"Anecdote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the main theme of the search. It is thus a parallel in brief to the "Wandering" stories popular in Europe in the Middle Ages, when any kind of journey served as the string on which to gather all sorts of anecdote and adventure. The story of Atungait, who goes on a journey and meets with lame people, left-handed people, and the like, is an example of another ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... Thomas Day, Esq., an anecdote is related of Miss B——, afterwards Mrs. Day, shewing with what remarkable effect presence of mind and courage can tame the ferocity of ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... morbid recurrent hallucinations? Name the German servant girl who, in a fever, talked several learned languages, which she had heard her former master, a scholar, declaim! Where did she live? Who vouches for her, who heard her, who understood her? There is, you know, no evidence at all; the anecdote is told by Coleridge: the phenomena are said by him to have been observed "in a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Goettingen.... Many eminent physiologists and psychologists visited the town." Why do ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying—of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought was only the ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... could fill twice the space allotted us, with the revolutionary ballads alone, for the gathering of which Mr. GRISWOLD deserves our thanks. New-England epitaphs come in for their share; and there is a capital anecdote of Dr. DWIGHT and Mr. DENNIE, at which we gazed and pondered wistfully for a long time, in the hope, (a vain one, we are sorry to say,) of being able to present ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Vienna, resolved to wipe out the disgrace of his last defeat by capturing all the Austrian States, and of then spreading the terror of his arms far and wide through the empire of Germany. The energy with which he acted may be inferred from one well authenticated anecdote illustrative of his character. He had ordered a bridge to be constructed across the Drave. The engineer who had been sent to accomplish the task, after a careful survey, reported that a bridge could not be constructed at that point. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... their minds would remain so outside of it. It would be dropped at last, however, after half an hour's gentle worrying, and the conversation would incline itself to public affairs. Mr. Carteret would find his natural level—the production of anecdote in regard to the formation of early ministries. He knew more than any one else about the personages of whom certain cabinets would have consisted if they had not consisted of others. His favourite ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... you come to think of it? Women used to drive their own chariots, as we do our motors, and hold salons, like the French ladies. There was Rhodopis, for instance, who married the brother of Sappho. I wonder if Colonel Corkran could have told you that the story of Cinderella comes from an anecdote of Rhodopis? I hardly think that he's been able to spare enough time from bridge to study Strabo, who was the Baedeker of Egypt for tourists six hundred years before Christ. An eagle saw Rhodopis bathing, and stealing one of her ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... nor stop where the concurrence of interest has produced an alliance. 'My father,' said a Spanish peasant, 'would rise from his grave if he could foresee a war with France.' What interest had he, or the bones of his father, in the quarrels of princes?" The answer might easily be given by another anecdote. During a parley betwixt the leaders of two rival Highland clans, which had for its object the peaceable termination of their differences, a subordinate officer, not relishing the unusual homily, went up to his chief in a rage, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... was with Scotland. The following anecdote was related by his brother, Cardinal York, to Bishop Walker, the late Primus of the Episcopal Church of Scotland:—"Mr. Greathead, a personal friend of Mr. Fox, succeeded, when at Rome in 1782 or 1783, in obtaining ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... thing else that is interesting; and then any one of the circle can guess who the hero is, having the privilege of asking one question previously. If the conjecture be correct, the guesser describes another character, and so the game proceeds. Or, if you prefer it, you can narrate one well-known anecdote of your hero, and then three questions are allowed previous to a guess. I call ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... remembrance a pear-tree,' down to the rich conclusion, 'And so we pass, through the various changes of life, from Eton pears to Parliamentary pairs,' that he had to go down-stairs with Lord Decimus, and even then to be seated next to him at table in order that he might hear the anecdote out. By that time, Bar felt that he had secured the Foreman, and might go to dinner ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... from the philosopher to restrain my indignation at first and afterward to mitigate my sorrow. Even this was not quite sufficient, but how much an anecdote will sometimes do, and this one the philosopher above quoted told me himself. At times, when disposed to take gloomy views of man's advance, and sickened by certain of his still barbarous beliefs and acts, he had found relief in the story Emerson tells of himself when in similar moods. After attending ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... When I heard this anecdote of my cousin and his friend, I thought that there could be no more romances written on the same kind of plot as Caleb Williams; the principal interest of which, to the superficial reader, consists in the alternation of hope and fear, that the hero ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... advantages of an author drawing from original sources so completely as Polybius. The compass of his task is completely clear and present to him at every moment; and his eye is fixed throughout on the real historical connection of events. The legend, the anecdote, the mass of worthless chronicle-notices are thrown aside; the description of countries and peoples, the representation of political and mercantile relations—all the facts of so infinite importance, which escape the annalist because they do not admit of being nailed to a particular year—are ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... moral magnetism. Emerson called him 'the most ideal of men, for he wanted to put all his ideas into action.' His absolute superiority to all selfish aims and narrowing pride of opinion touched an answering chord in the self-devotion of Mr. Stearns. A little anecdote illustrates the modest estimate of the work he had in hand. After several efforts to bring together certain friends to meet Captain Brown at his home in Medford, he found that Sunday was the only ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... estate, cultivated by serfs who paid him a yearly rent. In complete accordance with the Greek ideal, it was a society of soldier-citizens, supported by an inferior productive class. In illustration of this point the following curious anecdote may be quoted from Plutarch. During one of the wars in which Sparta and her allies were engaged, the allies complained that they, who were the majority of the army, had been forced into a quarrel which concerned nobody but the Spartans. Whereupon Agesilaus, the Spartan king, "devised this ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... heedless of the laugh that followed this—as indeed it did every—narration of the anecdote, was not to be shaken from his equanimity. He continued silent and unmoved, as if he had not heard a word of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... have finished my anecdote for me. It is too soon yet for the Indians to begin to crow. They are still outside our place, and the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... old-time trappers and scouts always had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote and adventure. Stories were often told at night when the day's duty of making the round of the traps was done, the beaver skinned, and the pelts hung up to cure. Their simple supper disposed, and being ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... alludes to an extreme fondness for small tame singing-birds (pp. 324 and 453). Dr. (now Sir John) Kirk, who accompanied him in later years, mentions guinea-fowl—that do not breed in confinement, and are merely kept as pets—in the Shire valley, and Mr. Oswell has furnished me with one similar anecdote. I feel, however, satisfied that abundant instances could be found if properly sought for. It was the frequency with which I recollect to have heard of tamed animals when I myself was in South Africa, though I never witnessed any instance, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... communicates the latest efforts of his muse, and tries, one regrets to say, to get more credit for precocity and originality than fairly belongs to him; he accidentally alludes to his dog that he may bring in a translation from the Odyssey, quote Plutarch, and introduce an anecdote which he has heard from Trumbull about Charles I.; he elaborately discusses Cromwell's classical translations, adduces authorities, ventures to censure Mr. Rowe's amplifications of Lucan, and, in this respect, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... Similarly, if a verbal charm is to cure a physical ailment, the patient must first form a mental conception of the cure, and believe in the charm's efficacy. But faith in healing-spells of human devising is sometimes cruelly misplaced, as is shown in the following anecdote, taken from the writings of Godescalc de Rozemonde, a Belgian theologian. A woman, suffering from a painful affection of the eyes, applied to a student for a magical writing to charm away the trouble, and promised him a new coat as a recompense. The student, nothing ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... audience came with the expectation of hearing the rhetorical fire-works of a Western stump-speaker of the "half-horse, half-alligator" variety, they met novelty of an unlooked for kind. In Lincoln's entire address he neither introduced an anecdote nor essayed a witticism; and the first half of it does not contain even an illustrative figure or a poetical fancy. It was the quiet, searching exposition of the historian, and the terse, compact reasoning ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... or in the long twilight evenings of summer, when visiting her cherished friends at Shirley Park, in Kensington-square, or wherever she might be located for the time—it was then that her former spirit revived and she poured forth anecdote and illustration, and the store of many years' observation, filtered by experience and purified by that delightful faith to which she held—that "all things work together for good to them that love the Lord." She held this in practice, even more ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... born idjit; go on, massa," said Ebony, who was always charmed at the prospect of a story or anecdote. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... long line of stalls, whose inhabitants kept their stately heads turned to gratify the insatiable curiosity of the equine. To the weary mind of the American there was an agreeable balm in the groom's fund of anecdote, and even in the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... an anecdote which shows how easily, from his anxiety not to wear his heart upon his sleeve, Balzac might be misunderstood. He dined with her on January 29th, 1844, after a visit to Russia, and related at table, with peals of laughter and apparently enormous satisfaction, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... Chatelet was no less renowned. She was predestined to her career, if the following anecdote be credible. Gabrielle-Emilie de Breteuil, born in 1706 (who, in 1725, was to marry the Marquis du Chatelet, becoming, in 1733, the most celebrated friend of Voltaire), was four or five years old when she was given an old compass, dressed up as a doll, for a ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... laughed at the Russian's story, but he assured us it was a well authenticated fact, and was generally regarded as a most delicate jeu d'esprit. Not to be behindhand in the line of cats and monkeys, I was obliged to tell an anecdote of a Frenchman, who, on his arrival in Algiers, ordered a ragout at one of the most fashionable restaurants. It was duly served up, and pronounced excellent, though rather strongly flavored. "Pray," said the Frenchman to the maitre d'hotel, "of what species of cat do you make ragouts in Algiers?" ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... general character is an anecdote which has to do with a much earlier period when Marshall was still a practicing attorney. An old farmer who was involved in a lawsuit came to Richmond to attend its trial. "Who is the best lawyer in Richmond?" he asked of his host, the innkeeper of the Eagle tavern. The latter pointed to a tall, ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... This anecdote was followed by several others. Those were pleasant hours I spent on board the old Indiaman. My visits to her were indeed an agreeable change from the sea-life routine of my own ship. I was amused by the progress in intimacy ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... of domination that we will relate an anecdote, not ten years old, in point. It is a ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... of Mr. Sheridan's exertions upon the American question combines with other circumstances to throw some doubts upon an anecdote, which has been, however, communicated to me as coming from an authority worthy in every respect of the most implicit belief. He is said to have received, towards the close of this war, a letter from one of the leading ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... quite a celebrated performer at Penny Readings and Church Soirees, and had been told by a lady who had heard Sims Reeves that she preferred his rendering of "Tom Bowling" to that of the famous tenor. This anecdote was proudly related by his wife, and though Mr Macalister cried, "Hoots!" and rustled his paper in protest, it was easy to see that he ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... is true of this little anecdote, and I submit that there lies in it a most curious and exciting little mystery. I am like a man who gives you the last bottle of his '25 claret. It is the pride of his cellar; he knows it, and he has a right to praise it. He takes up the bottle, fashioned ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one of the brooks here. JOHNSON. 'If Percy is like one of the brooks here, Birch was like the river Thames. Birch excelled Percy in that, as much as Percy excels Goldsmith.' I mentioned Lord Hailes as a man of anecdote. He was not pleased with him, for publishing only such memorials and letters as were unfavourable for the Stuart family[702]. 'If, (said he,) a man fairly warns you, "I am to give all the ill; do you find the good;" he may: but if the object which he professes be to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... a man of very wide and irregular reading and a tenacious memory; he often used to wonder why he had not risen in the Church. He had once told Mr. Dixon a singular and drolatique anecdote concerning the bishop's college days, and he never discovered why the prelate did not bow according to his custom when the name of Taylor was called at the next visitation. Some people said the reason ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... The anecdote might be called infinitely little, and yet its meaning for Archie was immense. "I did not know the old man had so much blood in him." He had never dreamed this sire of his, this aboriginal antique, this adamantine Adam, had even so much of a heart ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to confirm by the following anecdote, which is going the round of the Brigade, what I recently told you about our friend Boyce. I shouldn't worry you, but I feel that if one has cast an unjustifiable slur on a brother-officer's honour—and I can't tell you how the thing has lain on my conscience—one ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... ever heard the anecdote about the artist of Duesseldorf and the jealous courtiers. This is it. It seems there was once a very famous artist who lived in the little town of Duesseldorf. He did such fine work that the Elector, Prince Johann Wilhelm, ordered a portrait statue of himself, on horseback, to be done in bronze. ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... own subjects—Additions successively made to it by different kings—Bernini, sent for by Lewis XIV, forwarded the foundation of the New Louvre, and returned to Italy—Perrault produced the beautiful colonnade of the Louvre, the master-piece of French architecture—Anecdote of the Queen of England, relict of Charles I—Public exhibition of the productions of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Suetonius in relating this anecdote (Life of Augustus, chapter 5) says that the senate-meeting in question was called to consider the conspiracy of Catiline. Since, however, Augustus is on all hands admitted to have been born a. d. IX. Kal. Octobr. and mention of Catiline's ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... to hear her anecdote, especially as I saw she wanted to tell it. What I did want was to see that pendant again. She had thrust it back among her laces, only the loop which held it to the velvet being visible. It was set with three small sapphires, and even from a distance I clearly made them out ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... especially such who are guilty of the sinne, or archpatrons thereof.' This amusing document, contains some fifty or sixty veritable accounts of balls of fire that fell into churchyards and upset the sporters, and sporters that quarrelled, and upset one another, and so forth: and among them is one anecdote containing an example of a rather different kind, which I cannot resist the temptation of quoting, as strongly illustrative of the fact, that this blinking of the question has not ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... shall tell you my latest anecdote,' Mina said; and, heedless of the half-laughing, half-eager protest of Gladys, she related the incident of the portrait, with a little embellishment which made him appear in rather a ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes, or the Bleeding Nun. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich,—which my father was not; and immensely tall,—which my father was ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... principal three hundred pounds per annum, so that the bard 'more fat than bard beseems' was not in a condition to grow thinner, and could afford to make his cottage a Castle of Indolence. Leigh Hunt has versified an anecdote illustrative of Thomson's luxurious idleness. He who could describe "Indolence" so well, and so often appeared ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... which she had given to the young poet, and Lady Paget promised scrupulous secrecy. It is to be supposed that she made a mental reservation in favour of Leicester, to whom her ladyship transmitted without delay an anecdote so little calculated to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... employed a diver to fix fishes on his hook. Cleopatra found him out, and, in turn, employed a diver of her own to put waggishly a salt (sea) fish on his hook." The story is in Plutarch, and the popularity of the anecdote may be seen by the use Shakspeare makes of ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... Yana River to the Polar Sea, for I doubt if there is a more gloomy, desolate region on the face of this earth. So sparsely is it peopled that even a small town can moulder away here into non-existence and no one be the wiser for years after its disappearance. The authenticity of the following anecdote is vouched for by Mr. George Kennan, the American traveller, who quotes from ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... another admiring look; 'but probably the editor more or less consults the taste and feelings of the readers. Well, I'll try to expand it a bit, and I'll manage to drag in an anecdote or two somehow—if not Guicciardini, at least something or other else Italian. You see Italy's a tolerably rich subject, because you can do any amount about Raffael, and Michael Angelo, and Leonardo, and so forth, not ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... of Smuts? While he is intensely human it is difficult to connect anecdote with him. I heard one at Capetown, however, that I do not think has seen the light of print. It reveals ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... illustrated by a further obscurity,—obscurum per obscurius. He continues to tell them,—"Something of affinity to this anecdote may appear in the first aspect of another transaction, which I shall proceed to relate, and of which it is more immediately my duty to inform you." He then tells them that he had contrived to give a sum of money to the Rajah of Berar, and the account he gives ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Bolingbroke,—"Billy and Bully" these two blades were termed. There was rumor, at one time, of the Earl seriously resenting the attentions of Bolingbroke. The old King, too, showed her some courtesies; and the most oft-told anecdote of her is about His Majesty asking if she were not sorry the masquerades were over. She assured him she was surfeited with pageants,—there was but one she wished yet to see, and that was a coronation. She saw it not, for the King outlived her by a ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... Mr Reid gives an anecdote very characteristic of American stage-coach travelling, and proving how little the convenience of ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... deserted for ten years past, and now presents so melancholy a scene of desolation, that it shocked me to see it. Everything around lies in ruin, and the house itself is going fast off by thieving depredations of the neighbourhood. I was told a curious anecdote of this estate; which shows wonderfully the improvement of Ireland. The present Earl of Kerry's grandfather, Thomas, agreed to lease the whole estate for 1,500 pounds a year to a Mr. Collis for ever, but the bargain went off upon a dispute whether the ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... of England, and must have been, in fact, the cause of his resolution to make his way into the Highlands. It is possible, of course, that, after Montrose came to Tullibelton, he may have been uncertain for a time of Colkittoch's exact whereabouts; and there is a seemingly authentic anecdote to the effect that Montrose himself related that he first learnt that Colkittoch had broken into Athole by meeting in the wood of Methven a man running with a fiery cross to carry the dreadful news to Perth. A misconstruction of this anecdote, with inattention to dates, has led to ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of gallantry between the Baron of Bradwardine and Col. Talbot is a literal fact. [For the real circumstances of the anecdote, we must refer our readers to the "Introduction" itself. It was communicated to Sir Walter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... elsewhere recorded. and the possession of a compass by the Jaredites when they sailed across the ocean (Alma xxxvii. 38), long before the invention of such an instrument. The ease with which such an error could be explained is shown in the anecdote related of a Utah Mormon who, when told that the compass was not known in Bible times, responded by quoting Acts xxviii. 13, where Paul says, "And from thence we fetched a compass." When Nephi and his family landed in Central America" there were beasts in the forest of every kind, both the cow, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... great deal in that well-known anecdote of Sir Walter Scott's, in which he relates that he "was acquainted with an old lady of family, who assured him that, in her younger days, Mrs. Behn's novels were as currently upon the toilette as the works of Miss Edgeworth at present; and described with some ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... common knowledge is history. Personal recollection supplies many an anecdote, anecdotes collected and freely commented upon make up memoirs, and memoirs happily combined make not the least interesting sort of history. When a man recalls any episode in his career, describes the men that flourished in his youth, or laments the changes that have since taken place, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... danger was over, and it all took place in a minute. With my manuscript back on my hands I understood the phenomenon better, and the reflexions I made on it are what I meant, at the beginning of this anecdote, by my change of heart. Mr. Pinhorn's note was not only a rebuke decidedly stern, but an invitation immediately to send him—it was the case to say so—the genuine article, the revealing and reverberating ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... The talk ran upon mountains. He was wonderfully well acquainted with the leading facts about the Andes, the Apennines, and the Appalachians; he had nothing in particular to say about Ararat, Ben Nevis, and various other mountains that were mentioned. By and by some Revolutionary anecdote came up, and he showed singular familiarity with the lives of the Adamses, and gave many details relating to Major Andre. A point of Natural History being suggested, he gave an excellent account of the air-bladder of fishes. He was very full upon the subject of agriculture, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... descendants of the Puritans, and scores of good things are told in "family" American journals and magazines which are received without a grin in this country. "We are not amused," a great person is reported to have once observed when some wit had ventured on a hazardous anecdote. And we, meaning the people of England, are often not amused, but rather vexed, by gaieties which appear absolutely harmless on the other side of the ocean. These two kinds of humour, the middle-class jokes ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... entirely seen how far they have themselves been morally conquered. This is, of course, but a part of a part of an extraordinary problem now in the course of being solved in the various States of the American Union. I am reminded of an anecdote. Some years ago, at a great sale of wine, all the odd lots were purchased by a grocer in a small way in the old town of Edinburgh. The agent had the curiosity to visit him some time after and inquire what possible use he could have for such material. He was shown, by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instructions to the working classes in Ipswich in various branches of science, and more especially in natural history" ("Memoir of the Rev. J.S. Henslow," by Leonard Jenyns, page 150.), which I like very much. The anecdote about Whewell and the tides I had utterly forgotten; I believe it is near enough to the truth. I rather demur to one sentence of yours—viz., "However delightful any scientific pursuit may be, yet, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... was waiting in the office of the Secretary of War, for the comparatively insignificant sum of money to be provided for my expenses to England, Mr. Davis greeted me as Major. I replied: "I might ask, Mr. President, in what regiment," having in mind the well known anecdote of the subaltern who, on handing the Emperor Napoleon his chapeau which had fallen, was thanked under the title of captain. Mr. Davis then explained the principle he had laid down for himself in appointing officers who had been in the U. S. army. It was to advance no one more than ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... that the grounds of Rosea were the garden (sumen the tid-bit) of Italy, in which a pole being left would not be visible the day after, on account of the growth of the herbage. This soil may not have been remarkably fertile, yet at this distance we thought that this anecdote might be told of ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Le Noir, you remind me of an anecdote told of young Sheridan. When his father advised him to take a wife and settle, he replied by asking whose wife he should take. Will nobody serve your purpose but somebody else's sweetheart? I have told you that I belong to a brave young soldier who is fighting his country's battles in a foreign ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... man was the signal of a general persecution, the activity of which may be judged of from one anecdote of the time:—"As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and taking men and women committed them to prison." (Acts viii. 3.) This persecution raged at Jerusalem with so much fury as to drive most of the new converts out of the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... high horse; and he had orders, too, such a number that no one would have believed it; but that was not his fault. As a young man he had taken part in the great autumn reviews which were held in those days. He had an anecdote that he told about those days, the only one he knew. A subaltern under his orders had cut off one of the princes, and taken him prisoner, and the Prince had been obliged to ride through the town with a little band of captured soldiers, himself a prisoner behind the General. This ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... everything like excitability or irritability. When passion is allowed to prevail, the judgment is dethroned. Words are spoken, or things done, which the parties afterwards wish could be unsaid or undone. Equanimity and self-possession are qualities of unspeakable value. An anecdote may serve to illustrate this remark. There was a gentleman of the Bar of Philadelphia, many years ago, who possessed these qualities in a very remarkable degree. He allowed nothing that occurred in a cause to disturb or surprise him. On an occasion in one of the neighboring ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... number of the Unpartizan Review Henry Holt tells the following anecdote as used by ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... coveted, near Aix, and taking his mother to preside over his own home. But Madame Thiers felt out of place in her son's life, and preferred to return to the property given to Madame Arnic, where she spent the rest of her days with the old lady. Lamartine tells a pretty anecdote of Thiers' relations with his mother. The poet and the statesman had been dining together at a friend's house, in 1830, when Thiers was already a cabinet officer. On leaving together after dinner, they found in the ante-room an elderly woman plainly and roughly dressed. She was asking for ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... excitement—it suffices to mention illustrations of scatological scenes. Another source of error lies in the fact that things which appear sexual to the adult, may to the child be entirely devoid of sexual colouring. There is an amusing anecdote of a little girl who had been bathing with other children, and on her return home was asked whether boys had been bathing as well as girls; "I don't know," said the little one, "for they were all naked!" This story is based upon a profound insight into the nature of the child, for children ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... Another anecdote is related of this period, which will serve in no small degree to illustrate this trait of Elizabeth's strangely-mingled nature. Watching with the ladies of her court, in the gardens of one of her royal residences, as was her jealous and suspicious usage, the movements of her young courtier, ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... mistaken for a waiter, or something of that sort? Perhaps you will have heard the anecdote about one of our ambassadors to England. All ambassadors, save ours, wear on formal occasions a distinguishing uniform, just as our army and navy officers do; it is convenient, practical, and saves trouble. But we have declared ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... of eyes?' This interrogative 'portion of divine scripture' is forcibly illustrated by an anecdote, related with most effective dryness by a friend of ours. An elderly gentleman, accustomed to 'indulge,' entered the bar-room of an inn in the pleasant city of H——, on the Hudson, where sat a grave Friend toasting his toes by the fire. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... over a paling and jumping over a precipice. Even the latter, as the philosophic relativist will eagerly point out, is only a matter of degree. But this is a parenthesis; for the purpose with which I mentioned the anecdote is something different. It is the text of another and somewhat more elusive truth; some appreciation of which is necessary to a sympathy with the more profound problems of Palestine. And it might be ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... Dotty, "you are knitting, Miss Polly; and it's so lonesome all round the house, with mother not coming till to-morrow, that I should think you might tell—well, tell an anecdote." ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... Reader thinks it won't do. "Yes it will," I urge—"it will lighten it up. Who wants statistics without anecdote? Now for an anecdote; and I knock one off, sur le champ, about the engine-driver, the stoker, and several other persons, all on the look-out for promotion, informing me of their being Paddington men of considerable political influence at home. The Cautious Captain accepts the anecdote, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... spin. Aladdin, talking eagerly and with the naivete of a child, wondered why he had never liked this man so much before. And Larch told the somewhat abject story of his life three times with an introduction of much racy anecdote. ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... Another anecdote was this: that to Dominora there came a rumor, that in a distant island dwelt a man with an uncommonly large nose; of most portentous dimensions, indeed; by the soothsayers supposed to foreshadow some dreadful calamity. But disregarding these superstitious ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the play" frequently figures in theatrical anecdote. Wilkinson relates, that when Reddish made his first essay upon the stage, he inserted a paragraph in the newspaper, informing the public that he was "a gentleman of easy fortune." He appeared as ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... One anecdote told of him displays a reckless and whimsical humor. Having need of money, Carlos asked of a merchant, named Grimaldo, a loan of fifteen hundred ducats. The money-lender readily consented, thanked the prince for the compliment, and, in the usual grandiloquent vein of Castilian ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... obtained the objects of thy desire, thou wilt be proud. And when thou art puffed up with pride and hast also become uncharitable, destruction will soon overtake thee. O my son, there is a current anecdote narrated by the gods. In ancient times, O son, there lived a sage named Valadhi, possessed of great energy. And in grief for the death of a child, he practised the severest penances to have a child that should be immortal. And he obtained a son even as he desired. But the gods, though very favourably ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... to swaller a few spoonfuls o' the salted custard when she'd be lookin' my way, an' I felt like ez ef I was pizened, an' so I thess took the painkiller ez a sort o' anecdote. ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... the source of the scandalous anecdote—it was common talk. It doubtless was based upon an actual banquet which Caesar gave in his palace in the Vatican. Some such orgy may have taken place there, but who will believe that Lucretia, now the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... travellers, tales of our wanderings. My companion, whom I took at first to be a rather ironic, sceptical, and by nature "unimaginative globe-trotter—he was a hard-looking, iron-grey man of middle-age—related the usual tiger story, the time-honoured elephant anecdote, and a couple of snake yarns of no special value, and I was beginning to fear that I should get little entertainment from so prosaic a sportsman, when I chanced ...
— The Figure In The Mirage - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... fume of long-unuttered disapprovals. One perfectly neat, benevolent old fellow, however, who had kept his hat on, and had a single vice—that of coming to the Board-room with a brown paper parcel tied up with string—murmured: "We must make all allowances," and started an anecdote about his youth. He was gently called to order by his secretary. Scorrier was asked for his opinion. He looked at Hemmings. "My importance is concerned," was written all over the secretary's face. Moved by an impulse of loyalty to Pippin, Scorrier answered, as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Herodotus relates a curious anecdote of this queen, which, if true, evinces in another way the peculiar originality of mind and the ingenuity which characterized all her operations. She caused her tomb to be built, before her death, over one of the principal gates of ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... anecdote had been boiled down sufficiently for human consumption, and grieved Rix prodigiously by saying that he knew all about it weeks ago, and what did he mean by coming and telling ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... tell you something else. The year after that nearly fatal accident, I—the writer of this anecdote—was visiting the "Britannia" Tubular Bridge which crosses the Menai Straits, and through which the "Wild Irishman" rushes on its way to Holyhead. I was with my parents, and we talked to the ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... First Journey. Pisania. Dr. Laidley. Jindy. Mandingo Negroes. Kootacunda. Woolli. Konjour. Membo Jumbo. Tallika. Ganado. Kuorkarany. Fatteconda. Almami. Departure from Fatteconda. Joag. Robbery of Mr. Park by the Natives. Demba Sego. Gungadi. Tesee. Tigitty Sego. Anecdote of an African ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... anecdote will show with what obstinate perseverance pack-horses have been known to preserve the ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... here that a Mr. Whitbread, to whom Clarkson mentioned this latter cause of distress, generously offered to repair the pecuniary losses of all who had suffered in this cause. One anecdote will be a specimen of the energy with which Clarkson pursued evidence. It had been very strenuously asserted and maintained that the subjects of the slave trade were only such unfortunates as had become prisoners of ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... second volume of this series; and it is not uninteresting to observe that the witness, William Young, is none other than the asserted original of the immortal Mr Adams himself. He might, on Balzac's plea in a tolerably well-known anecdote, have demanded half of the L183, 11s. Of the other origins of the book we have a pretty full account, partly documentary. That it is "writ in the manner of Cervantes," and is intended as a kind of comic epic, is the author's own statement—no doubt as ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... prepossessions, a view of his genius not unlike that set forth with so much eloquence and penetration, in his well-known volume, by Professor Henry Jones. The narrative of Browning's life, in the earlier chapters, makes no pretence to biographical completeness. An immense mass of detail and anecdote bearing upon him is now available and within easy reach. I have attempted to sift out from this picturesque loose drift the really salient and relevant material. Much domestic incident, over which the brush would fain linger, will be ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... the most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the pleasure of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... One anecdote I must relate, the circumstances of which are as true as they are singular. One of my constant walks when I am at leisure, is in my lowlands, where I have the pleasure of seeing my cattle, horses, and colts. Exuberant grass ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... was always a gentleman and a man of the world; he did not dislike mixing with men of all classes and all parties; he had none of that stiffness and hauteur which many of his friends had acquired from their military pursuits. His relations with his opponents are illustrated by an anecdote of which there are many versions. He found himself one day while in the refreshment room standing side by side with d'Ester, one of the most extreme of the Republican party. They fell into conversation, and d'Ester suggested that they should ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... which she has not led us." He scornfully declared that what the reasons of ministers might be for this pusillanimity he could not tell, "for, my Lords, though I am a privy councillor I am as unacquainted with the secrets of the Government as any private gentleman that hears me." Then he told an anecdote of the late Lord Peterborough. "When Lord Peterborough was asked by a friend one day his opinion of a certain measure, says my lord, in some surprise, 'This is the first time I ever heard of it.' 'Impossible,' says the other; 'why, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... women I have ever known—the late Alison Cunningham—told me a little anecdote of the author of The Lantern-Bearers which, so far as I know, has never yet been published. When little Louis was about five years old, he did something naughty, and Cummy stood him up in a corner and told him he would have to stay there for ten minutes. Then she left the room. ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... always amusing, and he certainly possessed the liveliest imagination in the Expedition. He ought to have been a brigand chief. Sometimes his imaginative foresight led him to commit slight breaches of discipline, as the following anecdote will show. On midwinter night when our table was gay and festive Gran noticed an unopened pint bottle of champagne towards the end of the feast, when "bubbley" was being superseded by port and liqueurs. Cleverly he coaxed ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... handsomest bed in Paris without knowing how the actress would reward his passion. Well, one of the coldest of lawyers, a man who is supposed to be the gravest adviser of the Crown, was stirred to the depths of his heart by that anecdote. The orator of the Legislative Chamber can understand the poet who fed his ideal on material possibilities. Three days before the arrival of Maria Louisa, Napoleon flung himself on his wedding bed at Compiegne. All stupendous passions ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... introduced to the pretty widow. He handed the ladies to a seat, and then commenced conversing upon various subjects, which, at the same time, possessed great novelty. His lordship talked about France, and described its ports; told now and then a good anecdote; pointed out the different headlands, bays, towns, and villages, which they were passing rapidly, and always had some little story connected with each. Before the ladies had been two hours on deck, they found themselves, to their infinite ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... missed. The stress was laid by me on the words according to our pleasure; and in order to elucidate that point, Ifirst quoted instances taken from those who in other matters have the right of saying car tel est mon plaisir, and then from others. Ifeel a little guilty in not having mentioned the anecdote about carrosse; but not being able to verify it, Ithought I might leave it to my opponents. However, after having quoted the two Emperors, Iquoted a more humble personage, Protagoras, and referred to other attempts at purism in language; but all that is, of course, passed over by my critic, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... of the informer. The mode of expression would seem to indicate that one or more of Galileo's children had been born previous to his re-election in 1598; but as this is scarcely consistent with other facts, we are disposed to doubt the authenticity of Fabbroni's anecdote. ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... should like to have one, but, you see, it is quite impossible. One can't light the candles till after four o'clock, and before that time it is so dark here in the entresol that you can't see anybody." (I should have prefaced this anecdote by saying, for the benefit of those readers who have never been in Paris, that the entresol is a low story just over the shops, and that the Rue de Rivoli is one of the noisiest streets in the city.)—"But ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... Casimir Perier's; gives over ministry to Freycinet; offered the London Embassy, but declines; President Grevy's regard for. Waddington, Madame, mother of William Waddington. Waddington, Madame William, marriage; early experiences in Paris after Franco-Prussian War; anecdote of Count Herbert Bismarck's telegram to; story of early attempt to arrange a marriage for; at first big dinner at the Ministry of Public Instruction; first social meetings with royalties; experience in thanking the artists at reception; visit of Marechale ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... amongst a thousand, will suffice to show the alarming influence and power which the princess had acquired since her affiliation with the Jesuits. This anecdote will also exhibit the deep, vindictive, and pitiless character of this woman, whom Adrienne de Cardoville had so imprudently made herself ready ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... mountain spirit, one that entertain'd Scorn of base action, deed dishonorable, Or aught unseemly. I remember well Her reverend image; I remember, too, With what a zeal she served her master's house; And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age Delighted to recount the oft-told tale Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was, And wondrous skill'd in genealogies, And could in apt and voluble terms discourse Of births, of titles, and alliances; Of marriages, and intermarriages; Relationship remote, or near of kin; Of friends ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Monsieur Parole d'Honneur was as gay and as full of anecdote as of yore. She also told me, too, that the kind-hearted Frenchman having chanced to meet her out one day, long before she had been able to hear from me directly, had, in the most delicately- diplomatic way, led the conversation round to America, so that he might tell her that ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... This anecdote may evince a degree of stupidity not to be met with in this country. We are, however, very far from being as careful in the selection of teachers as we ought to be. Unworthy teachers frequently find employment. I refer not to teachers whose literary qualifications are ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... remembered, that I do not pledge myself for the authenticity of this anecdote, though it is well known that the churchyards and by-corners of this old metropolis are very much infested with perturbed spirits; and every one must have heard of the Cock Lane ghost, and the apparition that guards the regalia ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... never quitted his chamber; confined by a tedious indisposition, he amused himself with writing a Voyage round the World; giving characters of men, and descriptions of countries, as if he had really visited them: and his volumes are still very interesting. I preserve this anecdote as it has long come down to us; but Carreri, it has been recently ascertained, met the fate of Bruce—for he had visited the places he has described; Humboldt and Clavigero have confirmed his local knowledge ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... thus understood, there is much in the anecdote very curious. Here is a painter requested by the head of the Church to execute certain religious paintings, and the only qualification for the task of which he deigns to demonstrate his possession is ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... A brief anecdote, yet further illustrative of the framework of this ancient ganoid, may throw some additional light on what I have ventured to term the human cast of the contrivances exhibited in the organisms of the old geologic ages. After carefully examining ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... meet it in that shape. I called to mind the apology of the Methodist minister, who, just after a declaration of his that he was not afraid to die, ran away from a furious bull that attacked him,—"that, though not fearing death, he did not like to be torn in pieces by a mad bull." I related this anecdote to Craig, and, as he testified on the trial, expressed my preference to be taken on the deck of the steamer and shot at once, rather than to be given up to a Washington mob to be baited and murdered. I talked pretty freely with Orme and Craig about myself, the circumstances ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... How are they taken? For what purpose are they taken? In what country are the finest horses raised? Why are the horses so excellent there? Are not animals always made better by kind treatment? Why would not the Arab sell his horse? Relate the anecdote of the planter and the ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... This anecdote, so full of clever, arch wit, is sufficient to endear the old gateway to all lovers of Johnson and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... adventures are made up of old anecdotes which were current in Europe during the Middle Ages, and which the success of Eulenspiegel again put into circulation. The very coarse anecdote connected with the death of Til (chap. xcii.) is the subject of Chaucer's Sompnoures tale. The story in chapter lxxx. of the innkeeper who asks payment for the smell of his dishes, and who is paid with a tinkling of coins, is also very old, and was afterwards made use of by Rabelais. ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... illustration of our present subject, an anecdote left on record in 1813, by the Rev. Conrad Speece, highly distinguished during his ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... Yu relates the following anecdote of Kao Tsu, the first Han Emperor: "Wishing to crush the Hsiung-nu, he sent out spies to report on their condition. But the Hsiung-nu, forewarned, carefully concealed all their able-bodied men and well-fed horses, and only allowed infirm soldiers and ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... We have related this anecdote in detail, that our readers may understand from the character of the child what was that of the man. Besides, we shall see him develop, always calm and superior amid small ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... This anecdote carried "great astonishment and surprise" into the company who listened to it. Mr. Page gave a sort of chuckle, and saying, "By George!" got up and left the room. The girls put their heads out of the window that they might laugh unseen. Daniel gazed at their shaking shoulders with an air ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... you have passed the test, and consider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing. Only coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The great anecdote is received in silence, like a benediction. You felt pretty benedicted, ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... adventures of which half the charm consists in prattling and poetizing about the mysteries of love, the delightful life of youth with full cups and empty purses, the pleasures of travel and of poetry, the Roman and still more frequently the Veronese anecdote of the town, and the humorous jest amidst the familiar circle of friends. But not only does Apollo touch the lyre of the poet, he wields also the bow; the winged dart of sarcasm spares neither the tedious verse-maker nor the provincial who corrupts the language, but it hits none more frequently ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of the anecdote, notwithstanding the fact that it was long current in naval circles, is more than doubtful. When Bryon visited Malta in 1808 the Hector was doing duty at Plymouth as a prison-ship, and naval records disclose no other ship of that name ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... The anecdote illustrates the wide fame which the Roman naturalist achieved in his own day. And the records of the Middle Ages show that this popularity did not abate in succeeding times. Indeed, the Natural History of Pliny is one of the comparatively ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... placed between Cunizza and Rahab, is no other than Folques, bishop of Thoulouse, the persecutor of the Albigenses. It is of him the brutal anecdote is related, that, being asked, during an indiscriminate attack on that people, how the orthodox and heterodox were to be distinguished, he said, "Kill all: God will ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... the worthy gentleman was accusing himself of telling tales out of school and had come to a timely repentance). "Our dinner, I hope, will be different. Jack Binnie will take care of that. That fellow is full of anecdote and fun. You will meet one or two more of our service; Sir Thomas de Boots, who is not a bad chap over a glass of wine; Mr. Pendennis's chum, Mr. Warrington, and my nephew, Barnes Newcome—a dry fellow at first, but I dare say he has good about him when you know him; almost every man has," ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... MS. Icones Sacrae Anglicanae, which gives the fisherman anecdote on the personal authority of one who was present; Life by Nethenus prefixed to collected edition of Latin works (5 vols., Amsterdam, 1658); Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. pp. 346- 347; Heal's Puritans, i. 532; Fuller's Cambridge (Christ's College); Hanbury's Hist. Memorials, i. 533; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of my chief. What would he have said if he had known that I had in my pocket an interview and in my head an anecdote which were material for a most successful story? And he has never had either the interview or the story. Since then I have made my way in the line where he said I should fail. I have lost my innocent ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... very abstractedness—and she seemed to be absorbed chiefly in the interesting people she used to know and in their memorial photographs, and quite a good part of the interview was taken up by reminiscent anecdote of Carlyle, Meredith, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, and a host of others—her very abstractedness was a recommendation. She only asked, she said, to be allowed to sit quiet in the sun and remember. That was all Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins asked of their sharers. It was their idea of a perfect ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... make use of on urgent occasions to call forth their utmost exertions. These are more efficient than the barbarous mode of urging them on with the spur and whip, a forcible illustration of which will be found in the following anecdote. ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... whose vagueness in detail was more than compensated by their sensational brilliance. "Balbus has overcome all his enemies" had been marked by their tutor, in the margin of the book, "Successful Bravery." In this way he had tried to extract a moral from every anecdote about Balbus—sometimes one of warning, as in "Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon," against which he had written "Rashness in Speculation"—sometimes of encouragement, as in the words "Influence of Sympathy in United Action," which stood opposite ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... his sister, Nekhludoff entered into conversation with Missy, who told him that their house had burned down, necessitating their removal to her aunt's. Osten began to relate a droll anecdote anent the fire. Nekhludoff, without listening to Osten, turned ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... space—this change cost half a million. Your principal had some ruinous houses there which he sold at the price of palaces. And they call that fortification! And for that I had studied engineering. Well, a man falls by degrees and finds his level. Perhaps you have heard the anecdote—it is in every mouth—how the Crown-Prince Ferdinand, when he visited us last year, said to the commandant of the fortress, 'I thought this fortress was black?' 'Why should it be black, your imperial highness?' 'Because in the fortification accounts there are every year 10,000 ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... man had been sitting with his eyes closed, and the children thought he was asleep. But he had heard Bob's anecdote. ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... for funds for destitute portions of Europe a telling topic would surely be the sufferings of the needy. Would it be wise to dwell upon such horrors only? Would a humorous anecdote of the happy gratitude of a child for a cast-off toy be good to produce emphasis? Which would make the most emphatic ending—the absolute destitution, the amount to be supplied, the relief afforded, or the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... A well-known anecdote is related of this expedition to Ormuz, but one which, even from its notoriety, we should be blamed for omitting. When the King of Persia sent to Noureddin to demand the tribute which the sovereigns of Ormuz had been in the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... change of scene and action impending. He was the true life of the party; a little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chief in mirth, as well as in labour, yet from moment to moment proving indisputably his right of leadership. His was the wittiest word, the pleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. Restlessly active, after his manner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but oh! I saw which was his favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I saw whom he folded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, and cherished as the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Strasburg; and before you get this you will have had three from me by Lady Ailesbury. One of them should have reached you much sooner; but Lady Ailesbury kept it, not being sure where you was. It was in answer to one in which you told me an anecdote, which in this last you ask if I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... of the public for anecdote has been censured and ridiculed by critics who aspire to the character of superior wisdom; but if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an incontestable proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... history and political and religious troubles occupied men's minds to the exclusion of lesser matters. Giggleswick was nevertheless well-known, for in 1697 Abraham de la Prynne records in his diary an anecdote of a Mr. Hollins who thirty years before had lived at Giggleswick "as I remember in Yorkshire where the great school is." Apparently Anthony Lister, who was then Vicar had roused the resentment of a ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... anecdote is quite popular, and is found in a number of popular stories, as well as in the Cento Novelle Antiche[1]. A very amusing version is from Venice (Widter-Wolf, No. 5), ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... rhyme you extempore; I can convulse you with quip and conundrum;I have the lighter philosophies at my tongue's tip; I can be merry, wise, quaint, grim, and sardonic, one by one, or all at once; I have a pretty turn for anecdote; I know all the jests— ancient and modern— past, present, and to come; I can riddle you from dawn of day to set of sun, and, if that content you not, well on to midnight and the small hours. Oh, sir, a pretty wit, I warrant you— a pretty, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... order, and using as a running accompaniment and closet commentary those awe- inspiring sonnets of his, attain to some clear notion of what sort of life William Shakespeare must have led, would not see him much the clearer for many folios of anecdote. For after all, the best biography of every sincere man is sure to be his own works; here he has set down, "transferred as in a figure," all that has happened to him, inward or outward, or rather, all which has formed him, produced ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Systems. Discipline from the standpoint of Law without Love. Its Fruits. A Quaint Anecdote. The Europeans. The Arabs. Discipline from the standpoint of Love without Law. Examples. Eli. David. Its Fruits. True Christian Discipline. Chastisement. A Model System. Abraham. His Children. When Discipline should be Introduced. When it should ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... be true, as a writer in the February Gossip says, that "it is what Mr. Mill has omitted to tell us in his Autobiography, quite as much as what he has there told us, that excites popular curiosity," the following anecdote told by John Neal, one of Jeremy Bentham's secretaries, may be found interesting. The father of John Stuart Mill, it seems, was in the habit of borrowing books of Bentham, and was even allowed the privilege of carrying them away without asking permission—a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Ballard I fear the conversation would have degenerated into a discussion of the merits and possibilities of Jerry's many "companies." But every time that that danger threatened the irrepressible Jack demolished it with an anecdote. He wasn't going to have Jerry's bud nipped so early, as his own had been, by the frost of finance. By the time we had reached the roast, and the champagne, the plutocrats seemed to realize that the occasion was a birthday party ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... behaved with considerable moderation and kindness toward the chief omrahs of the court of Delhi; but he must have despised their luxurious and effeminate habits. We, indeed, learn his sentiments from a remarkable anecdote. When speaking one day to Kummer-u-din, who was then vizier, he demanded how many ladies he had? "Eight hundred fifty," was the reply. "Let one hundred fifty of our female captives," said Nadir, "be sent to the vizier, who will then be entitled to the high military rank of a mim-bashee, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... its composition. Leaves Bush for village again. Tinkers in the country. Thoughts and feelings in connection with it. Preaches in public under peculiar circumstances. Introduced to his future father- in-law's family. Visits their house. Reception. Description of his future wife and sisters. Anecdote. Commences business. Visits the States to buy tools. Takes Niagara in his way. Scenery above Lewiston. First sight of Rapids. Of the Falls. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... gesture, plebian as it was, by which the English commandant at Heligoland replied to the Danes when civilly inviting him to surrender. Southey it was, on the authority of Lieutenant Southey, his brother, who communicated to me this anecdote. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Curio has gone over to Caesar. But the important subject is the last handled: "It will be mean in you if I should have no Greek panthers."[98] The next refers to the marriages and divorces of certain ladies, and ends with an anecdote told as to a gentleman with just such ill-natured wit as is common in London. No one could have suspected Ocella of looking after his neighbor's wife unless he had been detected thrice in ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... end of the 16th century, the fashions and manners of the time, piquant descriptions, and amusing gossip, such as only a witty woman—as Marguerite certainly was—could inject into such subjects. The letters, indeed, abound in sprightly anecdote and small-talk, which yet have their value in lightening up ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... second Mr. Dix hesitated, then, with a steady glance at Miss Smith, he sprang to his feet and accepted the challenge. Mrs. Smith besought him not to be foolish, and, with a vague idea of dissuading him, told him a slanderous anecdote concerning Mr. Heard's aunt. Her daughter gazed at the mate with proud confidence, and, taking his arm, bade her mother to get some dry clothes ready and led the way ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs |
