"Absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doubtless would like to see them," said the minister; at this time a man of about thirty years of age. He was a rather comely and intelligent looking man, and Master Raymond wondered that one who appeared so intellectual, should be the victim of such absurd hallucinations. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... have to be faced. What was certain was that this was the time for Belarab to open the great gate and let his men go out, display his power, sweep through the further end of the Settlement, destroy Tengga's defences, do away once for all with the absurd rivalry of that intriguing amateur boat-builder. Lingard turned eagerly toward Belarab but saw the Chief busy looking across the lagoon through a long glass resting on the shoulder of a stooping slave. He was motionless like a carving. Suddenly he let go the long glass which some ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... 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. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... thousand years in the attempt to impose the prohibition of marriage on its priesthood,—an educated and 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 no ideals ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... destroyed another industry nearly as remote from the proper subject of inquiry as either of these. These gentlemen concluded that shipbuilding was becoming extinct, because the Confederate cruisers had destroyed many of our ships—a reason ridiculously absurd, in view of the corollary that the very destruction of those vessels should have stimulated reproduction. Since that abortive attempt to steal bounties from the Treasury for the benefit of a favored class of mechanics, Government, occupied with matters deemed of greater importance, has ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... reproduction opposite page 176. Veronese is not a great favourite of mine; but there is a blandness and aristocratic ease and mastery here that are irresistible. As an illustration of scripture it is of course absurd; but in Venice (whose Doges, as we have seen, had so little humour that they could commission pictures in which they were represented on intimate terms with the Holy Family) one is accustomed to that. As a fine massive arrangement of men, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... horse-yacht. If necessary it could be sworn to before a notary public. But I am perfectly sure that you might read this page through without skipping a word, and if you had never seen the creature with your own eyes, you would have no idea how absurd it looks and ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... 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
... in any walk in life. But in polite society, fashionable society, these things occur. Oftener in New York than in Boston, and oftener in London and Paris than in New York. Indeed, we may sneer, as we often do, at the primitive customs of the lowly, and at their absurd phrase of "keeping company." It makes a delightful jest. But beneath it is a greater regard for the rights of a man or woman in love than one is apt to find higher in the ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... said, smiling, and extending her hand to the earl: "You are right. It would be a crime to suspect her; and I am a fool. Forgive me, Seymour, forgive my absurd and childish anger; and I promise you in return to betray our secret to no one, not ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... 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 ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... "How absurd! How funny! Who did it?" they cried in concert, forgetting all ill feelings as they laughed ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... and sought his passage. The minister but for curiosity and the dread of seeming absurd would have stopped his ears and refused to listen. He was a man of not merely dry or stale, but of deadly doctrines. He would have a man love Christ for protecting him from God, not for leading him to God in whom alone is bliss, out of whom all is darkness and misery. He ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... try upon him the effect of kindness and mild persuasion. He had one very annoying habit, and that was he would very seldom give a satisfactory answer if suddenly asked a direct question, and often his reply would be very absurd, sometimes bordering on downright impudence. The master noticed one afternoon, after calling the boys from their play at recess, that Ned had not entered the school-room with the others. Stepping to the door, ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... don't know," says she. "You see, although she knows perfectly well I've heard all about it, Auntie makes a deep mystery of everything connected with this cruise. It's that absurd Captain Killam who puts her ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... author continues, 'the passage 'originally formed part of the text, it is absurd to affirm that it is any proof of the use or existence of the first Gospel.' 'Absurd' is under the circumstances a rather strong word to use; but, granting that it would have been even 'absurd' to allege this passage, if ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... enough. Who, that is himself at all above the condition of an oyster, will undertake to say, deliberately and upon reflection, that it is not? So long as we have that one fact in our possession, it is absurd, it is simply disgraceful, to complain of any deficiency in this person's biography. There is enough of it and to spare. With that fact in our possession, we ought to have been able to dispense long ago with some, at least, of those details that we have of it. The only fault to be found with the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... the silent house; the overalls still showed their pristine folds, the shirt was of good quality and well-cut. The ends of a narrow red-silk four-in-hand swung free. He was clean-shaven save for an absurd little mustache so fair as to be almost indistinguishable. His blond hair was brushed back unparted from his forehead. Another swift survey of the slight figure disclosed a pair of patent-leather pumps. His socks, revealed at the ankles, were scarlet. Dan was unfamiliar with the menage of such ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... puckered her brows and pursed up her mouth as she thought, while he looked on and decided that her expression was most adorable. "'It don't do to be hasty.' Change 'don't' to 'do not,' and it reads, 'It do not do to be hasty,' which is perfectly absurd." ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... too, a foreigner is often asked to perform absurd, laughable, or impossible cures. One man wants to be made clever, another to be made fat, another to be cured of insanity, another of tobacco, another of whisky, another of hunger, another of tea; another wants to be made strong, so as to conquer in gymnastic exercises; most men ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... she replied, smiling in return; "but it becomes very monotonous. It is the same old round, you know, only that just now it bows a little lower than formerly, while it mingles condolences and congratulations in the most absurd manner. One hears, 'Such a dreadful affair! so shocking, don't you know!' and 'Such delightful fortune! I quite envy you, my dear!' all in the same breath. I am only awaiting what society will say when the real facts ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... by Jove!" he exclaimed in a beautiful English accent, and then started laughing as only absurd ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... the East India Declaratory Act, and there was a great muster of the forces of Fox, Lord North, Lord Lansdowne, and of the refractory directors, with every appearance that some great exertion was to be made. Erskine made the most absurd speech imaginable: and after having spoke for near three hours, he was taken ill, and obliged to leave the bar. Rous was then heard; and when he had finished, Erskine (who had dined in the coffee-room with the Prince of Wales, and been well primed with ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... pair at the time, and they told me absurd and various tales about dark figures wandering along the corridors and bending over them in bed at night, whispering; but their chief trouble was a continuous ringing of bells about ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... "All very absurd, you will agree, and you may get some inkling as to my state of mind while I walked over those same dark hills. I seemed a part of that darkness. I looked up to the stars. They were merely like the pages of a book. I ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... This absurd story evidently belongs to the same class with the Seven cities formerly mentioned, and the El Dorado and Welsh colony, which will both occur in the sequel of this work. Though not exactly connected in point of time with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... all whipped blocks," he went on, his absurd smile still persisting. "You're a cracker jack, you're a smart aleck. You've done to me what the fire did to the furnishing shack. You've dealt me one in the spaghetti joint. Oh, I gotta hand it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... mean it, dear; it's only for fun; and it would be so absurd if we should leave Francesca over here as the presiding genius of an ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... absurd. All were citizens of a free country, and were entitled to hold and express opinions as to what was the best policy for the government to pursue. God has so constituted men that, of necessity, they must differ in ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... swarming at the window of the telegraph-office, and sending home cablegrams to announce their safe arrival; March could not forbear cabling to his son, though he felt it absurd. There was a great deal of talking, but no laughing, except among the Americans, and the girls behind the bar who tried to understand, what they wanted, and then served them with what they chose for them. Otherwise the Germans, though voluble, were unsmiling, and here on the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... responsibility toward my father's property," said Coryston, calmly. "And I intend to settle down upon it, and try and drum a few sound ideas into the minds of our farmers and laborers. Owing to my absurd title I can't stand for our parliamentary division—but I shall look out for somebody who suits me, and run him. You'll find me a nuisance, mother, I'm afraid. But you've done your best for your principles. Don't quarrel with me ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... much out of sorts and footsore. Then an iron-grey colt, called Diaway, having been very poor and miserable when first purchased, but he was a splendid horse. Then came the sideways-going old crab, Terrible Billy. He was always getting into the most absurd predicaments—poor old creature; got down our throats at last!—falling into holes, and up and down slopes, going at them sideways, without the slightest confidence in himself, or apparent fear of consequences; but the old thing always did his work well enough. Blackie next, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... husband, Carrol," she went on rapidly. "I knew you didn't understand it. I ought to have written you about it. I thought I would come and tell you before you did anything absurd. We were married as soon as he heard that his wife ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... this to the excited burghers, but they only sneered at me for my trouble, 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 a Lancer a chance to surrender ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... temporal, and the Representatives freely chosen by the constituent bodies of the realm were met together, there was the essence of a Parliament. Such a Parliament was now in being; and what could be more absurd than to dissolve it at a conjuncture when every hour was precious, when numerous important subjects required immediate legislation, and when dangers, only to be averted by the combined efforts of King, Lords, and Commons, menaced the State? A Jacobite indeed might consistently refuse to recognise ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you under an absurd pretext, on an irregularity in the registry of death, let us say—no matter, I will maintain my child is not dead. As I have the greatest interest in having it believed that she still lives, although lost, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... quite clearly, Austria was backed by Germany. Why this change in German policy? So far as the Kaiser himself is concerned, there can be little doubt that a main cause was the horror he felt at the assassination of the Archduke. The absurd system of autocracy gives to the emotional reactions of an individual a preposterous weight in determining world-policy; and the almost insane feeling of the Kaiser about the sanctity of crowned heads was no doubt a main reason why Germany backed Austria in sending her ultimatum ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... preposterous the very idea is! I do not boast or brag, but it is common knowledge that my father was the richest man in the city, in this entire part of the country, in fact. The thought of such a thing is absurd. Who could have attempted to perpetrate such a senseless hoax, a ridiculous insult to your intelligence ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... was proud of himself in the costume of a groom, partly because he was timid, he desired to get away, to go back to the stables. He walked up to the mirrors as if about to challenge them, peering in. He knew he would look absurd, and then knew, with shame, that he looked splendidly better than most of the gentlemen that Freda Buckler knew. He hated himself. A man who had grown out of the city's ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... there was relief in her laugh. "How absurd you are, Bobby!" she said, kindly. "But you are wrong. My husband is here—I ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... in the world. I'm too absurd to be so upset"—Mr. Longdon smiled through his tears—"but if you had known Lady Julia you'd understand. It's SHE again, as I first knew her, to the life; and not only in feature, in stature, in colour, in movement, but in every bodily mark and sign, ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... long standing. Why, we have always been like cousins—like brother and sister, I may say. He is my brother's most intimate associate and often fancies that he is entitled to the same privileges as the family. Oh, I know it is absurd, uncalled for, to tell you this; undignified even," she was almost weeping, "but it makes so much difference to me what you think of—of me." Her voice had grown very low and agitated. The misery had ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... that they take the "Great Dutch Conspiracy" at all seriously. Some people maintain that, though perhaps the Boer farmers themselves were not in it, yet their leaders were. But the farmers form the vast majority of the Boers. They are an independent and stiff-necked type; and it is as absurd to suppose that their leaders could pledge them to such vast and visionary schemes as it is to suppose that such schemes could have the slightest interest for them. As a matter of fact, what has given old Kruger his long ascendency is the way in which he ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... compromised by the imputations put forth against his principal, declared publicly that the military court which had condemned the Herr von Thalermacher, after hearing only his accuser, was a one-sided and absurd tribunal, and that it was not competent ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... 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 ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... did chide himself over his absurd stupidity. He should have known her better than to have entertained, for even a passing moment, a thought of her inconstancy, and that he should have so misjudged her,—her whom he himself would have selected from among ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... had expressed a wish to leave this useless piece of ordnance behind him; but, to his surprise, the Highland chiefs interposed to solicit that it might accompany their march, pleading the prejudices of their followers, who, little accustomed to artillery, attached a degree of absurd importance to this field-piece, and expected it would contribute essentially to a victory which they could only owe to their own muskets and broadswords. Two or three French artillerymen were therefore appointed to the management of this military engine, which was ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... his mind with importunate distinctness, but he dismissed it as absurd and unworthy of himself. A king would be more likely to offer to share his throne with a beggar than this girl would be to invite him to enjoy the sweet follies of love-making with her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... could make you think such a thing? What an absurd idea! You cannot imagine how kind she was to ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... Ivan was cruelly assassinated. An officer in the Russian army, named Mirovitch, conceived an absurd plan of liberating Ivan from his captivity, restoring him to the throne, and consigning Catharine II. to the dungeon the prince had so long inhabited. Mirovitch had command of the garrison at Schlusselburg, where Ivan was ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... against degradation, for, however lost my public reputation, I could never bear to become sullied in my own sight—and that is a thing not without its use to a woman cut off, as I was at one time, from home, and friends, and Society. So peace to the maiden aunt's ashes, and to those of her absurd kings, for I owe them something after all. And I keep grateful memory of that unknown grand-aunt, for what she did in training my dear mother, the tenderest, sweetest, proudest, purest of women. It is well to be able to look ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... it.—"'Tis really not bad; And yet, it is far from complete, I must add. The feathers, for, instance, how short! 'Tis absurd!" So he set to work straightway to ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... Bob in hurt tones, Mrs. Garland being all the while on tenter-hooks lest Anne should persist in her absurd refusal. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... the fifteenth year of the reign of Amaziah, Jeroboam the son of Joash reigned over Israel in Samaria forty years. This king was guilty of contumely against God, [18] and became very wicked in worshipping of idols, and in many undertakings that were absurd and foreign. He was also the cause of ten thousand misfortunes to the people of Israel. Now one Jonah, a prophet, foretold to him that he should make war with the Syrians, and conquer their army, and enlarge the bounds of his kingdom on the northern parts to the city Hamath, and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... government sets up a manufactory of nobles, it is as absurd as if she undertook to manufacture wise men. Her nobles ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... young people's infatuation for each other going to last? If it is to be brief and evanescent, it would be absurd for me to take a black eye. But if it is to be stable and enduring, I should be ashamed to stand in the way of it. Knowing something of Lucy's history, how long do you think her fancy for ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... had to make speeches, but instead of making a speech Bowers brought in a wonderful Christmas tree, made of split bamboos and a ski stick, with feathers tied to the end of each branch; candles, sweets, preserved fruits, and the most absurd toys of which Bill was the owner. Titus got three things which pleased him immensely, a sponge, a whistle, and a pop-gun which went off when he pressed in the butt. For the rest of the evening he went round ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... riddle. He found himself dragged into society and courted, wondered at and envied very much as if he were one of those foreign barbers who flit over here now and then with a self-conferred title of nobility and marry some rich fool's absurd daughter. Sometimes at a dinner party or a reception he would find himself the centre of interest, and feel unutterably uncomfortable in the discovery. Being obliged to say something, he would mine his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... stock; but we should be careful not to overdo the thing. If we must have gaily-decked ponderous bulls and cows at our fat cattle exhibitions, let us condemn to speedy immolation those unhappy victims to a most absurd fashion; but in the name of common sense let us leave the perpetuation of the species to individuals in a normal state, whose muscles are not replaced by fat, whose hearts are not hypertrophied, and whose lungs are capable of effectively ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... feeble as it was, displeased the first consul; not that it was any obstacle to his designs, but it kept up the habit of thinking in the nation, which he wished to stifle entirely. He put into the journals among other things, an absurd argument against the opposition. Nothing is so simple or so proper, was it there said, as an opposition in England, because the king is the enemy of the people; but in a country, where the executive government is itself named by the people, it is ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... doubtless, enacted to the jingling of morris-dancers and other profanities. These fooleries put the king into such good humour, that he was more witty in his speech than ordinary. Some of these sayings have been recorded, and amongst the rest, that well-known quibble which has been the origin of an absurd mistake, still current through the county, respecting the sirloin. The occasion, as far as we have been able to gather, was thus. Whilst he sat at meat, casting his eyes upon a noble surloin at the lower end of the table, he cried out, 'Bring hither that surloin, sirrah, for ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... belonging to him as "company," there were no more quarrels between Mike and Pierre about the leadership. J.M. could not seem to find his old formal personality for weeks after Mike's baseball had knocked it out of him, and in the meantime he submitted, meekly at first and later with an absurd readiness, to being an Indian chieftain, and the head of the fire department, and the principal of a big public school, and the colonel of a regiment, and the owner of a cotton factory, and the leader of Arctic expeditions, and all the other characters which the fertile ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... stupid pride and churlishness; and should be sick of the advantage of birth or ancestry, if this was the natural fruit of it. "For a man," said her ladyship, "to come to his nephew's house, and to suffer the mistress of it to be closetted up (as he thinks), in order to humour his absurd and brutal insolence, and to behave as he has done, is such a ridicule upon the pride of descent, that I shall ever think of it.—O Mrs. B.," said she, "what advantages have you over every one that sees you; ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... given for this month is to be prepared for either heavy rain or sharp frost, so that extreme variations of temperature may inflict the least possible injury in the garden. Let the work be ordered with reference to the weather, that there may be no 'poaching' on wet ground, or absurd conflict with frost. Accept every opportunity of wheeling out manure; and as long as the ground can be dug without waste of labour, proceed to open trenches, make drains, and mend walks, because this is the period for improving, ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... is disfigured by pedantically heavy punctuation. He carried to absurd excess the methods which his Master adopted in the 1625 edition of his Essays. It has not been thought necessary to retain ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... It is absurd to suppose that, while actually engaging the enemy, Captain Ferris would haul down his colours, to hoist them as a signal of distress, when he had other ensigns to hoist, and when there was a signal in the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... both salt- and fresh-water products. The food of any region is characteristic of that region, and to travel along the Old Coast Road and not partake of one of the delicious fish dinners, is as absurd as it would be to omit rice from a menu in China or roast beef from ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... for my own part that I cannot claim the distinction—will bear me out that the condition of a man's mind during the painful period of waiting for news as to his wife's progress is apt to depart from the normal and make room for imaginings that in saner moments he must dismiss as absurd. There has been a great deal of discussion and not a little criticism on the part of the public as to the committee's wisdom in purchasing this picture, and I am confident you will all agree with me that we could be ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Yet we cannot argue without thinking; nor can we either think or argue to any purpose without freedom. Therefore free-thinking, so far from being a disgrace, is a virtue, a most commendable quality. How absurd, and how cruel it is in the professors of divinity, to address the understanding of men on the subject of their belief, and to upbraid those very men who shall exercise their understanding in attending ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... inspected the promising fruit trees, and were enthusiastic over the roses. Then they wandered over to the Mall and discussed the impending changes in Boston, and said, as people nearly always do, that it would be ruined by improvements. It was sacrilegious to take away Beacon Hill. It was absurd to think of filling in the flats! Who would want to live on made ground? And where were all the people to come from to build houses on these wonderful streets? ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... signs with designs that served as the trade-mark of their products. In the show windows the packages of tobacco were heaped up like so many bricks, and monstrous unsmokable cigars, wrapped in tinfoil as if they were sausages, glitteringly displayed their absurd size; through the doors of the Hebrew shops, free of any decoration, could be seen the shelves laden with rolls of silk and velvet, or the rich silk laces hanging from the ceiling. The Hindu bazaars overflowed into the street with their exotic, polychrome ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... all other such expedients are vain and absurd. A piece of calm water always contains a picture in itself, an exquisite reflection of the objects above it. If you give the time necessary to draw these reflections, disturbing them here and there as you ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... their own business best. We were forced to accept this decision, though we could not imagine why it was that they should thus insist on trying but one at a time. The only reason that I can yet conjecture for this proceeding is, that it would have looked too absurd to arraign twenty-one, or even twelve men, all in a body, and from ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... and a woman came out, mounted their horses and rode away. We were then told to go on home with the horses. I afterwards learned that the whole trouble originated in the fact that the lady who had ridden away was a divorced woman. To present-day readers, this may appear absurd, prudish, but not so to the men and women of that day. This is not repeated here to "point a moral," but merely to "adorn a ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... those who knew Don Quixote, he said aloud, "The fact is, my good fellow, that I am tired collecting such a number of opinions, for I find that there is not one of whom I ask what I desire to know, who does not tell me that it is absurd to say that this is the pack-saddle of an ass, and not the caparison of a horse, nay, of a thoroughbred horse; so you must submit, for, in spite of you and your ass, this is a caparison and no pack-saddle, and you have stated and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... came from the courtyard; the commandant rushed out, and missed seeing the pallor that covered Madame du Gua's face as he spoke. Hulot saw at once that the sound came from a postilion harnessing his horses to the coach, and he cast aside his suspicions, all the more because it seemed absurd to suppose that the Chouans would risk themselves in Alencon. He returned to the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... style of life, and he must be true to it. If he enacts the part of a costermonger, he must swear and talk slang, and commit crimes, if need be, or anything suiting the character he assumes; or else the thing would be absurd, and the gentleman and costermonger would be ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... man, "DONOGHUE rides him; our leading jockey, you know." I had forgotten to look at the jockeys' names. How absurd! Of course ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... of their school-days; and these young folks took the idea that their grandfathers had been taught their letters by a Centaur, half man and half horse. Little children, not quite understanding what is said to them, often get such absurd notions into their heads, ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... catching rheumatism himself, but he risked the life of that boy by encouraging him to do such a foolish action. It was a hair-brained business altogether, sir; and I am glad you had the wisdom, Fred, to keep out of it. The idea of two lives being risked to save that of a wretched cur is too absurd; if you had offered the girl who owned it five shillings to buy another it would have ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... was physically incapable of climbing the tower, that any wounded German of whom the church was full could have seen him doing it, had the absurd charge been true. He reminded them that he had spent his whole time in nursing their men. No use! He is struck, hustled, spat upon, and dragged off to the Mairie. There he passed the night sitting on a hamper, and in the morning some one remembers ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Amelie's. When he was there he lost all self-control, and would whole-heartedly indulge his fantastic humor: he was not afraid of paradox: and he took a malicious delight in pushing his companions to the extreme consequences of their absurd and wild principles. They never knew whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest: for he always grew warm as he talked, and always in the end lost sight of the paradoxical point of view with which he had begun. The artist in him was carried away by the intoxication of the ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... transaction. This my Lady Huntingdon persuaded him to drop, and he took leave of his children the day before. He wrote two letters in the preceding week to Lord Cornwallis on some of these requests - they were cool and rational, and concluded with desiring him not to mind the absurd requests of his (Lord Ferrers's) family in his behalf. On the last morning he dressed himself in his wedding clothes, and said, he thought this, at least, as good an occasion of putting them on as that for which they were first made. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... But that absurd idea—of Santa Claus in the trenches—came into my head several times, and I wondered whether the Germans would fire a whizz-bang at him or give a burst of machine-gun fire if they caught the glint of ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... that lay upon this Coast I must observe, for the benefit of those who may come after me, that I do not believe the one 1/2 of them are laid down in my Chart; for it would be Absurd to suppose that we Could see or find them all. And the same thing may in some Measure be said of the Islands, especially between the Latitude of 20 and 22 degrees, where we saw Islands out at Sea as far as we could distinguish ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... disappointed! Did I expect this twenty years ago? Yes, we ought to save more. But we don't, so there you are! I'm bound to worry! I know I should be better if I didn't smoke so much. I know there's absolutely no sense at all in taking liqueurs. Absurd to be ruffled with her when she's in one of her moods. I don't have enough exercise. Can't be regular, somehow. Not the slightest use hoping that things will be different, because I know they won't. Queer world! Never really what you may call happy, you know. Now, if ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... there anything absurd in his aspiring in those her circumstances to win her. He was a man of good breeding, and more than agreeable manners—with a large topographical experience, and a social experience far from restricted, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... of the Holy Spirit, many passages of Scripture become meaningless and absurd. For example, we read in 1 Cor. ii. 10, "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." This passage sets before us the Holy Spirit, not merely as an illumination whereby we are enabled to grasp the deep things ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... un-careful face. A face it was that always had a rare union of fineness and placidness. The table stood spread in the usual place, warmth and comfort filled every corner of the room, and Fleda began to feel as if she had been in an uncomfortable dream, which was very absurd, but from which she was very glad ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... vivid picture—scenery, date, Greenwich time, and all to give an air of artistic verisimilitude—of the signing of the Peace armistice. The armistice had not been signed at the time, was not signed for some days after. But it would have been absurd to have waited, since "our special correspondent" had seen it all in advance, right down to the embrace of the Turkish delegate and the Bulgarian delegate, and knew that some of the conditions were that the Turkish commissariat was to feed the Bulgarian troops at Chatalja and the Bulgarian ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... I omit to mention, what I trust may be considered as a change belonging to religious feeling—viz., that conversation is now conducted without that accompaniment of those absurd and unmeaning oaths which were once considered an essential embellishment of polite discourse. I distinctly recollect an elderly gentleman, when describing the opinion of a refined and polished female ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... kingdoms for France. He therefore regarded now with little sympathy the aspirations after republican organisation which he had himself originally stimulated among the northern Italians. He knew, however, that the Directory had, by absurd and extravagant demands, provoked the Pope to break off the treaty of Bologna, and to raise his army to the number of 40,000,—that Naples had every disposition to back his Holiness with 30,000 soldiers, provided any reverse should befall the French ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... suburban street. She had been brought up an Independent. After my father's death she became a Baptist, from conscientious scruples. She considered the Baptists, as I do, as the only sect who thoroughly embody the Calvinistic doctrines. She held it, as I do, an absurd and impious thing for those who believe mankind to be children of the devil till they have been consciously "converted," to baptise unconscious infants and give them the sign of God's mercy on the mere chance of that mercy being ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... is evident that this idea is only the ancient hypothesis turned about. The ancients accused the individual man; Rousseau accuses the collective man: at bottom, it is always the same proposition, an absurd proposition. ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... sixteen, wedded the Dauphin Francis, who was a year her junior. The prince was a wretched, whimpering little creature, with a cankered body and a blighted soul. Marriage with such a husband seemed absurd. It never was a marriage in reality. The sickly child would cry all night, for he suffered from abscesses in his ears, and his manhood had been prematurely taken from him. Nevertheless, within a twelvemonth ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... is not mainly concerned with the attainment of pleasure; it is rather concerned, in all its deeper and more authoritative maxims, with the prevention of suffering. There is something artificial in the deliberate pursuit of pleasure; there is something absurd in the obligation to enjoy oneself. We feel no duty in that direction; we take to enjoyment naturally enough after the work of life is done, and the freedom and spontaneity of our pleasures is what is most ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... to let you know that he has no sympathy with Stanly in his absurd wickedness, closing the schools, nor again in his other act of turning our camp into a hunting ground for Slaves. He repudiates both—positively. The latter point has occupied much of his thought; ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... 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, no longer good ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... cold. It may be any one of a dozen things has caused the death of this child. And do you not see that in every case it has nothing whatever to do with the mother's moral goodness or spiritual cultivation? It is absurd to think that the mother, in this case, is being punished for something that she is entirely unconscious of having been guilty of. Do you not see that there is no logical connection between an inherited ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... though she had heard not a word of the lovers' quarrel, as she put a pin in the back of the ruffled collar which Sallie had come to reclaim. A quarrel it had evidently been, and as evidently the lady was mollified, for she said, "Don't be absurd, Jim!" and Jim laughed and responded, "All right, Sallie, you're an angel! But come, we must hurry, or the curtain'll be up,"—and away went the dashing ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... be ignominiously punished as a traitor and a public slanderer. His opponent's minute and temperate narrative of facts appears to have made no impression on him. He is content magisterially to pronounce it absurd and incredible, and inconsistent with itself as well as with probability. He appears in his ire to forget that the king of Scots and his subjects were better able to judge of its truthfulness than he, a foreigner, could be; and that after saying all he could for the bishops ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... be perpetually renewed to the end of time ("to survive the fall of empires," as Miss Lamb says), in order to distinguish the site of every great man's grave, Lamb speaks of the project in these terms: "Godwin has written a pretty absurd book about Sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him that it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir Thomas Browne." Sufficient intimacy, however, had arisen between them to induce Lamb to write a facetious epilogue to ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... 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, except a popular despotism, such as the French empire exemplified. Hatred to England, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in the newspapers? To me at any rate they are not things in newspapers; they are pain and failure, they are torment, they are blood and dust and misery. They haunt me day and night. Even if it is utterly absurd I will still do my utmost. It IS absurd. I'm a madman and you and my mother are sensible people.... And I will go my way.... I don't care for the absurdity. I don't care ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... p. 774. Letter of the Earl of Dartmouth, Sept. 10, 1774. A sufficient answer, by the way, to the absurd charge that Dunmore brought on the war in consequence of some mysterious plan of the Home Government to embroil the Americans with the savages. It is not at all improbable that the Crown advisers were ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... said, "I have an absurd prejudice against paying twice for the same thing; I inherit it from a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... absurd, as the mercury must be the same in quality as before, the quantity only ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... masqued like others: for, in troth, not so To incorporate them, could be nothing else, Than like a state ungovern'd, without laws; Or body made of nothing but diseases: The one, through impotency, poor and wretched; The other, for the anarchy, absurd. ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... The crest was a small emblem worn on top of a knight's helmet. A tower with a lily stuck in it would have been unwieldy and absurd. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer |
