"Whimsical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... author's whimsical notion that a development of commercial and manufacturing organization in India would cause converts to flock from all parts, and from all classes of the Hindoo community, has not been verified by experience. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the donkeys were white, some were brown, or gray, or black, or spotted; but their hair was sleek and smooth and their broad collars and caps gave them a neat, if whimsical, appearance. ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the City of London was among those most hostile to all theatrical representations. It exerted itself to the utmost in order to render them impossible in the centre of the capital; issuing, with that object, the most whimsical decrees. Trying, on their part, to escape from the despotic restrictions, the various players' companies settled down beyond the boundary of the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction. The citizens of London, wishing to ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... of quaint thoughts, whimsical fancies, bizarre notions, and ludicrous anecdotes, the difficulty which then, according to his own confession, occurred to Artemus Ward was, what should be the title of his lecture. The subject was no difficulty ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... America, and never permitted us to know his whereabouts. At regular intervals, we received his letters—many whimsical descriptions of his new life and new pursuits, but we always addressed him in New York, and our letters, bearing the English seal, came to him under an American disguise. We did not so much as know the name ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Fred Fontevrault, then a boy of fifteen, into his sick chamber, and made him subscribe to the whimsical conditions of the will, the female gendarmerie, so well versed in my affairs, declared that my husband had wretchedly repented his early marriage, and resolving his son should walk into fate with eyes unbandaged, forbade his alliance ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than of anything to be elsewhere found,—flashes of wholly original and profound insight into nature and life; words and phrases exhibiting an extraordinary vividness of descriptive and imaginative power, yet often set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They are here published as they were written, with very few and superficial changes; although it is fair to say that the titles have been assigned, almost invariably, by the editors. In many cases these verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... ever capable as a Reader of doing justice to his own imaginings. Dr. Johnson's whimsical anecdote of the author of The Seasons admits, in point of fact, of a very general application. According to the grimly humorous old Doctor, "He [Thomson] was once reading to Doddington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... to lead around both sides of a hill. It was not till the horses approached this point that their driver opened her lips. She had worn, all the time that she was quieting her nerves, a look of anxiety into the midst of which would break every now and then the kindest and briefest of whimsical smiles. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... right. When one is oppressed it is a mark of chivalry to hurt oneself in order to hurt the oppressor. But the English (never having had a real revolution since the Middle Ages) find it very hard to understand this steady passion for being a nuisance, and mistake it for mere whimsical impulsiveness and folly. When an Irish member holds up the whole business of the House of Commons by talking of his bleeding country for five or six hours, the simple English members suppose that he is a sentimentalist. ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... that he was ever full of himself,—believing his renown to be the common talk of the world. A whimsical illustration of this weakness was lately told me by a mutual friend. When at Paris recently, he chanced to say to Poole, "Of course you are full of all the theatres."—"No, Sir, I am not," he answered, solemnly and indignantly. "Will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... The whimsical humor which sometimes seized John when he was in the most dangerous situation took hold of him again. It was not humor exactly, but it was the innate desire to make the best of ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... should ever offend that angel delicacy and tenderness. A curious part of this maniac experience was his estimate of himself as it proceeded. He was in a mood entirely heroical. The Baron de Wyeth, who was making money to supply the most whimsical needs of the absent Gertrude, never entered into his head. It did not offer itself on any single occasion to his intelligence to think that there was anything to be reprehended in ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... way, of course, it was a ridiculous sight, and that was why Rob winked his eye at Merritt when he thought he could detect a whimsical look on the other's face. Still, it was anything but a laughing matter to poor Tubby, who felt that he had a tremendous amount at stake. Every time he found himself compelled to let his horrified eyes turn downward that noisy stream seemed ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... simple soldier's boy from Ireland To Prague—and with a master, whom I buried. 55 From lowest stable-duty I climbed up, Such was the fate of war, to this high rank, The plaything of a whimsical good fortune. And Wallenstein too is a child of luck, I love a fortune that is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... she were ten times more whimsical than she is, I am certain she would like it; for you sold it to me yourself, and you assured me it was ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... o'clock: prayers being over, they go to hunt the wren; and, after having found one of these poor birds, they kill her and lay her on a bier, with the utmost solemnity, bringing her to the parish church, and burying her with a whimsical kind of solemnity, singing dirges over her in the Manks language, which they call her knell; ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Adams came with Mrs. Warren; even Professor Rossiter, who also went to see Vivie's mother at Praed's, and conceived a whimsical liking for the unrepentant, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... us in a delightful essay about the whimsical notion of Charles Lamb that he would rather see Sir Thomas Browne than Shakespeare. A pleasant recreation is this same picking out "of persons one would wish to have seen." Causing great annoyance to Ayrton at an evening ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... reflex nerves after the strain with the magic of humor. She could not help herself: she burst out laughing. At this, he looked away from the specimen; looked around puzzled, quizzically, and, in sympathetic impulse, began laughing himself. Thus a wholly unmodern incident took a whimsical turn out of a horror which, if farcical in the abstract, was no less potent ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... and dipped himself in cold water every morning. He at the same time left off drinking and swallowing any liquid that was warm. He is now strong and lusty, and even in winter has no other cover than a single sheet. His notions about the warm drink were a little whimsical: he imagined it relaxed the tone of the stomach; and this would undoubtedly be the case if it was drank in large quantities, warmer than the natural temperature of the blood. He alledged the example of the inhabitants of the Ladrone islands, who never taste any thing that is not ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... with Greek and Roman literature has made us so accustomed to the idea of a Cupid awakening love by shooting arrows that we fail to realize how entirely fanciful, not to say whimsical, this conceit is. It would be odd, indeed, if the Hindoo poets had happened on the same fancy as the Greeks of their own accord; but there is no reason to suppose that they did. Kama is one of the later ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the table and gone to the cabinet; her father followed her. "This I would show thee," he said, calling her attention to a whimsical shape, blown and twisted almost into foam. "This Lorenzo Stino brought me only yesterday; he is full of genius; I think none hath a quicker hand, nor a more inventive faculty. I have watched him in his working." He scanned her eagerly ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... is a treasure."—Chicago Daily News. "Bright, whimsical, and thoroughly entertaining."—Buffalo Express. "One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been written."—N. Y. Press. "To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot fail to bring back ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the death. To Ritzner, ever upon the lookout for the grotesque, his peculiarities had for a long time past afforded food for mystification. Of this, however, I was not aware; although, in the present instance, I saw clearly that something of a whimsical nature was upon the tapis with my friend, and that Hermann ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... said Lancelot, with the whimsical expression that sometimes flashed across his face even in his most unamiable moments. "You must deduct the Thalers I made in exhibitions. As for living in cheap lodgings, I am not at all certain it's an economy, for every ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... with some indulgence from poetic minds. It was to embody the traditions of our city in an amusing form; to illustrate its local humors, customs and peculiarities; to clothe home scenes and places and familiar names with those imaginative and whimsical associations so seldom met with in our new country, but which live like charms and spells about the cities of the old world, binding the heart of the native inhabitant ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again. And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly. I am alone the cause of my own ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... is thrown upon the ways of nature as seen in the lives of our solitary wasps, so skillfully and charmingly depicted by George W. Peckham and his wife in their work on those insects. So whimsical, so fickle, so forgetful, so fussy, so wise, and yet so foolish, as these little people are! such victims of routine and yet so individual, such apparent foresight and yet such thoughtlessness, at such great pains and labor to dig a hole ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... scratching along with it as if it were too heavy for him and falling all the while, making its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being determined to put it through at any rate;—a singularly frivolous and whimsical fellow;—and so he would get off with it to where he lived, perhaps carry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty rods distant, and I would afterwards find the cobs strewn about ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... place, with a bottle of water, gun, powder, and lead. Whoever shall maltreat or assault another, while the articles subsist, shall receive the Law of Moses: this was the infliction of forty consecutive strokes upon the back, a whimsical memento of the dispensation in the Wilderness. There were articles relative to the treatment and disposition of women, which sometimes depended upon the tossing of a coin,—jeter a croix pile,—but they need not be repeated: on this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... why it failed, but there was another and better one. If the judge had stopped with bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of effect; but he made the mistake of trying to prove his position. For some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for his amusement—a calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical form, appended to each date; and the judge thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... She gave a whimsical look at him. "I ought to have said at once what I am going to say now: Did you hurt ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... 1714, the heir-apparent to his titles and estates was the elder brother, by a former marriage, of John, Lord Hervey; the dissolute, clever, whimsical Carr, Lord Hervey. Pope, in one of his satirical appeals to the second Lord Hervey, speaks of his friendship with Carr, 'whose early death deprived the family' (of Hervey) 'of as much wit and honour as he left behind him in any part of it.' The wit was a family attribute, but the honour ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... make Brandenburg a fertile province; so he turned it into a military state. He was wise, benignant, and universally beloved. But few of his amiable qualities were inherited by his great-grandson. Frederic II. resembled more his whimsical and tyrannical father, Frederic William, who beat his children without a cause, and sent his subjects to prison from mere caprice. When his ambassador, in London, was allowed only one thousand pounds a year, he gave ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... great fuss about what is no mystery at all,—a schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsical man's habits. I mean to give up such nonsense and mind my own business.—Hark! What the deuse is that odd noise in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... daughter's love of domination as well as moved her warm heart, he never ceased to admire her for having so many ducks. He fell, indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and brotherly attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with a sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see Jolly, he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate and ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and curling his lips a little. And he was always ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... pavements are harder and the girls are not so pretty as they used to be," he replied with a whimsical look of regret in his face and a twinkle in his still ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... censures of the critics by profession are extant, and may be easily referred to:— careless lines, inequality in the merit of the different poems, and (in the lighter works) a predilection for the strange and whimsical; in short, such faults as might have been anticipated in a young and rapid writer, were indeed sufficiently enforced. Nor was there at that time wanting a party spirit to aggravate the defects of a poet, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... slopes that rose so steeply from the sea shone among its terraced gardens like a many-coloured jewel in the burning sunset. The dome of its Casino gleamed opalescent in its centre—a place for wonder—a place for dreams. Yet Saltash's expression as he landed on the quay was one of whimsical discontent. He had come nearly a fortnight ago to be amused, but somehow the old pleasures had lost their relish ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... stage. To assist him, therefore, in the delivery of his farewell address, one of the performers, provided with a copy of the speech, was stationed behind the speaker and instructed to keep moving forward and backward as he did, like his shadow. The effect must certainly have been whimsical. Winstone had been a pupil of Quin's, and had played Downright to Garrick's Kitely in "Every Man in his Humour," at Drury Lane, in 1751. He was a constant attendant at the Exchange Coffee House, the established resort of the Bristol merchants. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... our privilege!" demanded Elsie, belligerently. "Do you mean to deny that we haven't a right to be just as selfish and whimsical as we please, and that it's your ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... entirely. She and the little girl suffered want, and when Johanna felt herself in the way, she ran away to a place where she could be comfortable. Her grandmother had also been in her way. She had her mother's whimsical, dreamy nature, and now she gave up everything and ran away to meet the wonderful. An older playfellow seduced her and took her out to the boys of the timber-yard. There she was left to take care ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is too late! Is she the match for you? She is spoilt, whimsical, sleeps till two o'clock in the afternoon, while you are a deacon's son, a district ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... does not seem conclusive; for the only reference to the subject in the preface is as follows: 'What could my sterile and uncultivated genius produce but the history of a child, meagre, adust, and whimsical, full of various wild imaginations never thought of before; like one you may suppose born in a prison, where every inconvenience keeps its residence, and every dismal sound ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... laughing, now. Something, that lay deep hidden beneath the rude exterior of the man, made itself felt in his deep voice. Some powerful force, underlying his whimsical words, gripped the artist's mind—compelling him to search for hidden meanings in ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... and now yearned for repose; but so far he had failed to find it, though he had already served in ten English houses. But he could not take root in any of these; with chagrin, he found his masters invariably whimsical and irregular, constantly running about the country, or on the look-out for adventure. His last master, young Lord Longferry, Member of Parliament, after passing his nights in the Haymarket taverns, was too often brought home in the morning on policemen's ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and phrases and expressions now rendered obscure by our not being acquainted with the local circumstances to which they applied at the time they were used, have been erected into prophecies, and made to bend explanations at the will and whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders, and commentators. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... household pets was of the kind exhibited by persons who have spent some period of their lives in loneliness, with only the companionship of dumb creatures. He was an acute observer of their peculiarities, with the noting of which he combined a whimsical exaggeration. The account of the menagerie which Sam Buckley found at Garoopna on the occasion of his memorable first meeting with Alice Brentwood is almost unique in ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... not think of that, it is such a mere trifle! I supposed mamma had drawn it all out until I looked over her papers. Then I had a notice of the settlement, but I should have come home in any event. I had grown tired of Europe, very tired. I dare say you think me ennuied, whimsical." ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... holy orders I have received!" said the priest, "since Apollo was Apollo, the muses muses, and the poets poets, so humorous and so whimsical a book as this was never written; it is the best, and most extraordinary of the kind that ever appeared in the world; and he who has not read it may be assured that he has never read anything of taste: give ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... one. But he continued to make addresses in the State, and in the city he was in frequent demand. However, the endowment fund remained obstinately immovable. By February there had been no additions, unless we can count five hundred dollars promised by dashing young Beverley Byrd on the somewhat whimsical condition that his brother Stewart ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... little god of this world sticks to the same old way, And is as whimsical as on creation's day; Life somewhat better might content him, But for the gleam of heavenly light which thou hast lent him. He calls it Reason—thence his power's increased To be far beastlier than any beast. Saving thy gracious presence, he ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... experiences of his boyhood, together with his mixed Cornish and Gallic heredity, were elements that very largely helped to create the whimsical character of George Borrow. We have now come to the time when the old soldier, with his pension of eight shillings a day, and his excellent and devoted wife, settled with their two sons at the little house in ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... thou wast born, that still repinest not — Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot! — Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand Of trade, for ever rise and fall With alternation whimsical, Enduring scarce a day, Then swept away By swift engulfments of incalculable tides Whereon capricious Commerce rides. Look, thou substantial spirit of content! Across this little vale, thy continent, To where, beyond the mouldering mill, Yon old deserted Georgian hill Bares ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... a sudden whimsical vision of the faces of Dicky and the Underwoods if I should thus speak my real thoughts. The thought in some curious fashion made it easier for me to cross the room to Lillian Gale's side, extend my hand ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... there are limits. The girl may be decent and sunny, Industrious, sober and what not; I don't care a bit; But she hasn't a right on a day such as that to be funny, With the glass at 120, confound her, the chit! I refuse to submit to the whimsical wheeze of a servant Just because Araminta's away and the weather is fervent, So I said to her, "Wench, do you fancy you're taking my money For work or ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... impressions of life in Carlsbad by March's greater wisdom and experience, and did his best to anticipate his opinions and conform to his conclusions. This was not easy, for sometimes he could not conceal from himself, that March's opinions were whimsical, and his conclusions fantastic; and he could not always conceal from March that he was matching them with Kenby's on some points, and suffering from their divergence. He came to join the sage in his early visit to the springs, and they walked up and down talking; and they went off together on long ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... himself, a married man now, with a small son and daughter of his own, "Miss Margery's" children. A little thicker of build and thinner of hair was the doctor, but possessed of the same genial friendliness of manner and whimsical humor, the same steady hand held out to help wherever and whenever help was needed. He was head of the House of Holiday now for his father, the saintly old pastor, had gone on to other fields and his soldier brother ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... so wonderful," replied the prince, "cannot fail to give rise to whimsical conjectures. But all this you profess to know only by hearsay, and yet his behavior to you and yours to him, seemed to indicate a more intimate acquaintance. Is it not founded upon some particular event in which you have yourself been concerned? ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... in Nevada dealt differently with a man who, charged with intoxication, thought to gain acquittal by a whimsical treatment of his offence. On being asked whether he was rightly or wrongly charged he pleaded, "Not guilty, your honour. Sunstroke!"—"Sunstroke?" queried Judge Cox. "Yes, sir; the regular New York variety."—"You've ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... looked over his shoulder and, for an instant, the whimsical smile which was characteristic of him curved ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... power, and the brightness of the child. Noll was soon taken away from the village school. Just at the moment when the heart of the master had greeted the hope of his little scholar, Oliver caught confluent smallpox, with the pathetic result that a face plain to begin with, grew a whimsical and winsome ugliness all its own. Goldsmith has given us more than one friend, and not the least of these ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... have retied the knot she imagined to be broken. But she saw he had something more to say; something hard to get out, but absolutely necessary to express. He caught her hands, pulled her close, and, with his forehead drawn into its whimsical smiling wrinkles, "Look here," he cried, "if Darrow wants to call me a damned ass too ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... of letters that rain upon me from everywhere. These bothers and burdens of the amiability with which I am credited are becoming insupportable, and I really long, some fine day, to cry from the housetops that I beg the public to consider me as one of the most disagreeable, whimsical and disobliging ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... time the party at Hagar's rooms was breaking up. There had been more singing by Mrs. Detlor. She ransacked her memory for half remembered melodies—whimsical, arcadian, sad—and Hagar sat watching her, outwardly quiet and appreciative, inwardly under an influence like none he had ever felt before. When his guests were ready, he went with them to their hotel. He saw that Mrs. Detlor shrank from the attendance ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... been the only ones in this field. The French and English selections in this volume are sufficient to prove the contrary. Gautier's The Mummy's Foot has a humor of a lightness and grace as delicate as the princess's little foot itself. There are various English stories of whimsical haunting, some of actual spooks and some of the hoax type. Hoax ghosts are fairly numerous in British as in American literature, one of the early specimens of the kind being The Specter of Tappington in the Ingoldsby Legends. The files of Blackwood's ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... a cigarette, and then looked at him with twinkling, whimsical eyes, as if continuing the argument merely for the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... sorrow will fail to recognise its truth. The little mystery and the slender love-story which hold the discursiveness together are just sufficient but so slight that they shall not even be hinted at here. For the rest the book is whimsical, thoughtful, sentimental by turns and, in spite of its tolerance, a shade superior; with now and then a phrase which left me wondering whether a blushing cheek would deserve the Garter motto's rebuke; in fact it resembles more than anything else on earth what the "German garden" of a certain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... its ditches filled up, and all its buildings embarrassed with ruins, we scarcely can believe we view that celebrated metropolis which formerly withstood the efforts of the most powerful empires, and for a time resisted the arms of Rome itself; though, by a whimsical change of fortune, its mouldering edifices now receive her homage and reverence. "In a word," says Volney, "we with difficulty recognize Jerusalem." Still more are we astonished at its ancient greatness, when we consider ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... was in appearance a short, stout, bald-headed man, with cordial manners and whimsical views of things that amused all who met him. He died at Natick, Mass., July ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... instant's break in the music, he dropped into a whimsical and really humorous rendering of "Yankee Doodle." Quickly the V. A. D. moved from the stool, caught Paula and thrust her into the vacant place. Then together the violin and piano rattled into a fantastic and brilliant variation of that famous and trifling air. Again, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... cast aside his whimsical phase he was a very simple and direct man. He, too, was becoming adjusted to Priscilla's presence in his home and her rightful ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... still its speech for a day or fix his grip upon those elastic limbs. Indeed, the frosty god conspired with it for our delight; building crystal bridges, with tracery of lace delicater than Valenciennes, and spangled string-pieces, and fretted vaultings, whimsical sierras, stalactite and stalagmite. An icicle is one of those careless toys of nature which the decorative art of man imitates in vain. They are among the myriad decorations ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... the temperament of the jury and its legal insight, we may sharply separate its ideas of deserved punishment from that far more important aspect of its function, the weighing of evidence. The juries may be whimsical in their decisions, they may be lenient in their acquittals or over-rigid in their verdicts of guilty, but that is quite in keeping with the democratic spirit of the institution. The Teutonic nations did not want the abstract law of ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... denied that Lord Ellenborough sent a body of troops to escort these gates to a heathen temple? To be sure, the honourable gentleman the Secretary of the Board of Control tries to get rid of this part of the case in rather a whimsical manner. He says that it is impossible to believe that, by sending troops to escort the gates, Lord Ellenborough can have meant to pay any mark of respect to an idol. And why? Because, says the honourable gentleman, the Court of Directors had given positive orders that troops should ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... conflict with the President in the matter of overdue wages; and the final item of a tussle between a stern and upright District Attorney and the might of Tammany, in which the author seems to have a rather whimsical mistrust of both sides. I always like to think of Tammany when our croakers are holding up everything in this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... of whatever is connected with a prescribed order of ceremonies, they find in the Christian religion particular enjoyment. The festivals of the Church, the fire-works with which they are accompanied, the processions mingled with whimsical disguises, are a most fertile source of amusement ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... sat down with an uncertain movement, and covered her face with her hands; whilst Mr. Amherst, clinging to the rock for fear the ebbing tide should carry them out to sea, spoke to her with whimsical entreaty. "Mrs. Beauchamp, please don't faint until Nelson comes back! Pull yourself together—he expects us to do our duty; and, besides, you will ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... odd," he remarked, with a whimsical smile. "What the dickens are you doing in this respectable household, Arranmore? You look like ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... number was an address by "The Publisher to the Purchaser.... The conductors of this paper, being a kind of whimsical and negligent gentry of easy habits and inconstant disposition, its continuation will not so much depend upon the patronage that may be given to it as upon their own humours and caprices. It is, as Johnson says of its title—'Trangram—an odd, ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... was growing serious. Nell was not to be trifled with. The actors stood breathless. Hart grew wild as he realized the difficulty and the fact that she was uncontrollable. King and Parliament, he well knew, could not move her from her whimsical purpose, much less the manager of ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... see if I can arrange an exchange with some other gent; but the present is like to be a werry haggiwatin' season; had more happlications for osses nor ever I remembers, and I've been a dealer now, man and boy, turned of eight-and-thirty years; but young gents is whimsical, and it was a young 'un wot got these, and there's no sayin' but he mayn't like them—indeed, one's rayther difficult to ride—that's to say, the grey, the neatest of the two, and he may come back, and ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the chief, eyeing each other suspiciously and surveying their surroundings with unconcealed and fitting awe. One is of bluff and hearty appearance, but his full face is overcast for the moment with an expression half sad, half whimsical; it is plain that a conjunction of untoward circumstances has raised doubts in his mind of the integrity of a business associate, and he has reluctantly determined to clear or confirm them by means of a 'shadow.' Next to him is a fidgety furrowed man, bristling with suspicion in every line of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... day—that which elevates the arch-Dunce to the throne. Here too we have games, but with a dissimilitude in similitude. He adopts an intermediate number, six. The first is exceedingly fanciful and whimsical. The goddess creates the phantom of a poet. It has the shape of a contemptible swindler in literature, a plagiarist without bounds, named More. He is pursued by two booksellers, and vanishes from the grasp of him who has first clutched the fluttering shade. "Gentle Dulness ever loves ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... murmuring tender apologies that he had not before observed how utterly fatigued she looked; and a whimsical smile broke on the Irishwoman's face as she cleared the table and assured the cups and saucers, with ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... informed, is Sub-, and Madame V——a Supra-Lapsarian. Mr. Pope is the last of the exploded sect of the Ranters. Mr. Sinclair has joined the Shakers. Mr. Grimaldi, Senior, after being long a Jumper, has lately fallen into some whimsical theories respecting the Fall of Man; which he understands, not of an allegorical, but a real tumble, by which the whole body of humanity became, as it were, lame to the performance of good works. Pride he will have to be nothing but a stiff neck; irresolution, the nerves shaken; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... for the turn his conversation took, or the tirade into which he presently broke; the object of which proved to be no other than myself! I do not know that I have ever cut so whimsical a figure as while I sat and heard my name loaded with reproaches; but being certain that he did not know me I waited patiently, and soon learned both who he was, and the grievance which he was about to lay before the King. His name was Boisrose. He had been the leader in that gallant ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... daring experiments in the realms of art. When Bridau is wholly himself he is admirable, and as praise is sweet to him, his disgust is great when one praises the failures in which he alone discovers all that is lacking in the eyes of the public. He is whimsical to the last degree. His friends have seen him destroy a finished picture because, in his eyes, it looked too smooth. "It is overdone," he would ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... one is as South-Pole as all that!" cried Germaine. "You don't know who Lupin is? The most whimsical, the most audacious, and the most genial thief in France. For the last ten years he has kept the police at bay. He has baffled Ganimard, Holmlock Shears, the great English detective, and even Guerchard, whom everybody says is the greatest detective ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... have been inclined to shun, or at all events to pass over lightly. Here we have him at one moment presenting the results of speculations the loftiest that can engage the mind of man; at another making note of whimsical or surprising points in the man or woman he has met with, or in the books he has read; at another, amusing himself with the most recent anecdote, or bon-mot, or reflecting on the latest accident or murder, or good-naturedly ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... magnificent reign of sixty years, Kienlung abdicated in favour of his fifth son, Kiak'ing, for the whimsical reason that he did not wish to reign longer than his grandfather. In Chinese eyes this was sublime. Why did they not enact a law that no man should surpass the longevity ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... called the chorus, were in twelve sets, each group clad in a different colour or design of feather-silk. Their head-dress, while composed of the entire body of a bird of plumage, lacked the flamboyant tail of the peacock. The music was weird and whimsical, as there were neither stringed nor brass instruments. It was made wholly by women playing upon a vast variety of drums and reeds. There were all sizes of whistling reeds or flutes; several of these of different lengths were grouped into ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... instantaneous light on touching a spring, with pens, ink, seal and wax. Amongst the endless number of paper presses is one with a blacksmith, who, when light is required, strikes the anvil and fire appears; abundance of cigar stands with matches are arranged after a variety of whimsical methods, some of them very tasteful, and having quite an ornamental effect. Fortunately, Madame Merckel has in a great degree met with the reward her ingenuity merits, receiving the greatest encouragement from ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... was in not following out the romantic whim, and marrying Lucy Lamb. At least it seems to me so, this morning. In fact sitting in my very new "palatial residence," the whole business of life seems to me rather whimsical. ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... ethical difficulty. When it is for purposes socially innocuous and affecting human beings alone that property is left in trust, it cannot be equitably diverted from those purposes without the consent of all the individuals whom the testamentary arrangements were intended to affect. It matters not how whimsical or preposterous the object enjoined may be; not even though it be a periodical dinner, cooked after the manner of the ancients, like the nauseous one at which Peregrine Pickle assisted; or instruction in alchemy or in Hindoo astronomy, or in the art of walking on one's head. Not until ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... that strikes a stranger from the Atlantic," says Flint (1814), "is the singular, whimsical, and amusing spectacle of the varieties of water-craft, of all shapes and structures." These, Flint, who knew the river well, separates into seven classes: (1) "Stately barges," the size of an Atlantic schooner, with "a raised and outlandish-looking ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... said, "the Duchesse de Chastellux begs that you will join her at a table of whist." He paused a moment, and then, with a languid shrug of his shoulders and a whimsical smile, "Your Grace was speaking of the discontent of the lower orders? They are very unreasonable—these lower orders—they spoil ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... concentration of interest, in economy of language, in selection of the best from the common treasure of experience. In those works where he has been most indifferent, as in the Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, he has been merely whimsical and dull; in those works where the genius he possessed is most felt, as in Saul, A Toccata of Galuppi's, Rabbi Ben Ezra, The Flight of the Duchess, The Bishop Orders his Tomb in Saint Praxed's Church, Herve Riel, Cavalier Tunes, Time's Revenges, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... belonging to a house under repair:—the white house opposite the collar-maker's shop, with four lime-trees before it, and a waggon-load of bricks at the door. That house is the plaything of a wealthy, well-meaning, whimsical person who lives about a mile off. He has a passion for brick and mortar, and, being too wise to meddle with his own residence, diverts himself with altering and re-altering, improving and re-improving, doing and undoing here. It is a perfect Penelope's web. Carpenters and ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... said the minister reflecting, 'more or less, —two hours' work before shop,—three hours or so after shop; that's what you may call driving it hard. You couldn't do it, Richard Ancrum,' and he shook his head with a whimsical melancholy. 'But you were always a poor starveling. Youth that is youth's tough. Don't tell me, sir,' and he looked up sharply, 'that you don't amuse yourself. I wouldn't believe it. There never was a man built like you yet that ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which had seemed merely whimsical in their day, indicate a vein of interest constant in Coleridge's poems, and at its height in his greatest poems—in Christabel, where it has its effect, as it were antipathetically, in the vivid realisation of the serpentine element in Geraldine's nature; and in The Ancient Mariner, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... staff-officers, well versed in the manners of the natives, explained that the governor was expected to carry off what remained of the entertainment. It was really difficult to help laughing at the whimsical notion of carrying away the roast turkeys, kid, fruit, &c., which was before us; but all was actually the perquisite of the train of attendant servants, and I suppose they took possession of it. The gifts offered to the governor when travelling are also theirs, when not too valuable; that is ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of two things to do—either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, however, neither plan seems ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... marble. Above it was a trellis, as is shown by the square pillars in front and the holes in the walls which enclose two sides of the triclinium. These walls are elegantly painted in panels, in the prevailing taste; but above the panelling there is a whimsical frieze, appropriate to the purpose of this little pavilion, consisting of all sorts of eatables which can be introduced at a feast. When Mazois first saw it the colors were fresh and beautiful; but when he wrote, after a lapse of ten years, it was already ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... his arms, then dropped them with a kind of whimsical desperation. "How can I be well, or look well? My pride has suffered as well as my health. I'm ill, ashamed, and sorry. What'll we do, Pauline, if I can't ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... speech with an urgent sincerity in his voice, quite different from his usual whimsical note, and for a moment they looked at each other almost solemnly, the girl's lips parted, her blue eyes wide and serious. She flushed a clear rose-pink. "Why!" she said, "Why, I believe you!" Harrison broke the tension with a laugh. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... up the receiver, and then sat for a moment or two staring rather stupidly before him. At last, he shook his head and laughed in whimsical perplexity: "Who would ever have considered New York the haunt and home of mystery?" he murmured. "Every day connects me with a new one, and the charming ladies who seem involved in them apparently take delight in leaving me completely in the ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... a whimsical idea of yours," said Hircan, "to hold that an honourable woman may in all honour betray the love of a man; but that a man may not do as much towards a woman. You would make out that the heart of the one differs from that of the other; but for my part, in spite of their differences ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... kind-hearted ladies from the adjoining purlieus of Tothill-street, who had been most willingly secured as models for water-nymphs. The most rabidly-engaged gentleman was Turner, who, despite the remonstrances of his colleagues upon the expense attendant upon his whimsical notions, would persist in making the grass more natural by emptying large buckets of treacle and mustard about the ground. Another old gentleman, whose name we cannot at this moment call to recollection, spent the whole ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... and it was to become intimate with her that he had so eagerly sought her friend's company. Cayrol, in learning the Prince's secret, resumed his usual reserved manner. He knew that Micheline was engaged to Pierre Delarue, but still, women were so whimsical! Who could tell? Perhaps Mademoiselle Desvarennes had looked favorably upon ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... seventh whimsical anecdote rises to the surface. When Prince Albert was made a fellow of Lincoln's Inn, and dined in the New Hall, I was present at the banquet. There was a roast joint and one bottle of port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... first sleep in Persia." Think you, my dear Friend, that there ever was such a reason given before for going to bed at midnight;—to wit, that if we did not, we should be acting the part of our Antipodes! And then "the huntsmen are up in America."—What life, what fancy!—Does the whimsical knight give us thus a dish of strong green tea, and call it an opiate! I trust ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... most charming apartments I know of. It looks out upon every variety of scenery, for Dr. O'Rell has had constructed at considerable expense a light iron framework from which are suspended at different times cunningly painted canvases representing landscapes and marines corresponding to the most whimsical fancy. ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... titles and searched for pictures. And thus it was that she came upon a book of Stevenson's verse—her first adventure into poetry. The hymnal lyrics had never stirred her; she had memorized and sung them parrot-wise. But here was new music, tender and kindly and whimsical, that first roved to and fro in the mind and then cuddled up in the heart. Anything that had love ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... snatches of sentences here and there on the heavily scrawled page. They were such as these: "You had led me to hope,"..."for years I have been your faithful admirer,"... "Nor have I wavered for an instant despite your whimsical attitude,"... "therefore I felt justified in believing that you were sincere in your determination to defy your father." And others of an even more caustic nature: "You are going to marry this prince after all,"..." not that you have ever by word or deed bound yourself to me, yet ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... thoughts recurring to the last occasion on which she had seen Granville Ogilvie. He had been rather a fine-looking young man in those days—tall, straight, and well set up; and well she remembered the whimsical way he had of speaking, the humorous glance of his eye, and those baffling intonations of voice that made it so difficult for her to be sure whether he were in jest or earnest. That he had confessedly been attracted ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... in this frame of spirit the whole day: calm, kind attentive—half matronly, and half girlish. The three who had been longest acquainted with her expected every instant to see her capricious spirit break out in some whimsical change or sportive vagary. But their fears were quite unnecessary. Undine continued as mild and gentle as an angel. The priest found it all but impossible to remove his eyes from her; and he often said to ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... quaint and whimsical names bear testimony to the overflowing good humor and high spirits of the early miners. No one took anything too seriously, not even his own success or failure. The very hardness of the life cultivated an ability ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... whimsical an employer to suit me, and I had no disposition to expose myself to his whims. With Young I was always on the best terms, and he was disposed to employ me when a momentary service was required, but I had had one experience ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... It is whimsical that he, who was soon to bid adieu to rhyme, should fix upon a measure in which rhyme abounds even to satiety. Of this he said, in his Essay on Lyrick Poetry, prefixed to the poem: "For the more harmony likewise I chose the frequent return of rhyme, which laid me under great difficulties. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... country clergyman doing his simple duty—trying to lift his congregation to better views of life, partaking their joys and alleviating their sorrows, often a martyr to meddlesome deacons or to pompous trustees, and his wife a prey to the whimsical wives of opinionated pew-owners—such a man I deeply revere; but the longer I live the more I am convinced that the professional revivalist and the sensation preacher are necessarily and normally foes both to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... passed by like the waves of the ocean, since I traversed the streets of London, but many a laugh have I had to myself as memory recalled a whimsical mistake which I stumbled upon in my peregrinations. In passing the streets I frequently saw fine portly-looking men dressed in blue coats, faced and trimmed with a profusion of broad gold lace; breeches and white stockings, and shoes with large buckles, and on their heads ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... employed herself busily in trimming the little black silk bonnet I have spoken about. When it was finished she put it on, and looked at us for approbation—admiration she despised. I was full of sorrow, but, by one of those whimsical thoughts which come unbidden into our heads, in times of deepest grief, I no sooner saw the bonnet than I was reminded of a helmet; and in that hybrid bonnet, half helmet, half jockey-cap, did Miss Jenkyns attend ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... whole day, quiet, kind, and attentive—at once a little matron and a tender bashful girl. The three who had known her longest expected every moment to see some whimsical vagary of her capricious spirit burst forth; but they waited in vain for it. Undine remained as mild and gentle as an angel. The holy father could not take his eyes from her, and he said repeatedly to the bridegroom, "The goodness ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... pleaded the old man in the whimsical whine which he adopted when addressing his daughter. "Don't go and tell your mother that now. It wouldn't be right. Reelly it wouldn't. I'm only makin' a note or two for ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... with whom there was business to be done. The vigour with which he held by his purpose of endeavouring in every possible way to bring the Christianity of Abyssinia within the pale of the Catholic Church is in accordance with the character that makes the centre of the story of this book. Whimsical touches arise out of this strength of character and readiness of resource, as when he tells of the taste of the Abyssinians for raw cow's flesh, with a sauce high in royal Abyssinian favour, made of the cow's gall and contents of its entrails, ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... very whimsical," he laughed across the table, "but really, good cooking makes so much ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... me, as though he had been in the habit of seeing me every day of his life from my earliest childhood, with a whimsical remark on the appearance of a stout negro woman who was sitting upon a stool near the edge of the quay. Presently he observed amiably that I had a very ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... suddenly, and the memory of the shock was too keen upon him to admit of speech. But he shook off reflection as if it had been the dust of the hour. Now he turned to her, and the sweet recognition of his glance was warming her anew. "Don't you go an' play me any such trick," he said, with the whimsical ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... invariably forbearing. Indeed, Prescott sometimes wondered at his patience, for he imagined that his comrade had outgrown what love he had borne her. The man had his virtues: he was rash, but he seldom failed to face the consequences with whimsical good-humor. ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... more than doubtful that the whimsical parson really INTENDED a moral to be read into the adventures of his "Sentimental Journey" that follow in these pages. He used to declare that he never intended anything—he never knew whither his pen was leading—the rash implement, once in hand, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed. |
