"Absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Beautifully indeed! [He continues in growing excitement.] And after that, if those absurd Cocks of far-fetched breeds have not by to-morrow evening gone back to their cages, we will eat them all, ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... construction of the powers granted in the Constitution by this term to include in it all the powers that were granted in the Confederation by terms which specifically defined and, as was supposed, extended their limits. It would be absurd to say that by omitting from the Constitution any portion of the phraseology which was deemed important in the Confederation the import of that term was enlarged, and with it the powers of the Constitution, in a proportional degree, beyond what they ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... not made clear by what I have said. You and I know that when a man becomes as blindly infatuated as he, his conduct violates reason and the simplest prudence and he does things that would be absurd in a child. Frightened by the prospect of losing you, he gave all his thoughts and energies to preventing it. This was the only method that suggested itself, and we cannot deny, my dear friend, that it has been quite successful up to ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... political economy were erroneous and impracticable; yet he seemed to pride himself upon his absurd economical theories. He seemed to have no fixed views of government; he was neither monarchist, aristocrat, nor republican: his opinions seemed to be incompatible with all organised government, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Upper Missouri, the Aguara Dog of South America, the Wild Dog of the Falkland Islands, the Fox Wolves of Patagonia and Terra del Fuego, the Guazu of Paraguay and Chili, and the North American Common Wolf—are all animals of such different appearance and habits, that it is absurd to term them varieties of the same species. In Asia we have just the same series of varieties—that is, in every part of the great continent is found some representative of the tribe, which in reality is no variety, ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... Burke had begun his duties, an incident occurred which illustrates the character of the two men. The old duke of Newcastle, probably desiring a post for some nominee of his own, conveyed to the ear of the new minister various absurd rumours prejudicial to Burke,—that he was an Irish papist, that his real name was O'Bourke, that he had been a Jesuit, that he was an emissary from St Omer's. Lord Rockingham repeated these tales to Burke, who of course denied them with indignation. His chief declared ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Stillman stooped, shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed down intently at each pair of feet as it passed. Fifty men tramped monotonously by—with no result. Sixty. Seventy. The thing was beginning to look absurd. The guest remarked, with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... trained body of men, who had every spiritual and worldly motive to accept the prohibition, and were, moreover, brought up to regard asceticism as the best ideal in life,[453]—we may realize how absurd it is to attempt to gain the same end by mere casual prohibitions issued to untrained people with no motives to obey such prohibitions, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... With its taking there came to him a premonition that the things that he had suspected—the things that he had heard—the things that to him were as unbelievable, as utterly absurd, and ridiculous, and impossible, as might be the vainest imaginings of the vainest, ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... the Work of a Mind at ease; but the Men of true Taste can easily distinguish the Exertion of a Mind which overflows with tender Sentiments, and the Labour of one which is only describing Distress. In Performances of this kind, the most absurd of all things is to be witty; every Sentiment must grow out of the Occasion, and be suitable to the Circumstances of the Character. Where this Rule is transgressed, the humble Servant, in all the fine things he says, is but shewing his Mistress how well he can dress, instead ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... "Absurd," Hugh said to himself, with the distrust of all sudden springs of pure emotion which those who have misused them rarely escape. And then another remembrance, which only a sleeping-draught had kept at bay, darted upon him like a panther on ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... impression on my mind. I was sorry to leave my friends even for two or three weeks, but it was too hot! Nora was pale and Reggie's noble appetite gave signs of flagging. Besides—as I had said to Ottilia—it would be too absurd to have come so far and not see ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... his feet. "I am going to make what will seem an absurd request," he said tensely. "I am going to ask you all—the women, I mean—to take your places at the bridge tables. And then—" he paused for an instant, his blue eyes hard: "I want to see the death hand played ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... blinn, skate, pollack, spider-crabs, and conger eels, we used to catch; the fights with the conger in the dark or by the light of matches or of an old lantern that blew out when it was most wanted; the absurd way the crew turned up their noses at my nice tomato sandwiches and gobbled down stringy corned beef; their quiet slumber round the stern seats and my solitary watch amidships over all the lines, and at the sea-fire trailing ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... unflagging courage they disputed his advance, although they were so few. Once more it was the "Thin Red Line" against the heavy column: hundreds against thousands, a task which for any other troops would have been both hopeless and absurd. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... true,—according to the light in which he saw her position. Had there been nothing between them two but a mutual desire to be married, the reason given by her for changing it all would be absurd. As he had continued to speak, slowly adding on one argument to another, with a certain amount of true eloquence, she felt that unless she could go back to John Gordon she must yield. But it was very hard for her to go back to John Gordon. In the first place, she ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... entities dwell in the body. In the rest he expounds the nature of Sattwa which the commentator takes to mean buddhi or knowledge. He begins with the statement that Sattwasya asrayah nasti. This does not mean that the knowledge has no refuge, for that would be absurd, but it means that the asraya of the knowledge, i.e., that in which the knowledge dwells, viz., the body, does not exist, the true doctrine being that the body has no real existence but that it exists like to its image in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... impose needless labor alike on the officer to be paid and the census office. To say that the square root of an area multiplied by the square root of the number of horses indicates the number of miles travelled in taking a census is as absurd as to say that the square root of the yards of cloth in a suit multiplied by the square root of the number of stitches taken to make the suit will give the length of the thread used. In its practical working in 1860 the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Reynolds, protested against such a desecration of tradition; even the King questioned him, and West replied that the painter should be bound by truth as well as the historian, and to represent a group of English soldiers in the year 1758 as dressed in classic costume was absurd. After the picture was completed, Reynolds was the first to declare that West had won, and that his picture would occasion a revolution in art—as, indeed, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by aspersion or immersion, not only a bird or a quadruped, but also an inanimate object, a statue, a table, a chair, etc. That animal would be Christian, that idol, that table would be Christian! It is absurd!" ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... some of the customs of the Dahcotahs, which, however absurd they may appear to us, are held in sacred reverence by them. There are some animals, birds and fishes, that an Indian venerates; and the creature thus sacred, he dare neither kill nor eat. The selection is usually a bear, buffalo, deer, otter, eagle, hawk or snake. One will not eat the ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... really his tree! [TOMPSON brings in a large basket containing seven small stockings and six small boys' socks—very small stockings and very small socks. They are made of bright and different colors and are stuffed into absurd, bulgy shapes.] There's a name on each one. ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... consider yourself insulted, if you like. I shall not give you satisfaction, because there is neither rhyme nor reason nor satisfaction to be found in the whole business. What an absurd fool he is, to ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... grown up, as papa always says, and really I don't care a continental for that young man. I like him quite well as a friend—he has always been very polite and kind to me since that time when he came so near cutting my fingers off with his skates—but it is absurd to think he wants to be anything more than a friend; besides papa doesn't want me to think about beaux for years to come, and I ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... of the karma upon millions of butterflies? Or does there linger in the innumerable little ganglion minds a memory of long-lost Atlantis, so compelling to masculine Catopsilias that the supreme effort of their lives is an attempt to envisage it? "Absurd fancies, all," says our conscious entomological sense, and we agree and sweep them aside. And then quite as readily, more reasonable scientific theories fall asunder, and we are left at last alone with the butterflies, a vast ignorance, and a great unfulfilled ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... courses to be pursued which divide public opinion, the Opposition is almost bound by its position to enforce the merits of the course opposed to that adopted by the Government. In theory nothing could seem more absurd than a system of government in which, as it has been said, the ablest men in Parliament are divided into two classes, one side being charged with the duty of carrying on the government and the other with that of obstructing and opposing them in their task, and in which, ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... not so philosophical or so cool. She never could withstand the flit of a warbler wing; she would follow for half a day the absurd but enchanting little trill; and she regularly went mad (so to speak) at every migration, over the hundred or two, more or less, varieties that made this wood a resting-place on their way. Now, I could ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... round trot. Colonel Philibert, impatient to reach Beaumanoir, spurred on for a while, hardly noticing the absurd figure of his guide, whose legs stuck out like a pair of compasses beneath his tattered gown, his shaking head threatening dislodgment to hat and wig, while his elbows churned at every jolt, making play with the shuffling gait of his spavined and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... as yet concerning them, and the most rude or absurd ideas are entertained in our country of their objects and nature. As in modern Greece, every ruin is now a Paleo-castro or old castle for the vulgar peasant or herdsman, thus all our ruins of the West are Indian forts for the settlers of the Western states; ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque
... and must be correct. If without an intelligence it was not, and could not be by evolution, for creation by evolution could not, and can not be; because that which is not in a thing can not be evolved out of it, unless you can get more out of a thing than there is in it; which is absurd. So evolution is a negation of the doctrine of a creation. And the doctrine that there is nothing but matter, and that matter is eternal, is a denial of creation by intelligence or otherwise. The infidel says, life began to be; for there was a time when there was no ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... prejudices, it will be impossible to lift the veil, and I have no intention of affording even the slightest preliminary peep behind the scenes of that dramatic affair. The wheels of God grind slowly, and they ground exceeding small almost before the absurd exultation of Nationalist relief over the Pigott episode had abated. It is almost time to treat the whole affair from the historical point of view, and then the idol of Home Rule will be pulverised. However, that is another story in which I ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... made to Southampton, and the Christchurch road taken through Totton to Lyndhurst. The station for the latter town is over two miles away on the Southampton road, where the railway makes a wide detour to Beaulieu Road and Brockenhurst. The absurd title given to Lyndhurst by local guide-books, "Capital of the New Forest," is uncalled for. Certainly it is nearly the centre of the district and is within convenient distance of some of the most beautiful woodlands, but nothing could be a greater contrast to the surroundings ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... American seamen who had been impressed on board British ships. Whenever James says that an American ship had a large proportion of British sailors aboard, the explanation is that a large number of the crew were Americans who had been impressed on British ships. It would be no more absurd to claim Trafalgar as an American victory because there was a certain number of Americans in Nelson's fleet, than it is to assert that the Americans were victorious in 1812, because there were a few renegade British on board ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the whole assembly, of all present and past French legislatures, as if, indeed, bribe-taking on the part of a representative of the people was altogether too monstrous an idea, a crime that surpassed possibility to such an extent that the mere notion of it was absurd. And thereupon applause rang out; the Chamber, delivered from its fears, thrilled ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Then we struck into the woods along what California called a "camina reale,"—a good road,—and Portland a "fair track." It wound in and out among fire-blackened stumps, under pine trees, along the corners of log-fences, through hollows which must be hopeless marsh in winter, and up absurd gradients. But nowhere throughout its length did I see any evidence of road-making. There was a track,—you couldn't well get off it,—and it was all you could do to stay on it. The dust lay a foot thick in the blind ruts, and under ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... that he was certain of that. A feeling of helplessness fastened on him, together with the incongruous speculation about the propriety of a cable to William Grove. The absurd idea occurred to him that Savina had two husbands; each with the right, if he desired, to be at a side of her bed, each holding one of her limp hands. He dismissed the elaborated thought in a rage at the triviality of his mind. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... a bill, let him say so. I for one shall not blame him. There is no reason he should give me anything. But situated as I have been at Oxford, it would have been almost absurd in ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... being meted out to him. As he slowly approached Miss Cronin he endeavoured resolutely to bear himself like a man who had not proposed that day for Miss Van Tuyn's hand. But preposterously, Miss Cronin's absurd misconception seemed to have power over his conscience, and that again over his appearance and gait. He was fully aware, as he went forward to convey Miss Van Tuyn's message, that he made a very poor show of it. In fact, he was just then living up to Dick's description of him ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... preaches, An owl has a toe That can't turn out so! I've made the white owl my study for years, And to see such a job almost moves me to tears! Mister Brown, I'm amazed You should be so gone crazed As to put up a bird In that posture absurd! To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness; The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!" And the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... sides, remained forever. Logically stated, this means that man's goal is the world; this world meaning earth carried to a state higher and with elimination of its evils is the state they call heaven. This theory, on the face of it, is absurd and puerile because it cannot be. There cannot be good without evil, or evil without good. To live in a world where there is all good and no evil, is what Sanskrit logicians call a 'dream in ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... have got on as well as any two people of opposite sex ever can do. There has never been an angry word between us. But one day the impulse—or whatever you like to call it—took possession of me that I must live alone—quite alone and all to myself. Call it an absurd idea, an impossible fancy; call it hysteria—which perhaps it is—I must get right away from everybody and everything. It is a blow to Richard, but I hope he will soon get over it. In the long run his factory will make up ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... had your substantial reward long ago but for the very absurd opinion that by some fixed, mysterious law of nature the labor done by women is worth less than precisely similar work done by men. You should persist in your just claim, if only to establish the principle that the value of work should be estimated according ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... absurd to wait where they were in order to learn every move of their enemies, for that would have been a voluntary abandonment of the advantage secured at the cost of so much labor and danger. Captain Dawson insisted that the pursuit should be pressed without any thought of ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... "That's the worst of it. I know that the whole affair seems quite absurd, but I must admit that I can't fix suspicion upon anyone ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... this absurd attempt at poetry: it led him to music, and in its intense earnestness he first learned to appreciate the seriousness of art, which until then had appeared to him of such small importance in contrast with his other studies, that he regarded "Don Juan" for instance as silly, ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... adventure, as absurd as any, in its way. Have I ever told you that our post-office is ten miles off, with an atrocious road between us and it? I know you will throw down this letter and feel rather disgusted with me ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... until one of their own doctors coming along had a look at the corpse, and promptly verified my statements. That calmed them considerably, and they looked at the thing in cooler blood, and soon saw that it was really absurd to put the blame of the man's death on the shoulders of the Lancers, though they stoutly maintained that our cavalry were at times guilty of such monstrous conduct. I have often heard them solemnly swear never to give ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... with smiling eyes at Levin, and even made a faint gesture of irony to him; but Levin did not think the landowner's words absurd, he understood them better than he did Sviazhsky. A great deal more of what the gentleman with the gray whiskers said to show in what way Russia was ruined by the emancipation struck him indeed as very true, new to him, and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... her lip. She had made her assertion in so categorical a form that to withhold her authority now meant to appear absurd, and she had not wished to betray the confidence of Marian Holbury. So she fell back on the alternative of ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... dogma; but Rodney is said to have expressed himself in more emphatic terms subsequently, as follows: "During all the commands Lord Rodney has been entrusted with, he made it a rule to bring his whole force against a part of the enemy's, and never was so absurd as to bring ship against ship, when the enemy gave him an opportunity of acting otherwise." Though not distinctly so stated, it would seem that his first movement on the present occasion had failed because of the long distance between ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... kick myself," Hall muttered as soon as Dr. Syx was out of earshot. "If my absurd wish to outdo others had not blinded me, I should have known that he would see us going up this side of the peak, particularly with the balloon to give us away. However, what's done can't be undone. He may not really suspect the truth, and if ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... coquettish eyeglass which she wore on a ribbon round her pretty neck, as if she had never seen him before, motioned to him in a queenly way as she raised her dainty foot, giving him a severe look, or what tried to be such but was in truth an absurd failure. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of another man's servants is absurd, and reminds one of the 'plate, glass, and linen' that used to be charged for at the posting-house on the Dover road with every threepenny-worth of brandy-and-water, I have been asked 6d. for an orange (when oranges were cheap) ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... the other hand, have little use for absolutely accurate time, except in connection with matters of transportation, but will refuse to adopt a standard which would materially alter their accustomed habits of thought and of language in every-day life. That this position is absurd may be argued, and, perhaps, admitted, but it is a fact, and ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... Plinter, werry sorry—What! de black cooksmate and all?—But misfortune can't be help. Stop till I put up my needle, and I will take a turn wid you." Here he drew himself up with a great deal of absurd gravity. "Proper dat British hofficer in distress should assist one anoder—We shall consult togeder.—How can ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the distance travelled? The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible routes and compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it considers even obviously absurd routes (like going from Boston to Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that order). For very small N it works well, but it rapidly becomes absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N 15, there are already 1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for N 1000 ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... elaborate note of apology, palpitant with sincerity. It embarrassed her; for in a cooler, quieter moment it appeared to her, absurd that she should have taken his action so seriously, so dramatically. She felt sure that the significance of the whole occurrence had lain in her own self-consciousness. If she ignored his note it would give undue importance to a trivial ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... absurd arrangement anyhow," Mrs. Candy went on. "Matilda at Mrs. Laval's, and Anne and Letitia earning their bread with something not a bit better than mending lace. They will ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... He looked at the smiling face of John Jennings and the tearful eyes of Mrs. Jennings, who had returned with Lyman. But his heart hardened again as he caught sight of Lime looking in at him. His absurd pride would not let him relent. Lime ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... "Somewhat absurd, I will admit," said Mr. Dapper, bowing. "One reverend doctor was not sufficient," he continued, "to look after the education of the prince, and so my Lord Bishop Hayter of Norwich was associated with Doctor Ayscough. Then the Old Harry ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Italian, and pondered. A sudden idea flashed upon his brain. For the first instant it struck him as too absurd ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Protestant, which within their own territories had exercised unquestioned a right of reformation, and the abuse which the Estates of Styria made of their religious liberties, would serve as a justification of this violent procedure. Under the shelter of an absurd positive law, those of equity and prudence might, it was thought, be safely despised. In the execution of these unrighteous designs, Ferdinand did, it must be owned, display no common courage and perseverance. Without tumult, and we may add, without cruelty, he suppressed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... much the serious manner in which this unit of shear in steel is written in specifications and building codes for reinforced concrete work (it does not mean anything in specifications for steelwork, because it is ignored), but it is apparent when designers soberly use these absurd units, and ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... say, as used to be said, that psychology is purely an introspective science, making use of no other sort of observation, is absurd in the face ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... had floundered despondently with endless chains, oars, paddles, duck's feet, so now Thomas and Brown in their efforts to make the railroad effective wandered in a maze of difficulties testing out such absurd and impossible ideas as cars propelled by sails and cars operated by horse treadmills. By May, 1830, however, cars on rails, running by "brigades" and drawn by horses, were in operation in America. It was only in this year that in England locomotives were used ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... "How absurd and childish he is! But he is true and able. And how glad you should be that you are able to make true friends, without an effort. Yesterday I met neighbour Fairley, and another little old Elder who keeps his chin in his collar and his eyes on the sky. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lured into society,—he went a willing victim, with no affectation of martyrdom. The few who met him in Edinburgh drawing-rooms found him prodigal of tongue, somewhat puzzling with his wholesale enthusiasms, absurd flights of fancy, theories he had to propound, and ever ready to change like a chameleon to tone with his surroundings. The spritish, fantastic youth impressed those he encountered, even when he was one of the unfledged ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... figures of the little group of girls she led. But she, the central figure, stood out among all the rest. Fanny Brandeis, the artist, and Fanny Brandeis, the salesman, combined shrewdly to omit no telling detail. The wrong kind of feet in the wrong kind of shoes; the absurd hat; the shabby skirt—every bit of grotesquerie was there, serving to emphasize the glory of the face. Fanny Brandeis' face, as the figure grew, line by line, was a ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... use. When Mr Hope dropped in at the Greys', at two o'clock, he found the family dining. It was a fancy of Mrs Grey's to dine early on what she considered busy days. An early dinner was, with her, a specific for the despatch of business. On this day, the arrangement was rather absurd; for the great evil of the time was, that everything was done, except what could not be transacted till the evening; and the hours were actually hanging heavy on the hands of some members of the family. Morris ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... Cavendish was a great mathematician, electrician, astronomer, meteorologist, and as a chemist he was equally learned and original. He lived at a time when science was to a large extent but blank empiricism; even the philosophy of combustion was based on erroneous and absurd hypotheses, and the speculation of experimenters were wild and fantastic. He was the first to submit these speculations to crucial tests, to careful and accurate experiment; and the results which were given to ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... itself is the growth of ages; and Christian doctrine and Christian creeds have been the evolution of a still longer period. The dogmas of the churches are most manifold and conflicting. Is it not rather immodest and absurd for each church to claim infallibility for its present creed, and that wisdom died when the book of Revelation closed the Bible, or the Council of Trent or the Westminster Assembly adjourned its sitting? It seems to me that the churches ought, instead, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... subsistence. The only pursuit which his present circumstances would allow him to adopt was that which, he was inclined to believe, was likewise the most eligible. Without doubt his experience was slender, and it seemed absurd to pronounce concerning that of which he had no direct knowledge; but so it was, he could not outroot from his mind the persuasion that to plough, to sow, and to reap, were employments most befitting ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the time of day expressed by the rising of the judges; in [Greek: D] of the Iliad, l. 86, by the dining of the woodman. When we recollect that the ancients had not the inventions that we have whereby to measure their time, we shall cease to consider the circumlocution as absurd or ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... 29. In the afternoon meet the Methodist preacher at Israel Methodist church. But I am sorry to say that instead of going into a discussion with me on baptism and other ordinances of God's house he suffered himself to run into an absurd abuse of us, as if we might be doing much harm by our close adherence to the teachings and examples of Christ and his apostles. I can pray the Lord to have mercy upon him, and to open his eyes; for I was led to believe, from what he said, that he ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... auld acquaintance had gone by, and none forgot, Bobby went up to the lodge to sit for an hour with Mistress Jeanie. There he was called "croodlin' doo"—which was altogether absurd—by the fond old woman. As neat of plumage, and as busy and talkative about small domestic matters as the robin, Bobby loved to watch the wifie stirring savory messes over the fire, watering her posies, cleaning the fluttering skylark's cage, or just sitting by the hearth ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... greatly. Sunday morning wore away, and still he did not reappear. But about three o'clock a ferocious and prolonged hooting outside drove us to the window, to see Poirot alighting from a car, accompanied by Japp and Summerhaye. The little man was transformed. He radiated an absurd complacency. He bowed with exaggerated ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... off to bed, thankful for once that he had been considered unworthy a second glance from those luminous brown eyes. His satisfaction, however, was short-lived. A moment later the young lady appeared at the far end of the ward, carrying an absurd little basket adorned with a large pink bow, from which ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... absurd to calculate upon the arrival of the plague in London, I could not reflect without extreme pain on the desolation this evil would cause in Greece. The English for the most part talked of Thrace and Macedonia, as they would of a lunar ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... an interesting drill. Pestiferous little man disturbed nature, and it all seemed so absurd out there on those quiet gray hills. It made me feel, as I slowed down and gazed at the vastness of things, like a superior sort of bug. In the middle distance several hundred troops are of no more proportion than an old cow bawling through the hills after her wolf-eaten calf. If my mental ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... war. He had collected together a force of seven hundred of British regulars and militia and six hundred auxiliary Indians. And he very coolly determined upon obtaining the surrender of His Excellency, General Hull, and his whole force. Knowing from his absurd proclamation, how much in dread he stood of the Indians, General Brocke intimated that if an attack were made, the Indians would be beyond his control; that if Detroit were instantly surrendered, he would enter into conditions such as would satisfy the most scrupulous sense ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... of the advocates of the ointment, he says, "Lastly, it will cure a beast as well as a man, which I like best of all the rest, because it subjecteth the matter to an easy trial." It is worth remembering, that more than two hundred years ago, when an absurd and fantastic remedy was asserted to possess wonderful power, and when sensible persons ascribed its pretended influence to imagination, it was boldly answered that the cure took place when the wounded party did not know of the application made to the weapon, and even when a brute ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... of mind is quite safe. Mr. Pond is right, of course...." And then, thinking that this cool distance was rather absurd under the circumstances, she added in a friendlier way: "But why aren't you the Director here, instead of Mr. Pond? I should think you would be, since it's ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the spirit of modesty. There are those who are inclined to sneer at the Trinitarian; those to whom the doctrine appears merely a contradiction—a puzzle—an entangled, labyrinthine enigma, in which there is no meaning whatever. But let all such remember, that though the doctrine may appear to them absurd, because they have not the proper conception of it, some of the profoundest thinkers, and some of the holiest spirits among mankind, have believed in this doctrine—have clung to it as a matter of life or death. Let ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... shut herself up and speedily die of grief. He makes such vows as most men would make under such circumstances; he presses her hands ardently to his lips, bedews them with his tears, and moves the whole company to sympathy with his own agitation. The scene is absurd enough, or seems so to us dull people of phlegmatic habit. Yet Diderot, even for us, redeems it by the fine remark: "'Tis the effect of what is good and virtuous to leave a large assembly with only one thought and one soul. How all respect one another, love one another in such moments! For instance, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... the history of the war in this country and its social and political effects might have been something much finer, much cleaner and more noble if only the weapons of finance had been more boldly and wisely used. It is not a good thing to indulge in high-falutin' on this subject. It is absurd to suppose that the war suddenly turned us all into plaster saints at the beginning, and that we might have continued so to the end if the State had dealt with our money in a proper way. But without setting up any such idealistic arguments as these, looking ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... of the case, to minimize the rebellious language, the violent acts of the colonists, and to make England responsible for the war because a body of troops were sent to seize cannon and military stores intended to be used against them are so absurd, as well as so untrue, that it is astonishing how wide a ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... cries of various encouragement and consternation. Miss Trinder followed, silent and indomitable, at the heel of the hunt, and the released puppy, who had also harked in, could be heard throwing his tongue in the dusky shrubbery ahead of us. It was all exasperatingly absurd, as things seem to have a habit of being in Ireland. I never felt more like a fool in my life, and the bitterest part of it was that it was all I could do to keep ahead of Bridgie. As for the filly, she waited till we got near her, and then she jumped a five-foot coped wall into the road, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the floor in a pet at the idea of being asked to play such a childish game; but though he tried hard to enjoy his favourite book, and not to listen to their mirth, when Lizzie purposely made such absurd mistakes, he was compelled at last to join in the laughter, and then in the game itself. Afterwards they played a game at bagatelle, but it took all their patience to stand Herbert's whims and tricks. He did not interfere with Lizzie, for she was on his side, but when Caroline and Charles were going ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... to absurd lengths in their skepticism, some of them even saying that they asserted nothing, not even that they asserted nothing. They ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... another thing which he tells me—vexed, if amused a little by the absurdity of it. I mean that absurd affair of the 'Autography'—now isn't it absurd? And for neither you nor George to have the chivalry of tearing out that letter of mine, which was absurd too in its way, and which, knowing less of the world than I know now, I wrote as if writing ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... many of them so vague and unintelligible, that it has been a work of much difficulty to weave them into one continuous narrative, and to shape them into a plot sufficiently interesting for our purpose. The name and character of "Noman" are still the subject of many an absurd and marvellous story among the country ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... obtain. If the perception of rhythm in a series of impressions were dependent on intellectual analysis and discrimination, the existence of such temporal limits as are actually found would be inconceivable and absurd. So long as the perception of the uniformity or proportion of time-relations were possible, together with the discrimination of the regular recurrence in the series of points of accentuation, the perception ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him. Four days a week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two he went to the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justice he did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at five; for he hated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting season, which forces a man to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as he comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all stiff and tired, for two or three ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... long-armed, stooping and altogether incongruous. His entrance was greeted by a general but pretty friendly neighing. He was made to sit down at the table, was helped to vodka and sausage. He, for his part, sent a tramp he knew after beer, and, glass in hand, delivered three absurd speeches: one about the self-determination of Ukraine; another about the goodness of Little Russian sausage, in connection with the beauty and domesticity of the women of Little Russia; and the third, for some reason, about trade ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... as to the beauty of nature and the beauty of geometry, like the others analogous of the historically beautiful and of human beauty, seem less absurd in the Aesthetic of the sympathetic, which means, at bottom, by the words "aesthetic beauty" the representation of what is pleasing. But the pretension to determine scientifically what are the sympathetic contents, and what are the irremediably antipathetic, is ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... "This is absurd!" she exclaimed. "You imagine these grievances, Mary Louise, and I cannot permit you to attack the school and your fellow boarders in so reckless a manner. You shall not stir one step from this school! I forbid you, positively, ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... 4: Since Christ said at the very outset of the preaching of the Gospel: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17), it is most absurd to say that the Gospel of Christ is not the Gospel of the kingdom. But the preaching of the Gospel of Christ may be understood in two ways. First, as denoting the spreading abroad of the knowledge of Christ: and thus the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... as though there could be no to-morrow, and she would never meet him again in this world. This meeting had had a peculiar significance—the flouncy, painted dress, the plans she had made to meet him for once as a woman. Shivering, and in absurd anguish she ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... chimney, or sputters out for want of feeding. And then—and then it is Chloe, in the dark, stark awake, and Strephon snoring unheeding; or vice versa, 'tis poor Strephon that has married a heartless jilt, and awoke out of that absurd vision of conjugal felicity, which was to last for ever, and is over like any other dream. One and other has made his bed, and so must lie in it, until that final day when life ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... case, and not by the rule of abstract rights. Under some circumstances it might be requisite to confine the legislative power to a single individual; under others to the hands of a few; and under others to commit it to the whole community. It would be absurd to maintain, on the ground of the natural equality of men, that a horde of ignorant and vicious savages, should be organized as a pure democracy, if experience taught that such a form of government was destructive to themselves and others. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... she has: and yet she lives on from day to day, wearying herself with little Claude, and stitching away, as though she cared for nothing beyond. Wouldn't she enjoy being rich, and sending things to her family! Why, the delight she had over that common grey plaid that she sent to her aunt was quite absurd—and quite touching too. It cost her two months' wages at the very least, but she did not seem to think of that. The only thing that marred her happiness at all that day was the want of a few pence that would have ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the loss of character resulting from the public persistence in an opinion privately abandoned, not only by considering carefully every change in their own conclusions, but by a delay, which often seems cowardly and absurd, in the public expression of their thoughts upon all questions except those which are ripe for immediate action. The written or reported word remains, and becomes part of that entity outside himself which the stateman is always building ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... it is wonderful that he preserved his power for eighteen years. He must have had great tact and ability to have reigned so long amid the factions which divided France, and which made a throne surrounded with republican institutions at that time absurd and impossible. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... number of wax tapers, were exposed to the adoration of the soldiers. While each of these was, according to custom, giving proofs of his devotion by an endless repetition of crossings and genuflections, the priests were addressing them with fanatical exhortations, which would appear barbarous and absurd to ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... enough at the present time to refer to petroleum as an indispensable commodity. At the beginning of the Civil War, however, any such description would have been absurd. Though petroleum was not unknown, millions of American households were still burning candles, whale oil, and other illuminants. Not until 1859 did our ancestors realize that, concealed in the rocky of western Pennsylvania, lay ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... I observe any instance of folly, any queer habit, any absurd illusion, straightway to look for something of the same type in myself, feeling sure that amid all differences there will be a certain correspondence; just as there is more or less correspondence in the natural history even of continents widely apart, and of islands in opposite zones. No doubt ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... put that absurd French de before his name; and why were my father and he not good friends; and is he married; and has he ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... antiquity, Carneades, was accustomed to take copious doses of white hellebore, a great aperient, as a preparation to refute the dogmas of the stoics. "The thing that gives me the highest spirits (it seems absurd, but true) is a dose of salts; but one can't take them like champagne," said Lord Byron. Dryden's practice was neither whimsical nor peculiar to the poet; he was of a full habit, and, no doubt, had often found by experience the beneficial effects without being aware ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the palatability of many foods when cooked with them. It is surely as unfair to decry the mushroom on account of its low nutritive value, as it is wrong to attribute to it qualities which are nothing short of absurd in view of its composition. In some respects its place as a food is not unlike that of the oyster, celery, berries, and other delicacies. Worked out on the basis of nutritive value alone they would all ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... obscures the dangers against which Militarism is an insurance. Now Militarism is not in itself a desirable thing, and the developments and accidents of it upon the Continent of Europe are often not only irksome and absurd but also irreconcilable with the existence of a healthy feeling of self-respect in the non-military sections of the community, who are taught to regard themselves as an inferior caste; but with all its shortcomings it promotes ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks: "It may seem absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times—what I am going to say to ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... Galissonniere, Admiral of France, who fought the well-known action off Mahon, in the month of June, 1756, with Admiral Byng, who, in consequence of his conduct on that occasion, was brought to a court martial and shot. The French writers make the following absurd remark, as to the cause of his fate: "Les Anglais, furieux d'avoir ete vaincus par un Amiral Francois, firent fusiller l'Amiral Byng". It is now well known that he was sacrificed ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... a more productive element for men to work in than the land? No, that was absurd: the land, in the nature ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... distinctions. The abuses of dominion made the appropriate title of kings odious; the title of a magistrate, who had the care of the public granaries of corn, at length was applied to a wretched flatterer for a dinner; and absurd philosophers occasioned a mere denomination to become a by-name. To employ such terms in their primitive sense would now confuse all ideas; yet there is an affectation of erudition which has frequently revived terms sanctioned by antiquity. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Could my voice have weight in deciding on the names to be given to these new children of the sun, I would call them by the names of their respective discoverers, Piazzi, Gibers and Harding, instead of the senseless and absurd appellations of Ceres, Pallas and Juno. The former method would at least assist us in preserving the history of science; the latter will only tend farther to confuse a very ancient mythology which ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... ever have imagined that a chit of a thing like you, Dorothy Glenn, would have the impudence to put in your oar, or that you ever thought of lovers, or marrying, and you only sixteen a day or so ago?" cried one. "It's absurd!" ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... in this absurd interpretation; but from this moment it became evident that Spain would sooner or later be obliged to render a strict account of the warlike intentions which she had suddenly evinced in 1806; this, without justifying the events of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... out of his book. This being done, he commanded one of the damsels to gird on his sword, which she did with much grace and cleverness. And it was with difficulty that they all kept from laughing during this absurd ceremony, but what they had already seen of Don Quixote's fury made them careful not to annoy him even ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... in my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and so unpleasant, as this sight—ridiculous in the absurd incidents inseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless and unmeaning degradation. There are two steps to begin with, and then a rather broad landing. The more rigid climbers went along this landing ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... smile he put his lips to the spot where she had drunk and drained the last drop. "That's enough for me!" he said, and they laughed self-consciously. His homage seemed to say that thus through life he would be content with what she left him to drink,—absurd fancy, but at this moment altogether delightful.... Later she rested, pillowing her head on his shoulder, covered by his coat, while the trap jolted on through the woods between high hills. Now and ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... whom he was introduced was Mrs. Dillingham, the lady who stood nearest to him—so near that the hand flourish seemed absurd even to him, and half died in the impulse to make it. Mrs. Dillingham, in her black and her magnificent diamonds, went down almost upon the floor in the demonstration of her admiring and reverential courtesy, and pronounced the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... in her orbit she is a good deal nearer to the sun at one time than another. Would you be surprised to hear that she is nearer in our winter and further away in our summer? Yet that is the case. And for the first moment it seems absurd; for what then makes the summer hotter than the winter? That is due to an altogether different cause; it depends on the position of the earth's axis. If that axis were quite straight up and down in reference ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... were popping everywhere. The club house was dressed in bright-colored bunting from veranda rail to ridge pole. Ladies strolled about beneath their parasols with correctly dressed yachtsmen, asking all sorts of absurd questions about the various boats that lay ready to take part in the various events. It was the day of the Hampton Yacht ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... collapse, and have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. I suspect that this is an immense mistake. I suspect that neither the nature nor the amount of our work is accountable for the frequency and severity of our breakdowns, but that their cause lies rather in those absurd feelings of hurry and having no time, in that breathlessness and tension, that anxiety of feature and that solicitude for results, that lack of inner harmony and ease, in short, by which with us the work is so apt to be accompanied, and from which a European who should do the same work ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... remains absurd: for the second clause but repeats the first without adding one jot. For if you care not at all whether you win or lose, you must be entirely indifferent to the results of the game. So why not say 'I was careless if I won or lost,' and have done ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... what his retort is, but you take my point. It is manifestly absurd to drag the psychological element into this cold-blooded mathematical pursuit. After all that England has done and come through in the last few years, is a man in baggy knickerbockers, with tufts on the ends of his garters, going to be daunted and foiled just because a man in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... gigantic plagiarism from the past. Why plagiarize with toil the toils of the past, when all that is good in them lives, necessarily and of its own tendency, in the winged and growing spirit of man? The stream flows in a channel, and is colored by all the ores of its banks, but it would be absurd for it to attempt to take the channel up and carry it along with itself out into the sea. Why should the tinted water of life attempt to carry along with it not only the tint, but also the bank, ages back, from which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... Browne no inexorably severe guide to truth; he will not too sternly reject the amusing because it happens to be slightly improbable, or doubt an authority because he sometimes sanctions a mass of absurd fables.' So he more or less believed in the griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon: he knew that the elephant had no joints, and was caught by cutting down the tree against which he leant in sleep; that the pelican pierced its breast for the good of its young; that ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... Mississippi Company. John Law, already a wealthy and prosperous banker, proposed to increase the paper currency, and supersede the use of gold and silver. His offer was accepted, and his bank became a royal one, its bills going at once into circulation. Now, as the most absurd delusions existed as to the wealth of Louisiana, and the most boundless faith was placed in Law's financiering; and as only Law's bills could purchase shares in the Company which was to make everybody's fortune,—gold and silver flowed to his bank. The shares of the Company continued to rise in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... as Madonna. She had refused to touch the Bambino—sometimes petulantly, sometimes in silent scorn. The tiny figure lay always on the studio floor, dusty and disarranged. The artist picked it up. It was an absurd little wooden face in the lace cap. He straightened the velvet mantle and smoothed the crumpled dress. He stepped to the model-stand and placed the tiny figure in the draped chair. It rested stiffly ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... and Washington to consult with his friends about the great war, to urge active participation in it by the United States, and to offer to the proper authorities, his services as a military expert and commander, his daughter protested vigorously. It was absurd, she declared, for him, at his age, to think of doing anything of the kind; utterly preposterous and absurd. But he would not listen to her. His mind was made up, and she was entirely unable to divert ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... cousins, the manufacturers, or remaining idly in the cafes. He looked with interest on the human current passing through the Ramblas in which were mingled the natives of the country and the picturesque and absurd medley brought ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... first place, the supposed origin of sin in heaven seems to me so absurd as to be utterly unthinkable. This idea of war in heaven, rebellion against God, smacks too much of the Old World traditions, of the mythologies of Greece and Rome and of other peoples. Jupiter could dethrone his father, the god Saturn, because Saturn was not almighty and all-wise. These ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... accustomed grooves. A lady does not willingly get out of her bedroom-window with nothing on but her nightgown; but when her house is on fire she is very thankful for an opportunity of doing so. It is not long since the "habeas corpus" was suspended in parts of Ireland, and absurd arrests were made almost daily when that suspension first took effect. It was grievous that there should be necessity for such a step; and it is very grievous now that such necessity should be felt in the Northern States. But ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... evening my name was entered as an honorary member of the Maryland Club. It would be absurd to compare this institution with the palaces of our own metropolis; but, in all respects, it may fairly rank with the best class of yacht clubs. You find there, besides the ordinary writing and reading accommodation, a pleasant lounge ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... "This is absurd talk," she cried, and rushed to the house. In the upper hall she encountered her aunt engaged in superintending a general dusting and polishing ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... he was set upon the absurd notion he had conceived that the lady had gone westward, and I felt it my duty to warn the Earl not ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... incorrect; but her simple statement is at least supported by minute and feasible details, and, unless rebutted by positive facts, will certainly command credence from impartial minds more readily than his angry accusation, which has something absurd and improbable in its very front. Moreover, is it not absurd to term the assertion of her natural rights by a slave,—even supposing her to have been kindly dealt with by her "owners," and treated in every respect the reverse of what Mary affirms to have ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... something, I dare say, very whimsical about it, probably very absurd, judged at least by the canons of fashion, and old Cousin Monica Knollys, in whose eye the London fashions were always fresh, was palpably struck by it as if it had been some enormity against anatomy, for she certainly laughed very heartily; indeed, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... and children would be hurriedly hidden, as if from fear. These taunts were at first disregarded. But there came a time when living children were brought to the mission for sale as food; whereupon the mission made formal complaint in the yamen, and the Fu at once issued a proclamation checking the absurd tales about the foreigners, and ordering the citizens, under many pains and penalties, to treat the foreigners with respect. There has been no trouble since, and, as we walked through the crowded ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... well, beforehand you design, At vast expense, for me to build a shrine? Friends, 'tis absurd! to no such outlay go; Leave to the great the pomp and pride of woe. Take what for marble or for brass would pay— For a dead beggar garb by far too gay— And buy life-stirring wine on my behalf: The money for my tomb right gayly let ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... instructed to prepare certain text-books by Cardinal Paleotti. These were an Ecclesiastical History, a treatise on the Hebrew Commonwealth, and an edition of Sulpicius Severus. The MSS. were returned to him, accused of unsound doctrine, and scrawled over with such remarks as 'false,' 'absurd.'[125] ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... manners than Pompeo Stromboli. Van Torp might have been on his very best behaviour that morning, or at any of her previous chance meetings with him; sooner or later she would have felt that same absurd and unreasoning fear of him, and would have found it very hard not to turn and make her escape. His face was so stony and his eyes were so aggressive; he was always like something dreadful that was ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... course of his life, and that any one who listens to him through politeness would prefer toothache or ear-ache to his conversation? Does he consider the great uneasiness which ensues, when the company has discovered a man to be an extremely absurd person, at the same time that it is absolutely impossible to convey by words or manner the most distant suspicion of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... its change, which now seemed to have settled into permanency. Of course it was only the ridiculous fashion of the world he once knew, but he could not free himself of the fancy that Priscilla was more her real self in the shabby trappings than she had ever been in the absurd costumes of the In-Place. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... with mutterings of sympathy mingled with astonishment, but out of earshot of Ahmed, all said the merchant must have been mad to draw up so absurd a testament. Ahmed himself could hardly realize the great blow that had befallen him. He consulted with his father's friend and the rabbi, but, although they re-read the document many times, they could find no fault or ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... into the sphere of the so-called higher professions, as for instance, the higher departments of instruction and of the civil service, the medical or legal careers, and the pursuit of the natural sciences. The most laughable and absurd objections are fetched up, and are defended with the air of "learning." Gentlemen, who pass for learned, appeal, in this as in so many other things, to science in order to defend the most absurd and untenable propositions. Their chief trump card is that woman is inferior to man in mental powers ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... out of this difficulty is to go in for separation between internal and external—subject and object—when we find this convenient, and unity between the same when we find unity convenient. This is illogical, but extremes are alone logical, and they are always absurd, the mean is alone practicable and it is always illogical. It is faith and not logic which is the supreme arbiter. They say all roads lead to Rome, and all philosophies that I have ever seen lead ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... out in all that storm on your Caesar," he went on, changing the subject quickly from the man whom he knew bore him an absurd animosity. "A pretty great horse, Caesar. He's looking none the worse for fetching that whisky either. Guess the boys'll be getting over their drunk by now. And it's probably done 'em a heap of good. You did right to encourage ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, against the day of wrath which they see approaching. The idea that Confederate States notes are improving in value, when every commodity, even wood and coal, daily increases in price, is very absurd! ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... their blood atingle. And in a very few moments there was, seeming absurd and impossible, a repetition of the vision which had so startled them: a black form at the head of the cliffs, the field of star-strewn sky back of it limning it into vivid distinctness—the ebon bulk of a steer moving straight out from the top of the precipice, ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... too, chuckled at his own wit, but turned suddenly grave the next moment, and moralized. He pronounced it desirable, for the interests of mankind, that a great and rising singer should not love out of the business; outsiders were wrong-headed and absurd, and did not understand the true artist. However, having discoursed for some time in this strain, he began to fear it might be unpalatable to her; so he stopped abruptly, and said, "But there—what is done is done. We must make the best of it; and you mustn't think I meant to run him down. He loves ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... drifting in silence before the gale, the thought suddenly occurred to Leo, "How strange it is that I, who am a Christian—in name at least—should feel as if it were absurd to pray for God's help at such a time as this! Surely He who made me and these Eskimos is capable of guarding us? The very least we can do is to ask Him ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... garden, on a seat which, at the distance, appeared to be covered with silk or satin, and through the railing looked upon the assembly before him, who formed a semicircle in front of him. Nothing could be more absurd and grotesque than the figures who formed this court. Large stomachs and large heads are indispensable for those who serve the court of Bornou, and those who unfortunately possess not the former by nature, make up the deficiency with wadding. A little to our left, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... Behind one of them sits a wounded, and hatless, and handcuffed captive, his pockets bulging with money. Nobody suspects anything, no one calls the attention of a magistrate to this extraordinary demarche! It is too absurd! ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... man who, by the absurd law of hereditary descent, was the destined heir to the throne of more than twenty millions of people. The king was anxious to obtain for his son a bride whose alliance would strengthen him against his enemies. With that policy alone influencing him, he applied for the hand of ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the dancing plague, or St. Vitus' dance,[60] in the year 1418, and the same infatuation existed among the people there as in the towns of Belgium and the Lower Rhine. Many who were seized at the sight of those affected, excited attention at first by their confused and absurd behavior, and then by their constantly following the swarms of dancers. These were seen day and night passing through the streets, accompanied by musicians playing on bagpipes, and by innumerable spectators attracted by curiosity, to which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... environments of Torbali are in a most wretched condition; to escape sprained ankles it is necessary to walk with a great deal of caution, and the idea of bicycling through them is simply absurd. Nevertheless the populace turns out in high glee, and their expectations run riot as I relieve the kahvay-jee of his faithful vigil and bring forth my wheel. They want me to bin in their stuffy little bazaar, crowded with people and donkeys; mere alley-ways with scarcely a twenty yard stretch ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... following sentence is from Newman: from the point of view of an ardent churchman, it may be a climax; but from the point of view of the general reader who considers the whole greater than any of its parts, in spite of all the sense preceding the final phrase, that is absurd and disappointing nonsense. ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... traditions and superstitions of the Hungarian Gypsies with regard to people suffering from dementia set me thinking; and at last I came to the conclusion that if I really believed Winifred to have taken shelter among the Romanies, it would be absurd not to follow up a band like these Hungarians. Accordingly I changed my course, and followed them up. On coming upon them in a famous English camping-place I found the Lovells and the Boswells. Rhona, dressed in gorgeous attire, evidently purchased at some second-hand ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... which was the only paper that put the news in half a column of ordinary type, took a judicial attitude, called upon the city authorities to tear down the posters, and hinted that "this absurd person, Cosmo Versal, who disgraces a once honored name with his childish attempt to create a sensation that may cause untold harm among the ignorant masses," had laid himself open to ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... to guide a man through these streights.'[362] So much in fact Bentham might learn from Hume; and to defend upon any other ground the congeries of traditional arrangements which passed for the British Constitution was obviously absurd. It was in this warfare against the shifting and ambiguous doctrines of Blackstone that Bentham first showed the superiority of his own method: for, as between the two, Bentham's position is at least ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... coffer under his cot, and Kim shut away Mahbub's pistol, the oilskin packet of letters, and the locked books and diaries, with a groan of relief. For some absurd reason their weight on his shoulders was nothing to their weight on his poor mind. His neck ached under ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... lock-step like a gang of convicts. He had indulged in forty- cent opera, leaning over the iron railing of the top row of the Academy of Music, and had finished the evening at Pfaff's, drinking beer and munching hardtack and pickles, and had laughed and sung in a dozen other equally absurd escapades. And yet it was as plain as daylight to Fred that Oliver's heart was no longer centred in the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith |
