"Tickle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wombat That grew so exceedingly fat That, when it would laugh 'Twould most break in half, And tickle the soul of ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... only a highly-wrought crowd. Ruskin's description is fitting: "You can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be—usually are—on the whole, generous and right, but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them. You may tease or tickle it into anything at your pleasure. It thinks by infection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on, nothing ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... simple but excellent; we were thoroughly comfortable in this rude dwelling; but—it might have been fancy—I thought something tickled my legs. There was no mistake, something did actually not only tickle, but bite. Something? It was everything and everybody in the shape of fleas! The hut was hopping with countless swarms of these detestable vermin, from which in our impregnable van we had hitherto been free, owing to its great height from the ground. Whether ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... will send for the man. . . . Your business is private, you say? . . . I am very sorry: we are all at sixes and sevens here, with every office crowded. But there's an empty saloon—one of those absurdities with which the management in old days sought to tickle the public taste. They are going to turn it into a ward in a couple of days, and that's why we have left it unoccupied. If that will do, and you'll come with me, we'll see if the electric light functions. I believe the fitters were at ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... strength. Then the kitchen, shining with new tin, and a brisk little stove, and the rack hung with neatly-hemmed dish-cloths; the brand new cake of soap on the table, and the orderly line of pots and kettles—oh, it was all a sight to tickle your eyes. ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... my fortunes many steepes[78] hye. Nay, I perhapps, ere they can drye there smocks, Will putt th'affayre in motion, whyle these are Att solleme mattens. I'l take pen and wryte, And sett my mind downe in so quaint a strayne Shall make her laughe and tickle, whylst I laughe And tickle with the thought on't, still presuminge These lookes, these smyles, these favours, this sweete language Could never breathe, butt have theire byrthe from love. But how to ha'tt delivered? there's ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... long long ears—to me, considering these things, it seemed that there were a hundred other male brutes squatted round about, and treated just as reasonably as Bottom was. Their Titanias lulled them to sleep in their laps, summoned a hundred smiling delicate household fairies to tickle their gross intellects and minister to their vulgar pleasures; and (as the above remarks are only supposed to apply to honest women loving their own lawful spouses) a mercy it is that no wicked Puck is in the way to open their eyes, and point out their folly. Cui bono? let them live ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but could not follow the sense. "Waste no more time talking their German gibberish," said he; "take out thy knife and tickle his ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... led oxen misbehaved, and Swartboy could not reach them with his long "voorslag," Hendrik was ever ready to tickle them with his tough jambok; and, by this means, frighten them into good behaviour. Indeed, one of the boys was obliged to be at their head nearly all ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... could not bring himself to name her, much less indulge in the cheap confessional of tawdry loose held affection. He had heard men discuss their love affairs: men who could discuss them hadn't any; theirs was the sense reflex of the frog that kicks when you tickle its nerve-end. He rode ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... each room are superb; miles beyond one's ideas of them in general at home. Tom says he can't sleep because the embroidered monograms on the pillows and things scratch his cheek, and the lace frills tickle his nose, while he catches his toes in the Venetian insertion in the sheets. The linen itself is the finest you ever saw, Mamma, and would be too exquisite plain. Now one knows where all those marvellously over-worked things in the Paris shops go to, and all the wonderful gold incrusted ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... seemed to worship Paul. He nursed the child on his knees from the time he entered Les Peuples to the time he left, sometimes holding him the whole afternoon, and it was marvelous to see how delicately and tenderly he touched him with his huge hands. He would tickle the child's nose with the ends of his long moustaches, and then suddenly cover his face with kisses almost as passionate as Jeanne's. It was the great trouble of his life ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the gospel: all that sort of thing," drawled a Miss Simmonds from beneath a hat that, if she had paid for it, would have cost her five guineas. "Now my chief purpose in life is to tickle silly women into spending twice as much upon their clothes as their husbands can afford, bamboozling them into buying any old thing that our Advertising Manager instructs ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... for to keep a look-out; On her stern there were dragons cavorting about. And Mrs. Ah Fit by the kitchen did sit Preparing some breakfast for Mr. Ah Fit, The gentleman who, as we saw when we neared her, By waggling the tickle-stick skilfully, steered her. The little Fit men and the little Fit maids Were playing at tig round the brass carronades, And with all the delight of a juvenile Briton The littlest Ah Fitlet was plucking the kitten. With a "How do you do, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... to diagnose the case and decide what disposition should be made of the patient. Then the L—s and their little daughter came in with a cheery "good morning" and a steaming breakfast of coffee, cakes and other things fragrant enough and tempting enough to tickle the senses of an epicure. And, not content with providing the best of what the house afforded, Mr. L. brought in the choicest of cigars by the handful, insisting on my finding solace in the fumes ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... his spare time in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps slightly on his right leg—his "game" leg, as he styles it. He is, of course, an immense favourite with the young people—not less than with the old. He has been known to say, with a solemnity that might tickle the humorous and horrify the timid, that he wouldn't "hab dat game leg made straight agin! no, not for a hundred t'ousand pounds. 'Cause why?—it was an eber-present visible reminder dat once upon a time he had de libes ob massa and Nadgel in his arms a-hangin' on to his ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... never lay with any Body but my Grand-mother; when she was in a good humour, she'd tickle a Body sometimes, but if she never meddl'd mith me, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... same time. At the foot of the bed, Ba'tiste, his eyes twinkling more than ever, had calmly rolled back the covering and just as calmly tickled the injured man's feet. More, one long arm had outstretched again, as the giant once more reached for the sole of a foot, to tickle it, then to stand back and boom with laughter as Barry involuntarily sought to jerk the point of attack out of the way. For a fourth time he repeated the performance, followed by a fourth outburst of mirth at the recoil from the ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... very good one: Menthol, 30 grains; Camphor, 30 grains; White Vaseline, 1 ounce. Put some of this on the end of the finger and push it gently into each nostril. When the nostrils become blocked and the child cannot breathe through the nose, tickle the nose with a feather until it sneezes; this will clear the passage. Immediately after the sneeze place the menthol mixture in each nostril. When the child is about to sneeze place a handkerchief before the nose, as this discharge is full of germs and will infect others when ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... accelerando of pleasure, and a thaw set in between them. He let his arm drape over the back of her chair, a stolen sense of her nearness dizzying him. He was like a man with a suddenly developed new sense, which he could not tickle enough. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... dress illuminated by electric lights, or in the discreet light of a fashionable boudoir; whether it is clearly revealed or equivocal, perverted in one way or depraved in another; in all its forms its aim is to tickle, to excite, to seduce, to allure, by arousing lewdness ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... started, and I telled t' cows all about it t' neet afore. 'Ye mun do your best, cushies, to-morn', I said. 'T' King'll be wantin' a sup o' milk to his ham and eggs, and I reckon 'twill do him more gooid nor his pint o' beer, choose how. An' just you think on that gentle-fowks has tickle bellies. Don't thou go hallockin' about i' t' tonnup-field, Eliza, and get t' taste o' t' tonnups into thy cud same as thou did last week.' Eh! they was set up about it, was t' cows; I'd niver seen 'em so chuffy. So next ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... your sort my boys— Fun, fire, and pathos—metre, mirth, and noise; To make you die with laughter, or the hiccups, Tickle your favourites, or ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... life for the loot of it, Rainey," Lund declared. "Food an' drink to tickle my tongue an' fill my belly, the woman I happen to want, an' bein' able to buy ennything I set my fancy on. The answer to that is Gold. With it you can buy most enny thing. Not all wimmen, I'll grant you that. Not the kind of woman I'd want for a steady mate. Thet's one thing ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... poor character only desiring to laugh, and have the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sympathy; good laughter is not "the crackling of thorns under the pot." Even at stupidity and pretension this Shakespeare does not laugh otherwise than genially. Dogberry and Verges tickle our very hearts; and we dismiss them covered with explosions of laughter: but we like the poor fellows only the better for our laughing; and hope they will get on well there, and continue Presidents of the City-watch. Such laughter, like sunshine on the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... to see how gently he could play with the little brown baby of the mahout. He loved to have it lying between his great fore-feet, and would tickle it with the tip of his trunk for the pleasure of hearing it laugh, then pour dust upon it till it was buried, always being careful not to cover the face. But like a great big selfish child he always kept his sweets to himself, and would pretend not to see the little outstretched hand, ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... benefits of this carefully laid plan. In that case, and this is the last piece of advice, here is what you must do: "If either the company or indisposition of the weather binde you to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain ape: take up a rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants to make other fooles fall a laughing; mewe at passionate speeches; blare at merrie; find fault with the musicke; whew at the children's action, whistle ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... showed them rosy, merry, glorious, and bespattered, one waving a couple of rabbits, and the other of pheasants, and trying to tickle Theodore's cheeks with the long tails of the latter, of course frightening him into a ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them, they bleed. If you tickle them, they laugh." The rough rain-smelling earth still clings to them; when you take them in your hands, the mud of the highway comes off upon your fingers. Is it really, one wonders, mere literary craft, mere cunning artfulness, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... hand has set a snickle, An' left thee in a bonny pickle; Whoe'er he be, I hope owd Nick will Rise his arm, An' mak his heead an' ear-hoil tickle ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... replied the man who had called himself Johnson; and the reply seemed for some reason to mightily tickle his crew, most of whom ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... gave a joyous laugh. "Hoots! It will jist be a wee tickle sometimes. But I will be an awful complainin' body, doctor. Old Dr. Williams could be telling you I would be a terrible burden to him, indeed; and you will be finding me a bother. Yes, oh, yes. That is why I would be so pleased that the Almighty would ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... would be difficult to find another human being subjected to so many angles of attack as Spurlock. Ruth loved him. This did not tickle his vanity; on the contrary, it enlivened his terror, which is a phase of fascination. She loved him. That held his thought as the magnet holds the needle, inescapably. The mortal youth in him, then, ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... the Spinal Cord Does.—If you tickle a person's foot when he is asleep, he will pull it up just as he would if he were awake, only not quite so quickly. What do you suppose makes the muscles of the leg contract when the brain is asleep and does not know that the ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... the Refinements of a nice Philosophy. It was necessary to flatter their Vanity by telling them that they were the favour'd Children of God, to satisfy their Passions by allowing them to be treacherous and cruel to their Enemies, and to tickle their Ears by Stories and Farces by turns ridiculous and horrible, fit either for a Nursery or Bedlam. By such Contrivances I was able to attain my Ends and to establish the Welfare of my Countrymen. ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... people are familiar with the best music. To them music is a language. Says Mayhew, in his elaborate work on the Rhine, in speaking of the free education in music in Germany: "To tickle the gustatory nerves with either dainty food or drink costs some money; but to be able to reproduce the harmonious combinations of a Beethoven or a Weber, or to make the air tremble melodiously with some sweet and simple ballad, or even to recall the sonorous solemnities ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... it wrangles In tickle points of nicenesse; Tell wisedome, she entangles Herselfe in over-wisenesse; And if they do reply, Straight ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... is wasted in the top story of the temple of man in idle speculations about external and worthless things, in scientific quarrels and dogmatic disputations, which have usually no other object but to tickle personal vanity and to give to ignorance an external coat of learning. Many of our modern scientific authorities resemble ants, which crawl over a leaf which fell from a tree: they know all about the veins and cells of that leaf, but they know nothing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... Edward. Take care that you don't slip away, by the help of the glycerine of the word "motives," into fancying that all these tales are only the after colours and pictorial metaphors of sentimental piety. They are either plain truth or black lies; take your choice,—but don't tickle and treat yourselves with the prettiness or the grotesqueness of them, as if they were Anderssen's fairy tales. Either the King did carry the beggar on his back, or he didn't; either Godiva rode through Coventry, or she didn't; either the Earl Leofric saw the vision of the bright child at ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... will tickle 'em so they'll laugh and run away," replied his brother. Then they hopped on through the woods, and pretty soon they met Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... covered with blood. Still he came back to his favourite place, and I tried again, after giving my friends caution to be on the look out. This time I was successful, I put my hand gently under his belly, and by a tickle, secured the rascal, by thrusting the fore-finger and thumb of my right hand in his gills. I got him on to land, my friends ran about in exstacy, and I think I never saw a finer trout than he proved to be—real Eden. We gave a shout of triumph, after which we cut him on the nose to kill him. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... Belgium. I suddenly got bitten with the sniping fever, and it occurred to me that, with my facilities for getting about, I could get into a certain mangled farm on our left and remain in the roof unseen in daylight. From there I felt sure that, with the aid of a rifle, I could tickle up a Boche or two in their trenches hard by. I was immensely taken with this idea. So, one morning (like Robinson Crusoe again) I set off with my fowling-piece and ammunition, and crawled towards the farm. I got there all right, and entering the dark and evil-smelling precincts, searched ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... thing offensive before him. So that while he served the Lord in the holy ministry, and particularly in that post and character of the king's chaplain, his ambition was to have God's favour, rather than the favour of great men, and studied more to profit and edify their souls, than to tickle their fancy, as some court-parasites in their sermons do: One instance whereof was, that being called to preach before the parliament, where many rulers were present, he preached from John iii. 10. Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things? when he mostly insisted that ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the feet and the palms of the hands are extremely sensitive, having abundance of nerves, as we find if we tickle them. If the feet are put often into hot water, they will become habitually cold, and make one more or less delicate and nervous. On the other hand, by rubbing the feet often in cold water, they will become permanently warm. A cold foot-bath will stop a violent ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... Wyckliffe being handed over to the tender mercies of his Australian victims seemed to tickle the audience and a faint ripple of laughter went round the crowded Court. Wyck, who had been growing more and more fidgetty, here held an excited conversation with his counsel, who rose ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... we were served to clear soup—"just to tickle your palates," the Maluka announced, as Cheon in a hoarse whisper instructed him to serve "little-fellow-helps" anxious that none of the keenness should be taken from our appetites. All served, the tureen was whisked away to ensure against further inroads, and then Cheon ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... and crystal doors; And whenever I go there, early or late, The two tame dragons who guard the gate And refuse to open the frowning portals To sisters, brothers and other mortals, Get up with a grin And let me in. And I tickle their ears and pull their tails And pat their heads and polish their scales; And they never attempt to flame or fly, Being quelled by me and my human eye. Then I pour them drink out of golden flagons, Drink for my two tame ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... of the new, delicious condiments That luxury, from time to time, invents? Soft, hard, and dropped; and now with sugar sweet, And now boiled up with milk, the eggs they eat: In sherbet, in preserves; at last they tickle Their palates fanciful with eggs in pickle, All had their day—the last was still the best But a grave senior thus, one day, addressed The epicures: "Boast, ninnies, if you will, These countless prodigies of gastric skill— But blessings on the man ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, after saying that he and Mr. Wilkie Collins had written together a story in the second part, "in which I think you would find it very difficult to say where I leave off and he comes in," he had said of the preceding descriptions: "Some of my own tickle me very much; but that may be in great part because I know the originals, and delight in their fantastic fidelity." "I have been at work with such a will" he writes later of a piece of humour for the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... half a dozen bottles, and back to the forepeak to empty them. That wouldn't kill the old man. They wouldn't even have to force the door of the dry-stores; they had already learned that they could tickle the lock out of commission by the use of a bent wire. Young, restless, and mischievous—none of them bad. A bit of laughter and a few bars of song—that was all they wanted. No doubt the affair would have blown itself out harmlessly but for the fact that Chance had other ideas. She has ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... parson, don't you think 'twould tickle the old man and the citizens more to think he'd been a sheriff? They wouldn't dare to ask him so many questions then, either. And it might be onhandy for him if he was asked to preach, while a ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... little housekeeper that she was, it was to the preparing of breakfast with a song, her early morning full of antics. Tiptoeing in to awaken her father to the tickle of a broom straw. Spreading his breakfast piping hot, and then concealing herself behind a screen, that he might marvel at the magic of it. And once she put salt in his coffee, a fresh cup concealed behind the toast rack, and knee to knee they rocked ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... The merry little monkey laughed so hard that the next time he tried to tickle Jacko, Mappo's paw slipped, and Jacko, turning ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... little steamer's" whistle has just made a noise out of all proportion to its size. It reminded me of an English sparrow's blatant personality. We have turned into a "tickle," and around the bend ahead of us are a handful of tiny whitewashed cottages clinging to the sides of the ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... we've done it,' replied Jack, adding, 'Puff'll be as pleased as Punch. We've polished him off uncommon. That's just the sort of account to tickle the beggar. He'll go riding about the country, showing it to everybody, and ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... periods in a speech, which they will retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that have struck their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have judgement; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will catch their judgements, such as ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... sententiously. "I'll be after him as if he was a ham sandwich, sir. Look out for my patent 'Tickle Tootsies' when you come out, guv'ner. I'll sneak over and put 'em round the door as soon as you've gone in." For Dollops, who was of an inventive turn of mind, had an especial "man-trap" of his own, which consisted of heavy brown paper, cut into squares, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Gooseberry Pie, and in some of the occasional pieces called Nondescripts. Nor do we know any one of superior ingenuity in that overwhelming profusion of epithets and crowded creation of rhymes, which so tickle the ear and the fancy in some of his verses, and of which we have specimens almost unrivalled in the celebrated description of the cataract of Lodore, and the vivaciously ridiculous chronicle of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... and ordering the others to let the doctor pass when he arrived, I closed the door upon their curiosity, and went back to the King. He had left his bed and was standing near La Trape, endeavouring to hearten him; now telling him to tickle his throat with a feather, and now watching his sufferings in silence, with a face of gloom and despondency that sufficiently betrayed his reflections. At sight of the page, however, carrying the dead cat, he turned ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... animals—ever changing like the forms of Proteus. It would seem as if the Spirit of the Mountain were idly amusing himself, like a child blowing bubbles, or a vendor at a fair-stall carving out little figures of gingerbread to tickle the fancy of country boys and girls. The clouds so formed sometimes cause amusement by their uncanny shapes, but not unfrequently they inspire alarm. The superstitious peasant of the Paduli, looking up suddenly from his work amidst the early ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the ground was too stony for them. After a hard chase of two hours we came up with the herd. Pearson fired at a young bull and broke its leg, nevertheless it went off briskly on the remaining three, so I fired and shot off its tail. This appeared to tickle his fancy, for he turned at once and charged Pearson, who dropped his gun, sprang into a thorn-tree and clambered out of reach only just in time to escape the brute, which grazed his heel in passing. Poor fellow, he got ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... to live otherwise than beasts, a thine that doubtless puts a constraint upon them, but that also flatters and reassures them; and as they are proud, cowardly, and covetous of pleasure, they willingly submit to restraints that tickle their vanity and on which they found both their present security and the hope of their future happiness. That is the principle of all morality. . . . But let us not mislead ourselves. My companions are unloading their cargo of stuffs ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... all laughed, and Harry, laughing too, cried out: "I don't mean that; I mean that they knit thumbs in their stockings, and stick their great toes in;—dear! how it must tickle!" ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... yer ill tongue for me, young man; keep it for yer mither. I'm little feared o' ye or ony like ye. Ye'll maybe get a bit dab frae the neb o' a jockteleg [point of a sheath-knife] that will yeuk [tickle] ye for a day or twa gin ye dinna learn an' that speedily, as Maister Welsh wad say, to keep yer Han's aff my faither's dochter." Jess's good Scots was infinitely better and more vigorous than the English ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... not restricted to any precise rules in this respect, but may vary the position of her whip arm as she may think fit, so that she do not permit it to appear ungraceful. She must, however, take care that the whip be so carried, that its point do not tickle or irritate the ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... the straggling got bad you and I might fall a long way behind and fire our pistols, so as to give the impression Kurds are in pursuit. That would tickle up the ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... his legs from his perch and brushed aside a troublesome prickly pod that depended in such a position as to tickle his neck. "I'm from Yale. Ever been to New Haven? What are you ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... a space, until the tanner began to come upon the deer and to draw his bow in order to tickle the victim's ribs with a cloth-yard shaft. But just at this moment Robin unluckily trod upon a twig which snapped and caused the tanner ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... implanted in most of us a sense of the ridiculous—-of the incongruous. If a thing is a little too big or a little too small for the place it is intended to fill, for some occult reason we regard it as funny. The difference of a hair seems to tickle us, whereas a great difference does not produce that ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... living 'Akakia' by my side, it would be a poisonous weapon, which I would hurl one day surely at the head of Maupertius. It is therefore better it should live only in my remembrance, and be only an imaginary dagger, with which I will sometimes tickle the haughty lord-president." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... imagining the scene as the powerful figure of this man embraced a woman. Probably her face would become lost to sight in his beard, until nothing of her features remained visible. Then, when the beard began to tickle her, she would throw back her head, and laugh. And the children that such a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... superstitions that prevailed; such as we all wish had never disgraced the history of infant humanity or constituted the day-dreams of our ancestors. They carefully select that which flatters and pleases the vanity of their fellows, and pass by unnoticed, everything else. This course may tickle vain people, but it cannot meet with favor among those who love the truth, and the whole truth. There are sins of omission as well as of commission, and writers betray and deceive the world as much by the former class as by the latter. Some fastidious writers are afraid to call things by their ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... I could find, which happened to be immediately under the airhole, a fortunate circumstance, as the closeness was often stifling. I had probably been dozing for some time in a sitting position, when I felt something tickle the top of my head. The idea that it might be a large spider caused me to start, when stretching up my hand, it came in contact with what seemed to be a rag, which I had not observed. Getting carefully up, I perceived a faint light gleaming through the aperture, and then saw ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... faults in the people who glide by. I shrug my shoulders contemptuously, and look slightingly at them according as they pass. These easily-pleased, confectionery-eating students, who fancy they are sowing their wild oats in truly Continental style if they tickle a sempstress under the ribs! These young bucks, bank clerks, merchants, flaneurs—who would not disdain a sailor's wife; blowsy Molls, ready to fall down in the first doorway for a glass of beer! What sirens! The place at ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... such a long ways. As she don't know any English words, that is the only thing we have agreed about. She said, Ja wohl! This going to balls and cafes as I'm doing is all right for local color and all that, but it would tickle dad a lot if I knew a quiet, decent, respectable German family. And I want to know a nice, sober German girl who has got yellow, chorus-girl hair and will steady a fellow down. The proper study of young man is young woman. I haven't been able to meet ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... him confidential, 'n' he'd pet 'n' paw the moke; He'd tickle him, 'n' flatter him, 'n' try him with a joke; 'N' presently that neddy sobers up, 'n' sez "Ive course, Since you puts it that way, cobber, I ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... James. He thinks you're all right, you know. And he says, if you don't care, he'd like to say a little something about it when he makes his speech. Not much, you know—nothing you wouldn't like—he says it would tickle the boys right ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... fooled Ole Mastah 7 years Fooled the overseer three; Hand me down my banjo And I'll tickle your bel-lee. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... from God to man are antipodal to his conceptions. His God is seen going up to some cloudless region instead of coming down to tabernacle with men. His sermons feed the feelings but neglect the intellect and will, they tickle the ear and subordinate truth to eloquence. The greater emphasis he puts on churchianity is a loss to Christianity. The contribution which modern thought is making to Biblical interpretation is sealed to him. He pursues his beaten path along the old ruts ...
— The Defects of the Negro Church - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 10 • Orishatukeh Faduma
... mouth in the Liffey, you nasty tickle pitcher; after all the bad words you speak, it ought to be filthier than your face, you dirty ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... unstinted their flatteries and homage, taking toll the while of the very soul-stuff in her. Devoutly they worshipped at the shrine of that heavenlike and heaven-given instrument wherewith she could tickle their senses, rejoicing, during the pauses of their envies and hatreds, such among them as were female, and of their lusts and despairs such as were male, in her warm flesh tints and full flesh curves and the draperies withal wherewith, with consummate art, she revealed or enhanced ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... done," Kandin said lightly. "Your Dad and I were up all last night working out the whole landing procedure." He reached out and took Rat from Alan's shoulder, and began to tickle him with his forefinger. Rat responded with a playful nip of his sharp little teeth. "I'm taking the morning off," Kandin continued. "You can't imagine how nice it's going to be to sit around doing nothing while everyone else ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?—If you prick us, do we not bleed?—If you tickle us, do we not laugh?—If you poison us, do not we die?—and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?—Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... oblige his friends in the city, and ridiculed the city, to secure a promising lord at court; exposed the kind keepers of Covent Garden, to please the cuckolds of Cheapside; and drolled on the city Do-littles, to tickle the Covent-Garden Limberhams[1]." Even Langbaine, relentless as he is in criticism, seems to have considered the condemnation of Limberham as the vengeance of the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... shoes, and often have to put alcohol in my water-cups to keep my colors from freezing. My big picture of 'The Torrent'—the one in the Toledo Art Gallery—was painted in January, and out of doors. As for the brushwork, I try to do the best I can. I used to tickle up things I painted; some of the fellows at Julian's believed in that, and so did Fleury ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sailor, rather than an empty plate brought in in style by a butler of illustrious lineage and impressive manner." Then he added: "I hope she isn't too homely, Bess—not a 'clock-stopper,' as the saying is. You don't want people's appetites taken away when you've worked for hours on a menu calculated to tickle the palates of your guests. Would her homeliness—ah—efface itself, for instance, in the presence of a culinary creation, or is it likely to overshadow everything with its ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... contracted or small. You can get an answer by speaking loud, so as to rouse the patient. Give a little brandy and water, keep the place quiet, apply warmth, and do not raise the head too high. If you tickle the feet, the patient ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... woman question),—or he might as well eat a lemon. The mercenary aspect of my query does not enter in here. I climb into a tree, and reach out to the end of the branch for an orange that has got reddish in the sun, that comes off easily and is heavy; or I tickle a large one on the top bough with a cane pole; and if it drops readily, and has a fine grain, I call it a cheap one. I can usually tell whether they are good by splitting them open and eating a quarter. The Italians pare their oranges ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... himself when he advised Virginie to deal in dainties. He was too much of a Provincial not to adore sugared things; and in fact he would have lived off sugar candy, lozenges, pastilles, sugar plums and chocolate. Sugared almonds especially left a little froth on his lips so keenly did they tickle his palate. For a year he had been living only on sweetmeats. He opened the drawers and stuffed himself whenever Virginie asked him to mind the shop. Often, when he was talking in the presence of five or six other people, he would take the lid off a jar on the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Don't tickle the girl in her sleep, Don't cause so much beauty to sigh; If she frown, all the Graces will weep; If she weep, ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... are frequently the most amusing part of the daily press: they let the reader into many of the secrets of low, and, now and then, of high life; they are redolent of the phraseology of the vulgar; they often tickle our fancies by their humour, and sometimes touch our sympathies by their pathos. As anecdotes of real life; daily catalogues of droll and dismal occurrences among our fellow-citizens; pictures of what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... sent hither by the most noble Lady, Dona Catalina (so they call my Lady of Suffolk's Grace) doth entreat for leave to kiss the dust under his feet. This is their country mode; but I do ensure thee I had been little gladded for leave to kiss the dust; and it doth yet tickle mine ears whensoever I hear it. So up the stairs went we, through a fair court bordered with orange-trees, into a brave chamber hung about with silk, and all over the floor a carpet of verder spread. Here we ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... when Judge Thayer encountered Morgan on the street, not far from the little catalpa tree that was having a bitter struggle against wind and drouth, he invited the city marshal to accompany him to his office. News that would tickle his ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... you may freely tickle your fancy to the top, and rejoice superabundantly, that the Match is concluded; & you have now gotten your legs into the stocks, and your arms into such desired for Fetters, that nothing but death it self can ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest itself through some known series of inputs or operations. "You can tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA card's highlight handling by trying to set bright yellow ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... The Raggedy Man's 'at's best Is Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs,— 'Cause that-un's the strangest of all o' the rest, An' the worst to learn, an' the last one guessed, An' the funniest one, an' the foolishest.— Tickle me, Love, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... to count the rattles. "It was just luck you had a tool," he said cautiously. "Gosh! I would n't want to do any business with that fellow myself, unless I had a fence-post along. Your grandmother's snake-cane would n't more than tickle him. He could stand right up and talk to you, he could. Did ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... of metal throughout the city, till enough shall come to claim the Queen's release. For the cries of the women and unarmed weaklings clamoring under the walls of the fortress for her release, are but impotent wails to tickle the pride ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... when he heard nothing but Arabic being spoken among us. They arrived here in the company of Shaikh Yusuf, whose son is nominally a Turkish military officer, commanding three hundred imaginary Bashi-Bozuk, or irregular cavalry. By means of such titles they tickle the vanity of the Arab leaders, and claim an annual tribute of 218 purses, (about 1000 pounds,) and are thus enabled to swell out the published army list, and account of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... wholesome truth, it is none the less gentlemanly because it cuts a little. He says it's very amusing to observe how coolly we play this little farce of life,—how placidly people get entangled in a mesh at which they all rail, and how fiercely they frown upon anybody who steps out of the ring. "You tickle me and I'll tickle you; but at all events, you tickle me," is the motto of ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... but come to supper. My good wife knows how to tickle the palate of my friends, and you are my friends. Where's ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... the beginnings of a modern industrial system: iron and steel for permanent investment, bound to yield large dividends; cloth as the cheapest exchange for invaluable raw material; liquor to tickle the appetites of the natives and render the alienation of land and the breakdown of customary law easier; eventually forced and contract labor under white drivers to increase and systematize the production ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the most in love with them Machiavel Mastery of one's temper May you live as long as you are fit to live, but no longer! May you rather die before you cease to be fit to live Moderation with your enemies Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears Never implicitly adopt a character upon common fame Never would know anything that he had not a mind to know No man is distrait with the man he fears, or the woman he loves Nothing in courts is exactly as it appears to be Our understandings are generally the DUPES of our hearts ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... himself, it pleases him to tickle public opinion with spicy fare; his lack of mental balance compels him to these endless and senseless choppings and changes, to all these schemes projected, proclaimed and ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... the quantity as well as quality of what he ate or drank were prescribed, by the laws, to the king: his table was covered with nothing but the most common food; because eating in Egypt was designed, not to tickle the palate, but to satisfy the cravings of nature. One would have concluded, (observes the historian,) that these rules had been laid down by some able physician, who was attentive only to the health of the prince, rather than by a legislator. The same simplicity was seen in all other things; ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... cradle, his meat, his shroud, his grave. But in cities the case is altered. Here man is predatory, solitary, prowling, not gregarious. Here, for a man of wits, his fellows are the field which he tills. He is the best husbandman who can tickle the soil to his easiest profit, who can grow the finest crop at the least pains, and get for little what is worth much. What, she would say, do we need which the city will not give us for the reaching out of a hand? Shelter? A hundred houses stand empty week by week. Take any one ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... was never finished. No; after I was once more domiciled in my city home, I began to think that if I really was a literary genius I ought to commercialize my ideas right, instead of using them in fiction or drama simply to tickle the fancy of people who would forget it all in a moment's time. The idea of teaching things by mail occurred to me as being a field of ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... this "MAGAZINE OF TASTE," every one in company may flavour their soup and sauce, and adjust the vibrations of their palate, exactly to their own fancy; but if the cook give a decidedly predominant and piquante gout to a dish, to tickle the tongues of two or three visiters, whose taste she knows, she may thereby make the dinner disgusting to all ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... obedient Netherlands across the French frontier, in combination, not with the Bearnese, but with Henry III. So much in the dark were even the most astute politicians. "I can't feel satisfied in this French matter," said the President: "we mustn't tickle ourselves to make ourselves laugh." Moreover, there was no self-deception nor self-tickling possible as to the unmitigated misery of the obedient Netherlands. Famine was a more formidable foe than Frenchmen, Hollanders, and Englishmen combined; so that Richardot avowed that the "negotiation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... comes abroad into the fields, hee will play the countrey gentleman as truly, as before the knight in turnament. If the game be up once, and the hounds in chase, you shall see how he will pricke up his eares streight, and tickle at the sport as much as his rider shall, and laugh so loud, that if there be many of them, they will even drowne the rurall harmony of the dogges. When he travels, of all innes he loves best the signe of ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It took him two days to die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away. But you? Ah! so easy! Chck!—the knife cuts your neck like that. It is finished. The knife may even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that way ever ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... dying martyr had a very dull time in her bed. She was not the kind of girl to love very deeply—her mother had done her utmost to make the poor child fall in love with Captain Bertram, but when all was said he had only managed to tickle her vanity. Now she considered that he had put her to shame and derision, and she began to dislike him very much. Her sisters fostered this dislike with the tales they brought in from ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... worms; it does not matter whether they turn or not. But cobras have no business to imitate them till poor rookies think they have no poison in them, and that they can tickle them with a switch. What a great hulking brute that man was! You ricked him when you threw him! I saw him just before I left Adelaide. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... what does signify is that you are not quite like other girls. What, May, do you pretend that you do not prize the roll of a sonorous passage, or the trip of an exquisite phrase in Latin or Greek? That it does not tickle your ears, cling to your memory, and haunt you as a theme in music haunts a composer? Do you not care to go any deeper in Plato or in the dramatists? Is it a fact that you can bear to have heard the last of Antigone, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... so with the novelist's prosperities. Nature has a magic by which she fits the man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. But the novelist plucks this event here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with a cloying success, or scare them with shocks of tragedy. And so, on the whole, 'tis a juggle. We are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which only oddly combine acts that we do every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... her knees, and she seemed incapable of shyness. She was at home on the stage, she faced a thousand people with a pert, a brazen attitude, and said, 'Look at me; enjoy me, as I enjoy your fervent glances; I am here to tickle your fancy.' Patience! She was no more Patience than she was Sister Dora or a heroine of Charlotte Yonge's. She was the eternal unashamed doll, who twists 'men' round her little finger, and smiles on them, always with ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... fragrant hair. My feelings overflow, I can't resist such a chance for a jolly good game. I rummage and fumble about, excitedly poking my nose everywhere, till I find the crispy tip of a pink ear—Her ear. I nibble it just enough to tickle her—to make her cry out: "Stop, Toby! That's awful! Help! ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette |
