"Whimsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... north, fatter men and better put-on than when they came. Among them were numerous tartans, either as kilt, trews, or plaid; the bonnet was universal, except that some of the officers wore steel helms, with a feather tip in them, and a clan badge of heather or whin or moss, and the dry oak-stalk whimsy of Montrose. They had come bare-footed and bare-buttocked (many of the privates of them) to Campbell country; now, as I say, they were very snod, the scurviest of the knaves set up with his hosen and brogues. Sturdy and black, or lank and white-haired like the old ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... life of man. Turn as we pleased, we all stood back to back in a big ring, and saw another quarter of the heavens, with different mountain-tops along the sky-line and different constellations overhead. We had each of us some whimsy in the brain, which we believed more than anything else, and which discoloured all experience to its own shade. How would you have people agree, when one is deaf and the ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I shall begin to grow in love With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... to her, 'what's the whimsy now? Shalt be the queen. 'Tis the sole way. 'Tis the way to the light.' He leant forward. 'Cleves has gone to the bastard called Charles to sue for mercy. Ye led me so well to set Francis against Charles that I may snap my fingers against both. None but thee could ha' forged that bolt. Child, ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... their loyal support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... in themselves, they deny gloriousness to all mankind; too cowardly for whimsy and derring-do, they assert whimsy and derring-do ceased at the very latest no later than the middle ages; flickering little tapers themselves, their feeble eyes are dazzled to unseeingness of the flaming conflagrations of other souls that illumine their skies. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... musty theological whimsy that I wrote; the definition of stealing or "theft"—I care not by what name you call it—is not for practical men to discuss. Nor was I concerned with the ethical discussion of burglary (to give the matter its old legal and technical title); it was lack ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... said I. And then suddenly I laughed in great relief, remembering the absence of the waste-paper basket. We were turning over what evidently would have been its contents. I explained Adrian's whimsy. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... the latter two being of the kind that especially lifted you to a mood of aching to express things beautifully. Missy liked books that lifted you up. She loved the long-drawn introspections of George Eliot and Augusta J. Evans; the tender whimsy of Barrie as she'd met him through "Margaret Ogilvie" and "Sentimental Tommy"; the fascinating mysteries of Marie Corelli; the colourful appeal of "To Have and To Hold" and the other "historical romances" ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... light of whimsy dancing in his eyes. "Well, I'm doin' fine, thank you most to death. This is the bachelors' camp." He waved his hand to embrace its magnificence, which consisted of a fire, beds of spruce-boughs laid on top of the snow, flies of caribou skin, and wind-shields of twisted ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... shorter range, or else as if wondering what mood he might be in at the moment. There was a palpable uncertainty, curiosity, and perhaps reserve in her attitude, as if she wondered whether he would begin talking pompous platitudes or, on the contrary, breezing into some whimsy. He didn't quite know what to say or do. He felt like a human interrogation point; aware of the necessity of finding out something and ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... the city stands the temple of Night, which deity divides with the Cock their chief allegiance; the temple of the latter is close to the port. On the left is the palace of Sleep. He is the governor, with two lieutenants, Nightmare, son of Whimsy, and Flittergold, son of Fantasy. A well in the middle of the market-place goes by the name of Heavyhead; beside which are the temples of Deceit and Truth. In the market also is the shrine in which oracles are given, the priest and prophet, by special appointment from Sleep, being Antiphon ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... a whimsy seized my master and he declared that we must work and earn our daily bread by the sweat of our brows. At a farm near Chartres we hired ourselves out to an elderly couple, Monsieur and Madame Dubosc, and spent toilsome but healthy days carting manure. Although Paragot wrought miracles ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... was two hours old and he was doing the bidding of his captors at the time. The killing of those who resisted was of course quite in order. Why he was killed while Walker was left unharmed and at his side to the last we did not know and could only credit to a whimsy of our captors. No punishment was visited upon his murderer or upon any of them so far as we were ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... then. A glass before bedtime should be soothing." Still standing, he bit into one of the beef sandwiches, and observed with an approach to the whimsy of gayety: "I've never been quite clear in my own mind as to what was meant by the stalled ox of scriptural fame and I've always subscribed to the text 'better a dinner of herbs where love is'—but I'm bound to say, it's ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... you of, my dear, if I must give in to your moving whimsy. You are everything I wish you to be. But for the last month you have seemed to be uneasy, and have not done me the justice to acquaint me with ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... mockingly; the meaning look McTurpin gave his henchman at the gaming table. Finally, with double force, that movement in the bushes as he told the gambler of his former captive's whereabouts. By what absurd imprudence had he laid himself thus open to the scoundrel's swift attack? What farther whimsy of an unkind Fate had prompted his ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman |
