"Nonsensical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... effect of his humorous talk. His letters to the New York Tribune from Long Branch, Saratoga, etc., were widely read. He knew that he wrote absolute nonsense at times, but nonsense is greatly needed in this world, and exquisitely droll nonsensical nonsense is as uncommon as common sense. The titles of his various books are inviting and informing, as Seaweed and What We Seed. He wrote several parodies on sensational novels of his time. Griffith Gaunt, he made fun of as "Liffith Lank"; St. Elmo, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... his drowsy mind just roused from dreams, there turned and turned the queer nonsensical refrain: "I never—never—will desert Mr. Micawber. . ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... after a pause, "that what you say merits consideration. I acknowledge that in consequence of Mrs Easy's nonsensical indulgence, the boy is unruly, and will not obey me at present; and if your friend does not apply the rod, I will think seriously of sending my son John to him to ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the augurs had been there. Production of the basics had become so profuse that poverty in the old sense of the word had become nonsensical. There was an abundance of the necessities of life for all. Social security, socialized medicine, unending unemployment insurance, old age pensions, pensions for veterans, for widows and children, for the unfit, ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... Phoebe, "it's jes' nothin' at all. It's jes' the most nonsensical thing that ever was. I don't mind tellin' you about it; don't mind it a bit. She wants Mr. Hav'ley to marry Miss Dora Bannister, an' she's on pins an' needles to know if the young woman here is likely to ketch him. That's ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... have in it some eternal quality of creative imagination. Plato wrote a dialogue about the constitution of the world, the Timaeus, which was highly influential in later Greece, but seems to us, with our vastly superior scientific knowledge, almost nonsensical. Yet when Plato writes about the theory of knowledge or the ultimate meaning of Justice or of Love, no good philosopher can afford to leave him aside: the chief question is whether we can rise to the height and ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... which contradicts God's book, cast it away, trample it under foot, believe that it is the devil tempting you by his cunning, alluring words, as he tempted Eve, your mother. Would to God all here would make that rule,—never to look into an evil book, a filthy ballad, a nonsensical, frivolous story! Can a man take a snake into his bosom and not be bitten?—can we play with fire and not be burnt?—can we open our ears and eyes to the devil's message, whether of covetousness, or filth, or folly, and not be haunted afterwards by its wicked words, rising up in our thoughts like ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... New England rises up with tongue so thick, and with utterance so nonsensical, that he is led into the anteroom. He was ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... intention, were simple and superficial dealers in big words. In the literary application the same sturdy common sense was opposed to the Pope tradition so far as that tradition opposed common sense. Conventional diction, pastorals, and twaddle about Nature belonged to the nonsensical side. He entirely sympathised with Crabbe's substitution of the real living brutish clown for the unreal swain of Arcadia; that is, for developing poetry by making it thoroughly realistic even at the cost of ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... look you, it is all so easy; it is within every man's reach. No education is necessary, no nonsensical argumentation. I offer you a short cut to Glory. You may be the merest clown—cobbler, fishmonger, carpenter, money-changer; yet there is nothing to prevent your becoming famous. Given brass and boldness, you have only to learn to wag your tongue ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... consequences would assuredly have been expensive and inconvenient, and might perhaps have proved detrimental to the Maypole business. Wherefore, and because he looked with no favourable eye upon young girls, but rather considered that they and the whole female sex were a kind of nonsensical mistake on the part of Nature, he took occasion to retire and shake his head in private at the boiler; inspired by which silent oracle, he was moved to give Joe various stealthy nudges with his elbow, as a parental ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... sounds like one of his,' she said, apparently weighing the name and myself, not without approval. 'There's nothing nor nobody he hasn't got some name for. He don't miscall me to me face, for I'd allow no person to do such. But in speakin' to Missis, I've heard him refer to me with some such nonsensical words as "Gabbitular" and "Gabbitaceous," or some such rubbish, although no one wouldn't ever think such a thing of me—nobody but him, that is. But he means no harm, y'know. There's no more vice in the ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... earnestly as we regarded attentively the line of her open hand." (Mr. Petalengro does not say that tears were to be seen trickling down those lovely cheeks of Esmeralda while this fortune-telling, nonsensical farce was being played out.) "Then we took her step by step through some scenes of her supposed future. We did not tell all. The rest was reserved for another day. There was a serious look on her countenance as we ended; but, reader, such secrets should not be revealed. Esmeralda commenced ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... the two names, hers so nonsensical and his so dignified and strong, was no greater than that between the two people. In truth, their names were symbolic of their natures. It looked ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... life. Not only our whole collective life proves a love for higher ideals, but even our dead give us the rich heritage, material and spiritual, of all their toils. There is nothing mystical about it; to call SUCH a class a naturally selfish class is not only nonsensical but monstrous. ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... robes you feel no inconvenience from the cold, excepting to your face, which requires to be defended by a warm beaver or fur bonnet; the latter, I am surprised to find, is seldom if ever worn, from the nonsensical reason that it is not the fashion. The red, grey, and black squirrels are abundant in our woods; the musk-rat inhabits little houses that he builds in the rushy parts of the lakes: these dwellings are formed of the ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Mr. Fraser, in a voice meant to be gruff, but only succeeding in being husky, for, oddly enough, it is trying even to a clergyman on the wrong side of middle-age to be wept over by a lovely woman; "don't be nonsensical; I am only ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... "Such foolishness," he said sharply, "give the lad a chance. There is a great career before William. If he begins thinking of love, or thinks he is thinking seriously of love now, it will be the end for him. I hope you have not been trying to put any such nonsensical ideas into ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... as if to say that discussion with such a nonsensical fellow was useless, and took his seat at his desk, where an unfinished pile of MSS. awaited ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... a correspondent who wrote to ask him whether adhesion to the compromise had not rendered nonsensical the teaching given in a certain lesson upon the finding of the youthful Jesus in the temple, when, after they had read the verse, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... contemptible and cowardly doctrine of fatalism, which Dryfesdale also professes. It is not with him the philosophic doctrine of the concurring impulses of circumstance, or of natural laws, but rather the stupendously nonsensical notion of the Arabian kismet, that from the beginning of time every event was fore-arranged as in a fairy tale, and that all which is, is simply the acting out of a libretto written before the play began—a belief revived in the last century by readers of Leibnitz, who were ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... considering Lover; I ne'er thought beyond the Fancy, that 'twas a very pretty, idle, silly kind of Pleasure to pass ones time with, to write little, soft, nonsensical Billets, and with great difficulty and danger receive Answers; in which I shall have my Beauty prais'd, my Wit admir'd (tho little or none) and have the Vanity and Power to know I am desirable; then I have the more Inclination that way, because I am to be a Nun, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... like American inventions, Arthur. I am quite sure I don't. I read some American novels lately, and they were quite nonsensical.' ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... for our village, and frowned upon by many of the older and stricter inhabitants. However, most of the captain's boy friends were permitted to attend; young Cy was not. His father considered dancing a waste of time and, if not wicked, certainly frivolous and nonsensical. So the boy remained at home, but, in spite of the parental order, he practiced some of the figures of the quadrilles and the contra dances in his comrades' barns, learning them at ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of every dream and some detail of the dreamer's life during the previous waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping states and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that dreams are purely nonsensical phenomena coming from ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... through Me; they were princes, but I did not know them.' Do you conceive now why I placed the king's picture before my store? why I burnt a lamp beneath it? I think this glorious portrait is more deserving of a sacred lamp than the Pope's nonsensical bull." ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... will soon be over.' She thanked me with tears in her eyes for my kind sympathies, and said that she hoped she would be sustained through the severe trial. Before I could get a chance to reply, her friend broke in with some nonsensical stuff that made poor Mrs. N—laugh in spite of herself, even though the tears were glistening on her eyelashes. I felt really shocked. And then she ran on in the wildest strain you ever heard, turning even the most serious remark I could make into fun. And, would you believe it? she treated ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... honor of reading this article aloud), that we are going to give some specimens of the swearing of this solemn and illustrious person; so that, if they do not regard the words in the same childish, meaningless, and nonsensical light that we do ourselves (for reasons that we shall give presently), and therefore cannot comfortably frame their lovely and innocent lips to utter them (which, indeed, custom will hardly allow us to expect), they ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... "Now to the materialistic and scientific mind, to the uninitiated in spiritual verities, certainly this story of the Gadarene or Gergesene swine, presents insurmountable difficulties; it seems grotesque and nonsensical. To the experienced, trained, and cultivated Spiritualist this miracle is, as I am prepared to show, one of the most instructive, the most profoundly useful, and the most beneficent which Jesus ever wrought ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... travelled it is quite extraordinary what an appalling mass of nonsensical rubbish can be supplied to the public by politicians, by newspaper penny-a-liners, and by home royal geographo-parasites at large, who base their arguments on such unsteady foundation. It is quite sufficient for some people to open an atlas and place their fingers on a surface of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... come after you here daily, and, in defect of you, hive and cluster upon us, are the shadows. You encouraged that mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you, in the hope of having her nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. We have pretty well shaken her off, by that simple expedient of referring her to you; but there are more burrs in the wind. I came home t'other day from business, hungry as a hunter, to dinner, with nothing, I am sure, of the author but hunger ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Guermantes, on the other hand, meant no more than the ultimate goal, ideal rather than real, of the 'Guermantes way,' a sort of abstract geographical term like the North Pole or the Equator. And so to 'take the Guermantes way' in order to get to Meseglise, or vice versa, would have seemed to me as nonsensical a proceeding as to turn to the east in order to reach the west. Since my father used always to speak of the 'Meseglise way' as comprising the finest view of a plain that he knew anywhere, and of the 'Guermantes way' as typical of river scenery, I had invested each ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand and laughing at himself. "You think my ambition as nonsensical as if I were to freeze myself to death on the top of Mount Washington only that people might spy at me from the country roundabout. And truly that would be a noble ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... allusion to his secret passion relieved and gratified the overcharged bosom of Ferdinand. He pursued the subject with enjoyment. Anybody but Glastonbury might have thought that he had lost his senses, he laughed so loud, and talked so fast about a subject which seemed almost nonsensical; but the good Glastonbury ascribed these ebullitions to the wanton spirit of youth, and smiled out of sympathy, though he knew not why, except that ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... wasted three sheets of paper upon such a nonsensical request as that," observed the turnkey. "Old Jackson wouldn't shell out sixpence to save her or anybody ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... word of honour. Well, I was in for it and after all what was there of which I need be afraid that I should tremble and shrink back as though I were about to run away with somebody's wife, or rather to be run away with quite contrary to my own inclination? Nothing at all. A mere nonsensical ordeal much less serious than ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... she unbent like that and talked nonsense—or what was apt to strike you as nonsensical until you came to consider it. For there was often a depth of worldly wisdom and acuteness underlying her most apparently careless ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Matilda, is not of the first quality. The verses, to be sure, are very smooth, and very nonsensical—as was intended; but they are not so good as Swift's celebrated Song by a Person of Quality; and are so exactly in the same measure, and on the same plan, that it is impossible to avoid making ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... said so, I admit, my dear Julia, as have fifty thousand follies equally nonsensical. But to hear you, Julia, talk in this manner! upon my ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... called, "A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy." 'Sentimental'! what is that? It is not English: he might as well say, 'Continental' [!]. It is not sense. It conveys no determinate idea; yet one fool makes many. And this nonsensical word (who would believe it?) is become a fashionable one!' ('Journal', February 11, 1772). In 1773, Goldsmith puts it in the 'Dedication' to 'She Stoops':— 'The undertaking a comedy, not merely 'sentimental', ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... side door, nervous lest she should perceive him from the library, and made Forest get him some lunch. Then he hung about the hall smoking. It was ridiculous—nonsensical—but he admitted to himself that he shrank ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wings on our shoulder-blades. Do come to my assistance: is it not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, we shall see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle all these paradises are! God is a nonsensical monster. I would not say that in the Moniteur, egad! but I may whisper it among friends. Inter pocula. To sacrifice the world to paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow. Be the dupe of the infinite! I'm not such a fool. I am a nought. I call myself Monsieur le Comte Nought, senator. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... The struggling barrister, the clerk, the curate, the brainless masher—such are their prey; and if they make richer prizes than these, still the match cannot be called good; presently there is dis-union as the clever husband finds the pretty but nonsensical wife utterly unable to follow him through the paths of life that Fate ...
— How to Marry Well • Mrs. Hungerford
... as men—to give women the same civil and political rights as men? No mistake is so commonly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be had because the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, nonsensical. And we conceive that those who may laugh at the arguments of the extreme philogynists, may yet feel bound to work heart and soul towards the attainment ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... experience could not help but protest in his practical mind against such a determination of the invisible and the unknown to give him such nonsensical ideas. He had in play, in intellectual persiflage, and with some show of traditional reasonableness, called Nelia Crele "a river goddess." She was very well placed in his mind—a reckless woman, pretty, with a fine character for a masterpiece of fiction (should he ever ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... A dozen other nonsensical things followed, but down in the toe of each was a beautiful 19— class pin for each of the girls, with "Co-ed 19—" engraved on them and cards saying "with ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... matter from the seat of government. "It is to be lamented," he said, "that the editors of the different gazettes in the Union do not more generally and more correctly (instead of stuffing their papers with scurrility and nonsensical declamation, which few would read if they were apprised of the contents) publish the debates in Congress on all great national questions. And this, with no uncommon pains, every one of them might do." Washington evidently believed that there was no serious danger of the people going wrong ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... have passed muster any where. Her father was awfully fond of her, and proud of her. She tyrannized over him completely. I soon found out that she had been utterly spoiled by his excessive indulgence, and that she was the most whimsical, nonsensical, headstrong, little spoiled beauty that ever lived. But, of course, all that, instead of deterring me, only increased the fascination which she exercised, and made me more madly in love ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... must bow to the people of this church—ruled as they are by such a spirit—as to my lords and masters; that I shall have no other God but this congregation; that I shall deny my own conscience for theirs; that I shall go about the trivial, nonsensical things they call my pastoral duties, in fear and trembling; that my ministry is to cringe when they speak, and do their will regardless of what I feel to be the will of Christ! Faugh!" Big Dan drew himself erect. "If this is what the call to the ministry means, I am beginning ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... in my breast pocket lay, written on a small piece of cheap foreign notepaper, the tidings I had come to Groningen to seek. Yet so trivial, so nonsensical, so baffling was the message that I already felt my trip to Holland to have been a ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... there is no such thing as good-bye; it is a word that has no real meaning; but it is so English and pretty and sweet and child-like and nonsensical that I could write it over ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... of laughter, and, turning from Hesper, went, with a kind of loitering, strolling pace toward the door, glancing round more than once, each time with a fresh bubble rather than ripple in her laughter. Whether it was all nonsensical merriment, or whether the author of laughter without fun, Beelzebub himself, was at the moment stirring in her, Hesper could not have told; as it was, she sat staring after her, unable even to think. Just as she reached ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... without repining; and began in very tender terms to reproach him with his inhumanity and indifference. To this expostulation he replied, "Zounds! what would the woman have? Let the parson do his office when he wool: here I am ready to be reeved in the matrimonial block, d'ye see, and d— all nonsensical palaver." So saying, he retreated, leaving his mistress not at all disobliged at his plain dealing. That same evening the treaty of marriage was brought upon the carpet, and, by means of Mr. Pickle and the lieutenant, settled to the satisfaction ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... sodomy, are committed to please a vicious appetite, and have always alluring objects; and generally all vices have some previous cause, and some visible tendency. But this, of all vicious practices, seems the most nonsensical and ridiculous; there is neither pleasure nor profit, no design pursued, no lust gratified, but is a mere frenzy of the tongue, a vomit of the brain, which works by putting a contrary upon the ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... grey and gaping head of stone that I found overgrown with the grass. Yet I will venture to make even of these trivial fragments the high boast that I am a medievalist and not a modern. That is, I really have a notion of why I have collected all the nonsensical things there are. I have not the patience nor perhaps the constructive intelligence to state the connecting link between all these chaotic papers. But it could be stated. This row of shapeless and ungainly monsters which I now set before the reader does not consist of separate idols ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... such could hold his own against any smitten swain who had so far entered the lists against him. As a companion, Anne honestly acknowledged nobody could be so satisfactory as Gilbert; she was very glad, so she told herself, that he had evidently dropped all nonsensical ideas—though she spent ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to open the door to general approval. Then he opened the door by saying, 'To our hostess!' and everybody else said 'To our hostess!' and then there were cheers. Then another tiresome boy started up in sing- song, and then half a dozen noisy and nonsensical boys at once. But at last Mrs. Alicumpaine said, 'I cannot have this din. Now, children, you have played at parliament very nicely; but parliament gets tiresome after a little while, and it's time you left off, for you will ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... you the truth we think she must be a little off her head. (Violent exclamations from Helen). Referring to your letter again I see that you are determined not to Marry James. Now Gladys you must see for yourself how very nonsensical this idea is. James has every means of making you happy and what is more he is very very rich and is by no means stingy with his money, as proof the lodgings you are now in. I am sure he loves you very passionately and he is both truthful and honourable; (sarcastic smiles from both ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... about seventy-five years since Hahnemann made public, and taught this new system of medicine. The bold reformer and his disciples were persecuted, ridiculed and scorned in every manner by the so-called orthodox doctors, who declared their principles so ridiculous and nonsensical, that it would be below the dignity of a scientific man to make himself acquainted with the laws and practice of Hom[oe]opathy. But Hom[oe]opathy in the theoretical and practical proofs of its universal importance, deserves to be ranked among the most important ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... idiotic, senseless, irrational, silly, imbecile, witless, insensate, weak-minded, half-witted, brainless, fatuous, fatuitous, insagacious, unintelligent; indiscreet, imprudent, ridiculous, absurd, asinine, inept, nonsensical, puerile. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of courtly grace, He left you first, and I must own The manners of the highest class Have latterly vexatious grown; And though perchance a lady may Discourse of Bentham or of Say, Yet as a rule their talk I call Harmless, but quite nonsensical. Then they're so innocent of vice, So full of piety, correct, So prudent, and so circumspect Stately, devoid of prejudice, So inaccessible to men, Their looks ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... we do with ourselves? I'm sure I wish I didn't know 'twas Christmas day at all. It makes a fellow feel queer and nonsensical—homesick, I suppose they call it—and all that sort of thing. I vote we obliterate the fact, by chopping as ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... be a very bad day for England when that time comes," the financier said. "If only the people could study evolution and the meaning of things there would not be any of this nonsensical class hatred. The immutable law is that no one long retains any position unless he, or she, is suitable for it. Nothing endures that is not harmonious. It is because England is now out of harmony, that ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... returning to Richard Middleton's excellent example: there is no such thing as London, there are only houses. No man has seen London at any time; the very word (meaning "the fort on the lake") is nonsensical; no human eye has ever beheld aught else but a number of houses; it is clear that this "London" is as mythical and monstrous and irrational a concept as many others of the same class. Well, people who ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... these ferocious words without thinking. And then the so-called "father" goes away with a sense of having correctly and conscientiously done his duty. And all these poor deluded lads believe that these nonsensical and incomprehensible words which they have just uttered set them free for the whole time of their service from their duties as men, and lay upon them fresh and more binding duties ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... who betrayed his master with a kiss. She said there were those amongst us who would surely have to suffer deep affliction for not attending to the manifestations of truth within.—I have been guilty of much levity and nonsensical conversation and have also permitted thoughts to occupy my mind which should have been far distant, but I do not consider myself as having committed any wilful offence. Perhaps the reason I can ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the first entertained a special dislike of this painter on account of his nonsensical talk. But now I fell into a rage with him. "The low fellow is certainly intoxicated again," I thought; "he has got the key from the maid, and intends to surprise, and perhaps to assault, the Lady fair." And I rushed ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... nonsensical allegory," said Varvara Petrovna, getting angry at last. "You haven't answered my question, why? ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... another society, and perhaps with a manner a little confused. "Have you met Dr. Johnson?" my friends exclaimed. "Yes, I have." "And what passed between you?"'" and so on. All this at any rate is legendary outgrowth on the very face of it, and nonsensical even for that. But even the story itself, as told so circumstantially by Scott, is demonstrably mythical in most of its circumstances. Johnson was never in Glasgow except one day, the 29th of October 1773, and in October 1773 Smith was in London, and as we know from an incidental ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... that I impugned his honor by declaring that, generally speaking, he did not wish to conclude peace. I naturally never made such a nonsensical statement. Immediately after my visit to General Ludendorff at G. H. Q., I made notes of the essential passages of our interview; because I suspected, what in my opinion has since become a certainty, to wit, that the General wished to heap all the blame of the war with America upon my shoulders. ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... pains to provide against the rejection of his application. He strove to please. To adopt the metaphor of his nonsensical phrase, he laid brick upon brick on the tall chimney of his devoirs until, at length, the structure was stable and complete. The manners of the best society come around finally to simplicity; and as the girl's way was that naturally, they were on a mutual plane ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... social and historical interest. About the beginning of the nineteenth century the wealthy Puritan class, generally the class of the employers of labour, took a line of argument which was narrow, but not nonsensical. They saw the relation of rich and poor quite coldly as a contract, but they saw that a contract holds both ways. The Puritans of the middle class, in short, did in some sense start talking and thinking for themselves. They are still talking. ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... statement is of itself, as we are well aware, enough to cause it to be looked upon with shyness. A periodical largely occupied with poetry wears an unpromising aspect to readers who have learned from experience what nonsensical stuff most fugitive magazine-poetry is; nor is this natural prejudice diminished by the knowledge that it is the production of young gentlemen and ladies. But, when they have read a few extracts which we propose to make, we think they ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... asylum is a nonsensical threat, and the law I am inclined to invoke myself for the purpose of ventilating the question. Do I understand that Major Colquhoun presumes to send me messages of forgiveness? What has he to forgive, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... scream that time, the world was so nonsensical. At one place, being 'on the styge' I was not good enough to be taken in, at another I was not bad enough, and what in the name of all that was ridiculous was going to happen next? But it was quite dark by this time, the air was as black as a northwest gale, and I was 'aweary ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Where this cannot be afforded, the clothes, as soon as they are taken off at night, ought to be well aired, so as to free them from the perspiration, and that they may be ready to put on the following morning. It is truly nonsensical to endeavour to harden a child, or any one else, by ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... fact that the Boers had not yet then made up their minds to rebel, or because Maritz's plans with the Germans on the south-western frontier had not yet matured, we do not know. Anyway, General Beyers, in supporting the chairman, added that his cause was a clean one and there was no necessity for nonsensical flag-waving. They were there, he said, to pass a calm resolution and forward it ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... high sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part, grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of preserving the same but by negatives—that is, by not doing or saying any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical;—or (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 'Come, Seagrove, don't be nonsensical,' said Hautaine; 'you told me yourself, the other evening, when you were talkative, that you had never had ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... indeed, go even further than this, and affirm that to suppose mind the cause of motion or motion the cause of mind is equally to suppose that which in its very nature as a supposition is neither true nor untrue, but nonsensical. For, as Prof. Clifford has said in his essay ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... would not trouble Little Billy with a recital of MacLean's outburst. The poor fellow's mind was feverish enough without being bothered with the old Scotchman's wild, nonsensical raving. Martin knew the hunchback would consider gravely, and be disturbed, if he spoke. Little Billy apparently had some faith ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... to love her, what right had she to blame him? The very word of "blame" was unmeaning in such reference. In this, at all events, his fatalism had become her own way of thinking. To talk of controlling love is nonsensical; dead love is dead beyond hope. But need one sink ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... chronic case, excellent patient,—tic, sir, tic. Puzzling and interesting. If I could take that tic with me, I should ask nothing more from Heaven. Call again on Monday; I may have something to tell you then as to yourself. The little girl can't stay with you,—wrong and nonsensical! I will see after her. Leave me your address,—write it here. I think I know a lady who will take charge of her. Good-by. Monday next, ten o'clock." With this, the doctor thrust out Leonard, and ushered in his grand patient, whom he was very anxious to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... need you concern yourself with Elsie's affairs? for my part, I have no pity for her, so full as she is of nonsensical scruples." ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... and the dear priest; and then they had seen nothing of the country, they had only seen Naples; before leaving dear Italia they must see more of the country and the cities; above all, they must see a place which they called the Eternal City, or some similar nonsensical name; and they persisted so that the poor governor permitted them, as usual, to have their way; and it was decided what route they should take—that is, the priest was kind enough to decide for them, and was also kind enough to promise to go with them part of the route, as far as a place ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... connexion with the horrid rascal SIR EMERSOM TENNENT alludes to—with the blackguard. That he is a boaster, a talker, an idiot, a nincompoop; that he scatters "words, words, words," as Polonius did of old; that he is bombastic, wordy, prosy, nonsensical, and a fool, no one will deny. But he is no rogue, though he utters rogueries and drolleries. No one is ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... the grounds. Those were the early days of agrarian agitation in the Highlands—an agitation which was vehemently applauded by the Radical press of London. One Radical correspondent reported in tones of triumph that the duke had been openly cursed by his tenants on his own private platform. The nonsensical nature of such statements is sufficiently illustrated by what happened on the occasion here in question. A number of tenants were gathered together on the platform for the purpose of receiving the duke, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Santiago doesn't consider himself an Indian—and besides, he's not here. And what if he were! These are the nonsensical ideas of the newcomers. Let a few months pass and you will change your opinion, after you have attended a lot of fiestas and bailuhan, slept on cots, and ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... said Jacqueline in self-defense, before she began the song, "sang anything so stupid. And that is saying much when one thinks of all the nonsensical words that people set to music! It's a marvel how any one can like this stuff. Do tell me what there is in it?" she added, turning to Gerard, who was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... let the reader know, that this is not that Virgil so much admired in the Augustaean age, an author whom Mr. Dryden once thought untranslatable, but a Virgil of another stamp, of a coarser allay; a silly, impertinent, nonsensical writer, of a various and uncertain style, a mere Alexander Ross, or somebody inferior to him; who could never have been known again in the translation, if the name of Virgil had not been bestowed upon him in ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... fellow-consul, and prefect of the city. This upstart had dared to say to the soldiers after the death of Caracalla: "The sovereignty properly belongs to me, since I am elder than Macrinus: but inasmuch as I am extremely old, I make way for him." His behavior was regarded as nonsensical, as was also that of Macrinus, in granting the greatest dignity of the senate to such a man, who could not when consul carry on a plain conversation with anybody in the senate, and consequently on the day of elections pretended to be sick. Hence, before long Macrinus assigned ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... phrase, eating her own head off for want of something better to do. She is dabbling in print. Of course, her book must fail. She is full of all kinds of chimerical expedients. Why, this very evening she was propounding the most preposterous scheme to me, as generous as it was nonsensical. No, no, my dear fellow, even to you I won't betray confidence. The girl is an enthusiast. Now enthusiasts are always morbid and unhappy unless they can find vent for their energies. Why don't you give her the natural and healthy vents supplied by wifehood and motherhood? ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... their talents in poetry less conspicuous. Every occurrence, if their spirits are not too greatly depressed, is turned into a song. These songs are said to be incoherent and nonsensical. But this proceeds principally from two causes, an improper conjunction of words, arising from an ignorance of the language in which they compose; and a wildness of thought, arising from the different manner, in which the organs of rude and civilized people ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... such harmless necessary words as deist, aurist, dentist, florist, jurist, oculist, somnambulist, ventriloquist, and—purist. Much more valid objection might be made to the word "scientific," which is not hybrid indeed, but is, if strictly examined, illogical and even nonsensical. The fact is that three-fourths of the English language would crumble away before a purist analysis, and we should be left without words to express the commonest ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... twelve years when he was brought to me showed the mental powers of a stupid child of four. In a silly way he repeated every question which he heard without answering it; he talked steadily to himself in a nonsensical manner, mostly repeating nursery rhymes without end, never holding his attention to anything in the room, giving the impression that there was no attention whatever. The boy was a child of rich parents; he had his own teachers, ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... Such a nonsensical and infantile rejoinder deserved no answer, and it received none. Shortly afterwards Maud entered and whispered that Nellie was wanted upstairs. As soon as his wife had gone ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... little nonsensical matter to you, Hamilton," said Trevannion, putting his hand behind him; "but these little things exhibit more than the greatest professions. I am not too lazy to cure myself of old habits, ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... whether they would hear about the companions or about the separation. Some wanted to hear of his herding the cows in his youth. One shameless girl called out, "If you do not sing such and such a passage I will not listen." One mere child, by way of teaching the Boisnavi, sang some nonsensical syllables. The Boisnavi, listening to the different demands, gave a momentary glance at Kunda, saying: "Have ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... curtly. "I took some trouble to make young Little understand it when he came to me with a nonsensical proposition not long ago. Like the rest of them, he's always wanting something. I asked him where he thought the ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... one-third of the population of Dalmatia is Italian, and "almost exclusively the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie." I suppose that is why more than 700 of Dalmatia's leading citizens were deported by the Italians after the Great War. He says many other nonsensical things, and sums it all up by telling us of the "bewildered incomprehension" of ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... laughed as he stood with folded arms under the porte-cochere, a little behind the other travellers. However nonsensical these lads might be, the grave statesman envied their very follies; he liked their bragging and enjoyed the fun ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... nature in the sense of what is ordinarily called the country is a thing entirely stately and beautiful as those terms are commonly understood. The whole world of the fantastic, all things top-heavy, lop-sided, and nonsensical are conceived as the work of man, gargoyles, German jugs, Chinese pots, political caricatures, burlesque epics, the pictures of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley and the puns of Robert Browning. But in truth a part, and a very large part, of the sanity and power of nature lies in the fact ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... like children, that are to be frightened out of their wits by ghosts of all sorts and sizes in their winding sheets; or by a set of old beggarmen, dressed in women's clothes, armed with broomsticks, and dancing and howling out their nonsensical song round a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... I tell him," Jane declared. "Of course your aunt's an old woman, an' 'tain't surprisin' she should harbor a grudge against us. But Martin's younger, an' had oughter be more forgivin'. It's nonsensical feelin' you've got to be just as sour an' crabbed as your grandfather was. I don't humor him in it—at least not more'n I have to to keep the peace. But Mary an' 'Liza hang on to every word Martin utters. If he was to say blue was green, they'd ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... King. "I'll make you a copy on the typewriter. Now, here's a silly one. I mean nonsensical, you know. But ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... she exclaimed, playfully resisting. "Don't be so nonsensical! Don't you think the bride looked lovely, with that dress of spotless white and with those orange blossoms ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... school-house made from the old hulk—I, little Jack of the Beach, that used to go berrying with cousin Nat and the rest; I to be murdered here at the ends of the earth, on board a haunted pirate-ship by a horrible Spaniard? Too nonsensical to think of! Who would murder Amasa Delano? His conscience is clean. There is some one above. Fie, fie, Jack of the Beach! you are a child indeed; a child of the second childhood, old boy; you are beginning to dote and drule, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... is very odd!" Mr. Whittingen exclaimed, as Mary handed her sister a wineglass of sal-volatile. "They can't both have been dreaming; it must—but there, what a nonsensical notion, there are no such things as ghosts! Only children and nursemaids believe in them nowadays. As soon as you have quite recovered, my dears, we will return to the garden, and I think that under the circumstances, the rather peculiar circumstances, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... what I say on such an occasion to be more poetical or else more nonsensical than what other people say under the same circumstances. And now I'll tell you why I always think of you when ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Father. Nonsensical ideas—probably his stomach is disordered. Remember the last time I ate lobster!—Come along in and have a glass of sherry, and you will forget ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... have been more honest and more liberal to have brushed away the nonsensical indictment in a sentence. Would the Treasury have put Shakespeare on trial for "Hamlet" or "Lear," or would they have condemned the writer of "The Song of Solomon" for immorality, or sent St. Paul to prison for his ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... air; the negro mammy and the gigantic infant, together with the wheelbarrow and the feeding bottle, were holding the stage at the end of the spacious sitting room. Slim was being given his birthday presents and was surrounded with nonsensical articles of every kind—toys, rattles, all-day suckers, and so forth, and was convulsing the crowd with ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... done nothing of the kind," I answered. "She lives with me, and she likes it very much. We are extremely comfortable, and our boat is not a canoe, or any such nonsensical affair. It is a large, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... he says, raising his arm in a gesture of reassurance, "don't waste the wine in that ridikelous fashion. You and me are alone, and I reckin we understand one another. If not, we soon will—the sooner by your puttin' on no nonsensical airs, but confessin' the clar and candid truth. First, then, answer me this questyun: Air you, or air you not, Richard Darke? If ye air, don't be afeerd to say so. No humbuggery! Thar's no need for't. An' it won't ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... attempts at secrets and his insistence on tasting all of Winnie's dishes drove the girls into fits of laughter. A pile of packages surrounded every place on Christmas morning and there was something pretty and practical and purely nonsensical for each one from the doctor. He, in turn, declared that for once in his life he had everything he wanted. Aunt Trudy's gift to her nephew and each of her nieces was a cheque and the announcements that followed ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... sophistical and nonsensical; and she knew it, for there was a mischievous little gleam in her eye as she spoke. But none the less, shutting her ears to the unsympathetic Stephanie, did she continue to show herself alone in public ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Leibniz's ideas is anyhow unmistakable. If metaphysical thinking is nonsensical, its empire over the human imagination must still be confessed; if it is as chimerical a science as alchemy, it is no less fertile in by-products of importance. And if we are to consider Leibniz historically, we cannot do better than take up his Theodicy, for two reasons. It was the ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... the midst of asses, and under an ass, I translated Cornelius Nepos, some of Virgil's Eclogues, and such-like; we wrote stupid, nonsensical themes, so that in any well-directed school we should have been a wretched fourth class. I was never at the bottom; emulation spurred me on until I surpassed or equalled the head boy; but as soon as I ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... one of those dainty, nonsensical things made of gray chiffon, with pearl handle and bows of pink ribbon. I don't believe it was ever used before, and from the value women usually place on such fol-de-rols, could only have been left behind under the stress of extraordinary emotion or fear. The ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... furnish General Shafter with these articles, or with adequate transportation for them; or (2) General Shafter did not believe in microbes and the germ theory of disease, and regarded the suggestions of medical and other experts as foolish and nonsensical; or (3) the commanding general expected to capture Santiago before his troops should be put hors de combat by disease, and did not care particularly what happened to them afterward. If there be any other explanation ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... incorrect; fallacious, fallible; groundless, unproved; non sequitur [Lat.], it does not follow. deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum [Lat.], evasive; irrelevant &c 10. weak, feeble, poor, flimsy, loose, vague. irrational; nonsensical &c (absurd) 497. foolish &c (imbecile) 499; frivolous, pettifogging, quibbling; finespun^, overrefined^. at the end of one's tether, au bout de son latin. Adv. intuitively &c adj.; by intuition; illogically &c adj.. Phr. non constat [Lat.]; that ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of Andy. His real name was Anderson. He was weak-minded and childish, his lack of intellect taking the form of silliness rather than of stupidity. Indeed, he was bright and quick in his way, but it was a very foolish and nonsensical way. He was famous among all the boys of the neighborhood, for using strange and amusing words, and especially for a system of spelling on which he prided himself, and which is not laid down in any of the dictionaries. He afforded ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... of her favourite window, and amusing herself much with all that was going on in Grange Lane. Though she was fluttered by the scolding she had received, Rosa only looked prettier than usual with her flushed cheeks; and so many things had been put into her nonsensical little head during the last two days, especially by her aunt's denunciations, that her sense of self-importance was very much heightened in consequence. She looked at the Miss Wentworths with a throb ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... magic, common-sense Nonsensical appears, And stars of sober influence Shoot madly from their spheres. You lure us from the beaten track, From minding P.'s and Q.'s, To paths where white is always black And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... in her held me speechless. All the animation of the breakfast table was gone: there was no hint of the response with which, before, she had met my nonsensical sallies. She stood there, white-lipped, unsmiling, staring down the dusty road. One hand was clenched tight over some small object. Her eyes dropped to it from the distant road, and then closed, with a quick, indrawn breath. Her color came back slowly. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bloodthirstiness, so that while they will allow their masters to misuse them in any way they will yet fight most willingly with each other, and are never really happy saving in the conduct of some private and nonsensical battle of their own. I do not believe that it is fear which tames these creatures into mildness, but that the most savage animal has a capacity for love which has not been sufficiently noted, and which, if more intelligent attention had been directed upon it, would have raised them ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... nonsensical for you to have a secretary," she answered, "and that it would be much better for you to do your own work, and make a gift of the money to the institution, and then I could go and learn to be a nurse. I only mention these things to ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... delighted with her progress, but when he spoke to her again, her answer was, 'Yah, yah,' which seemed to him so nonsensical that after a few attempts to make her say 'yes,' and to teach her what it meant, he gave up his lesson for the remainder of the day and talked to her by signs and gestures which ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... are copy books extant containing tales some of which must have been composed while she was a young girl, as they had amounted to a considerable number by the time she was sixteen. Her earliest stories are of a slight and flimsy texture, and are generally intended to be nonsensical, but the nonsense has much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a dedication of mock solemnity to some one of her family. It would seem that the grandiloquent dedications prevalent in those days had not escaped her youthful penetration. Perhaps the most characteristic feature in ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... dared to knock; but it was too late to retreat. Looking straight into her cold eyes with his own shining gray ones, he said bravely, but with a trembling voice, "Do you need any babies here, if you please?" (Need any babies! What an inappropriate, nonsensical expression, to be sure; as if a baby were something exquisitely indispensable, like the ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... it seemed to him a mad, a nonsensical scheme, yet it was one that might so easily be carried out. If one doubt was left as to whether he would do it, it was gone the ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... extravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, I think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for cigars and meerschaums,—an expense which hasn't even the pretense of usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes something to the agreeableness of society; but a man's cigars and pipes are neither ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... have felt, after allowing them time to rest, despatched them back to Theodore. It was, indeed, the proper way to deal with him: firmness alone could save our lives; as we had but too ample proofs that the kind of adoration for so long bestowed upon him resulted in nothing but a nonsensical correspondence, and no real advantage had ever been gained. No answer could possibly be given to the mad production Theodore had sent; a verbal message to the same purport as the first communication from the Commander-in-Chief ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... of affairs, not confined to this continent, but unhappily only too prevalent everywhere? Let the head of the musical department of every church service begin by weeding from his repertory all trash, whether profane or simply stupid and nonsensical. As the number of musical creations remaining will not be very large, let him retain for the present all that are not positively bad or inane; a few old song melodies have, through long usage, lost their original associations, and hence, though perhaps only imperfectly adapted to devotional ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the emotions that dominate mankind. Mill's article proclaiming these views appeared in 1835, just at the time when the Oxford Movement was stirring up a wave of enthusiasm for the dogmas and ritual which he treated as obsolete and nonsensical; nor is there anything more remarkable or unexpected in the political changes of the last sixty years, than the discomfiture of those prophets who have foretold the decay of all liturgies and the speedy dissolution ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the moment he spoke of St. Ebbe's and Annie, she had been ignorant of his very name till he put down his card. If he had not done so, she would have had to describe him to Annie as the big, fair-haired young doctor with the Roman nose, or by some other nonsensical item, such as the signet-ring on his left hand, or the trick of putting his hand ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler |
