombre to the core. He has a kind of grim merriment bestowed somewhere in the recesses of his being. It is quaint and severe, however, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... talked little as they went, but Mills noticed that now and again his companion appeared to check a laugh. He experienced a feeling of vague indignation against the man who had saved his life; he was selfish in not sharing his point of view and the thoughts which amused him. At times reserve can be the most selfish thing imaginable, and one might as well be reticent on a desert island as in Manicaland. Moreover, despite the tolerant manners of the country, Mills was conscious of something unexplained ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... something wrong with Ranny. He wasn't like himself. He wasn't excited or amused or interested in anything. He looked as if he were trying not to hear what Winny was saying to the children. He was abstracted. He went like a man in a dream. He behaved almost as if he wanted to show that he ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... conviction in this sally than in that of our noble host; but this I attributed to the trained and skilled dissimulation of the bar. Lord Thornaby, however, was not to be amused by the elaboration of his own idea, and it was with some asperity that he called upon the butler, now solemnly superintending the ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... the window, where for several minutes he stood gazing at vacancy, the same grim smile still on his face. Jasper in the meantime amused the ladies (his sisters had heard him on the subject already) with a description of the two antagonistic notices. But he did not trust himself to express so freely as he had done at home his opinion of reviewing in general; ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... thank you for so speedy a return to my two last, and particularly thank you for your anecdote of Charlotte Graham and her cousin, Harriet Bailey, which has very much amused both my mother and myself. If you can learn anything farther of that interesting affair, I hope you will mention it. I have two messages; let me get rid of them, and then my paper will be my own. Mary fully intended writing to you by Mr. Chute's frank, and only happened ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... Cross the mountains. we also exchanged 2 of our indeferent horses for Sound back horses. in the evening Several foot races were run by the men of our party and the Indians; after which our party divided and played at prisoners base untill night. after dark the fiddle was played and the party amused themselves in danceing. one of those Indians informed us that we could not cross the mountains untill the full of the next moon, or about the 1st of July. if we attempted it Sooner our horses would be three days without eateing, on the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... angler fifty years ago was the cheapness of it. The man who talked to his friends of "my river in Norway" paid but a few pounds a year for it; as the native farmer had not yet been exploited, he retained the simple notions of his class, and was mostly amused that the Englishman should take such trouble about the salmon, which were of such small account to him. It is common knowledge that this desirable state of things is past history, and there is no need to waste words, or pipe laments, or ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... the most pinching hunger; we had no fuel after the second day, except what we pulled down from the bulkheads of the cabin. We amused ourselves below, making a suit of sails for the vessel, and drinking hot water to repel the cold. But this work could not have lasted long; the weather became more intensely cold, and twice did we set the prize on fire, in ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... places) offered to their gods human blood, but only such as was drawn from the tongue and ears, to expiate for the sin of lying, as well heard as pronounced. That good fellow of Greece—[Plutarch, Life of Lysander, c. 4.]—said that children are amused with toys and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... calm stately way, Valentine liked him; she even loved him, and would have been happy as his wife. She enjoyed his keen, intellectual powers and his originality of thought. Even the "dreadful politics," that scared and shocked his father, amused her. ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme |
