"Ass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fool, and will be a pur dahnashin soon. Suddhoo has lost his strength and his wits. See now! I had hoped to get from Suddhoo many rupees while he lived, and many more after his death; and behold, he is spending everything on that offspring of a devil and a she-ass, the seal cutter!" ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... money, had only to repair to his study, and were sure of an immediate supply. He was, indeed, the banker of the village, and what he lent he neither expected nor wished to be returned. Though under the necessity of making frequent journeys to Salamanca, he kept no mule, but contented himself with an ass, borrowed from the neighbouring miller. 'I once kept a mule,' said he; 'but some years since it was removed without my permission by a traveller whom I had housed for the night: for in that alcove I keep two clean beds for ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... and often tells me about water-horses and such-like odd denizens of that far island; and I find her soft Highland speech, with its "ass" for "as" and "ch" for "j," very diverting; but ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... a fine circumstance connected with the character of a Cynic,—that he must be beaten like an ass, and yet when beaten must love those who beat him, as the father, as the brother ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... country of rocks, they made out afar the mountains of Judaea, whose patches of white stone look like snow in sunshine, on the roads streams of wayfarers, tending all eastward to Jerusalem, lines of camels and waggons, pedestrians with wine-skins, mother and sucking child on the solitary ass, and the Bedouin troop; but Spinoza was all solitary among fastnesses on the third forenoon when he muttered nervously: "I must certainly have ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... and will guess What books you doat on from your fav'rite mess, Brown and L'Estrange will surely charm whome'er The frothy pertness strikes of weak small-beer. Who steeps the calf's fat loin in greasy sauce Will hardly loathe the praise that bastes an ass. Who riots on Scotcht Collops scorns not any Insipid, fulsome, trashy miscellany; 245 And who devours whate'er the cook can dish up, Will for ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... species of horse,[1] Eohippus, Hipparion, and so forth, clearly establish a developmental series, and the ancient forms are claimed as the ancestor of the modern horse; but these (Professor Owen tells us) differed more from one another than the ass and the zebra (for instance) differ from the horse. Still, of course it may be that there are still undiscovered intermediate forms; and in any case there need be no desire to detract from the value of the series, as really pointing ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... the taste of his audience, and suited their atmosphere." But why did he select that atmosphere as his? And why so much gratuitous and superfluous iniquity in his works? "But he wrote to gratify his monarch." This would form a good enough excuse for a Sporus, "a white curd of ass' milk," but not for a strong man like Dryden. But he was "no worse than others of his age." Pitiful apology! since, being the ablest man of his day, and therefore bound to be before it, he was in reality behind it, his plays excelling all contemporary productions ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... proportionate amount in so doing. For the harlots took off all the adornment which they wore on their persons, and threw it down there, and any farmer who was in want of plate or of money, but who had an ass or a sheep, brought this to the sanctuary with great zeal. So there was collected an exceedingly great amount of gold and silver and money in other forms, but not a bit of it was given for ransom. For Bouzes happened to be present there, and he took in hand to prevent the transaction, ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... appeared, the more it was despised; there was a visible imbecility and want of intellects in the majority, a sort of je ne sais quoi, that while it affected to be more than citizen, was less than man. It lost ground from contempt more than from hatred; and was rather jeered at as an ass, than dreaded as a lion. This is the general character of aristocracy, or what are called Nobles or Nobility, or rather ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Harleston thought, as he went down the corridor to Carpenter's office. "I shall enjoy watching Spencer make all kinds of an ass of him. 'You impressible chaps!—not dangerous to me!' Oh, Lord, the patronizing bumptiousness of the man!... Have you anything for me, Carpenter?" he asked, as he entered the ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... producing it is most primitive, being almost the same as that used by the Moors hundreds of years ago. They first place the round, green olives in sacks that are then set in a large stone bowl into which a flat cover lifts. An old time screw with beam attachment presses on the stone cover, and as an ass, hitched to the end of the beam, tramps wearily round and round the screw presses the stone tight on the olives, squeezing the oil into cemented grooves at the bottom of the bowl through which it flows into casks. The refuse, or pummies, as we would ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... offhand. Presently their captains will come and pay what is asked, grumbling, and there will be no loss to our folk. As for this talk of taking the horses—well, a sailor always wants a ride when he first comes ashore, if it is only on an ass. Then if there is not enough meat ready to hand in the town, no doubt they would say they would find it for themselves. Well, come on, ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... how you happen to be in this game," pronounced Chamberlain hotly, "but all I've got to say is you're an ass—an ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... Blakely. I misjudged everything—everybody, and now,—well, you know there are still Hotspurs in the service. I'm thinking some man may be ass enough to say you got a ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... wives taken as a matter of course in the lesson! One wonders what is the meaning of justness or kindness to the "servant" conveyed to the child in commandments which link together a man's ox and his ass, his laborer and his wife! The fact is that education has a narrow and perilous path to travel in moral lessons of every sort, a path between a dull and critical analysis of differences in moral standards and moral practice in the ages from which we have come and a wholesale commendation of people ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... desire to be thought a Perfect Gentleman. And this is much to his credit, for the Perfect Gentleman, as thus wistfully contemplated, is a high ideal of human behavior, although, in the narrower but honest admiration of many, he is also a Perfect Ass. Thus, indeed, he comes down the centuries—a sort of Siamese Twins, each miraculously visible only to its own admirers; a worthy personage proceeding at one end of the connecting cartilage, and a popinjay prancing ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... "Ass! blockhead! You know no better than to let such a man in his state of health get mixed up in a crowd of roughs at midnight? Good God! ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... ass of yourself, Roy," Lance flashed out: but his hands were shaking: his lips were shaking. He was no longer ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Sanine, drawing back in disgust from Von Deitz, from whose mouth saliva spurted. "Think what you like; I don't care. And tell Sarudine that he is an ass!" ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... Mr. Tom, with imperturbable good-nature, 'his feet may be small. It is in his stupidity that he is really great. Jack Hanbury can only be described in the words of the American poet: he is a commodious ass.' ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... me down an ass," When, spying through the curious mass, I rub my hands, and wipe my glass, If, chance, an error bless my notice— Will prize when drill'd into his duty, These lovely warts of ugly beauty; For books, when false (it may be new t'ye), ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... here no religious triumph was, or could have been, contemplated by Lord Ellenborough. On this point we need no other evidence than that of Joseph Hume, who, combining the properties of Balaam and his ass, often brays out a blessing when he intends a curse. He tells ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... And, strange to say, Yvonne was not far wide of the mark. She believed that Joseph was a sinner but not a willing one: and Jack Bendish, a little astray among these feminine subtleties, assented after his fashion—"Hyde's rather an ass in some ways," he said simply, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... youngsters where they can't get at them; when the truth is that if we all simply quit work and left them the whole range to graze over, they'd bray to have their fodder brought to them in bales, instead of starting out to hunt the raw material, as we had to. When an ass gets the run of the pasture he ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... that matter of general experience, there are some cases which put that curious mixture in a very clear light. You are aware that the offspring of the Ass and the Horse, or rather of the he-Ass and the Mare, is what is called a Mule; and, on the other hand, the offspring of the Stallion and the she-Ass is what is called a 'Hinny'. I never saw one myself; but they have been very carefully studied. Now, the curious ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... deserting English sailor. With the Treaty of Ghent and cod-headed commissioners and a Congress that wouldn't know a ship from a bread barge the country's going to hell on greased ways! I've said it a thousand times and any man not a complete ass knows that you can't run a government without a strong head. Locofocos," ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... "Don't be an ass, Scott," said Mr. Dwyer, who was too excited to be polite or politic. "You know our being here isn't a matter of choice. We came here on business, as you did, and you've no right to ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... the Doctors. Reaping scene. Adonis and his dog. Mothers with their children in water. Joshua crossing the Jordan with the Ark. Christ's Nativity. * Pyrrhus when a child before king Glaucus. The Man laying his bread on the bridle of the dead Ass. Sterne. The Captive. Ditto. Cupid letting loose two Doves. Cupid asleep. Children eating cherries. St. Anthony of Padua and the Child. Jacob and Laban with his two daughters. The Women looking into the Sepulchre and seeing two Angels where the Lord lay. The Angel unchaining Peter in prison. ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... world. How did the prophets circumstantially prophesy of Christ's birth, his death, his burial, of their giving him gall and vinegar, of their parting his raiment and piercing his hands and feet, of his riding on an ass also. All this they saw when they spake of him. Peter also, though half asleep, could at the very first word call Moses and Elias by their names, when they appeared to Christ in the holy mount. He is very ignorant of the operation of the ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... been small. But they were built out at the back overhanging the river, and the roadway itself was not intended for carts or wheeled vehicles. Remember that everything was brought to the City on pack horse or pack ass. The table of Tolls sanctioned by King Edward I. makes no mention of cart or waggon at all. Men on horseback and loaded horses can get along with a very narrow road. Perhaps we may allow twelve feet for the road which gives for the houses on ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... below cost price. That is the only conceivable way in which a Protective tariff could help the British manufacturer in his rivalry with his German competitors for the markets of the world. As for the cost of this topsy-turvy system of trade it is to be borne of course by that patient ass the British public. The British consumer is to be compelled to pay more dearly for certain goods in order that some other people, Japs or Chinamen, may be able to buy those goods below cost price. ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... affection; and the fiery Covenanters of Scotland exultingly proclaimed that the curse denounced of old against wicked princes had been signally fulfilled, and that the departed tyrant had been buried with the burial of an ass. [225] Yet James commenced his administration with a large measure of public good will. His speech to the Council appeared in print, and the impression which it produced was highly favourable to him. This, then, was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... me. "A pack of sheer nonsense, I call it, this going out of our course on a wild-goose chase and tearing away full speed on a wild night like this, in a howling sea, with a gale, too, astern; and all because an ass of a youngster fancies he saw the ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... history of Herod's ass!" said the jockey; "well, if I did write a book it should be about something more genteel than ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... young man. Sans anything, but that Weary Willie feelin' and a devourin' thirst. But I lost four pounds," he added more cheerfully—his fingers demonstrating in his waistband. "Oh, I'll put it on again to-night at dinner. Silly ass business—this ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... were not as patient as a lamb, I should have kicked him out of the place a year ago. Of course, it didn't matter before you, but it might have been the colonel or the major; and, though there is a way out through my bedroom, that blundering ass must bring my boots and clothes through ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... fairly indoors he had passed into a despair entirely inconsistent—superficially—with the philosopher Baruch, as inconsistent as the irrational behaviour in Bedford Square. He could well enough interpret, so he believed, Miss Hopgood's suppression of him. Ass that he was not to see what he ought to have known so well, that he was playing the fool to her; he, with a grown-up son, to pretend to romance with a girl! At that moment she might be mocking him, or, if she was too good for mockery, she might ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... the snow, the marchings in the sun, the tyrannies of discipline, and the everlasting menace of the cross! And after all this misery they have given you a necklace of honour, as they hang a girdle of bells round the breast of an ass to deafen it on its journey, and prevent it from feeling fatigue. A man like you, braver than Pyrrhus! If only you had wished it! Ah! how happy will you be in large cool halls, with the sound of lyres, lying ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... he said through white lips in response to inquiries how he felt. So the ass got back the way he came, and looked around for the remainder of the H. A.'s. These, however, appeared to have lost stomach ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... obvious reasons many Catholics at this period were but indifferently instructed in their religion. Some to escape attendance at the English Church service unlawfully feigned infidelity. One man having written a seditious book, called Balaam's Ass, against the king, for which he was condemned to death, was accused at his execution of having professed atheism. He denied being an infidel, expressed contrition for his "saucy meddling in the king's matter," and declared himself ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... "Don't be an ass," chided Torrance, his eyes still on the trees. "We can lick four hundred and ninety-five of them, but it was that fellow in there did for the extra five. Find him for me, Koppy, and I'll put him in your place and kick ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... fondling about him, combing his hair, anointing him with precious ointments, washing his feet with tears and wiping them with the hair of their heads, and unmarried, or even married, he would be mobbed, tarred and feathered, and rode, not on an ass, but on a rail . . . . Did he multiply, and did he see his seed? Did he honor his Father's law by complying with it, or did he not? Others may do as they like, but I will not charge our Saviour with neglect or transgression in ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... necessary. He first says, that his wrongs and blows prove him an ass; but immediately, with a correction of his former sentiment, such as may be hourly observed in conversation, he observes that, if he had been an ass, he should, when he was kicked, have ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... an animal would be to state the truth"—to which you would agree; and, "To call you an ass would be to call you an animal"—to which you would also agree; from which I might conclude that, "To call you an ass would {30} be to state the truth"—which you might have a vague idea was not true. If you wish to be sure that this conclusion is incorrect, you must be able to show just ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... Sunday, an image of the Saviour seated on an ass is paraded about the principal streets of the town or village. The Indians strew twigs of palm over the animal, and contend one with another for the honor of throwing their ponchos down on the ground, in order that the ass may walk over them. The ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... pard, half camel, set the crowd agape! He'd eye the mob more keenly than the shows, And find less food for sport in these than those; While the poor authors—he'd suppose their play Addressed to a deaf ass that can but bray. For where's the voice so strong as to o'ercome A Roman theatre's discordant hum? You'd think you heard the Gargan forest roar Or Tuscan billows break upon the shore, So loud the tumult waxes, when ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... a decent outfit and your passage out here and have a honeymoon before we start work on our future home. Darling Vivie! Do think about it. You'd never regret it. I'm a very different Frank to the silly ass you knew in the old Haslemere days. Now here's a five pound note to cover the cost of a full cable to say "yes," and when you'll be ready to start. When I get your answer—somehow I feel it'll be "yes"—I'll send you a draft on a London bank ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... him, (This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand)— And paid for 't, like a gen'lman, on the nail. "Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit. Fiddlepin's end! Get out, you blazing ass! Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby me! Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?" —There's the transaction viewed in the ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... ass, Dresser. I don't need the hundred. And I don't want a quarrel. I think you are playing with dynamite, because you can't get the plunder others have got. Look out ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... points, he thought, which it was superfluous for any man to know exactly, and which certainly much exceeded the comprehension of the vulgar. A famous martyrologist calls Gardiner, on account of this opinion, "an insensible ass, and one that had no feeling of God's spirit in the matter of justification."[*] The meanest Protestant imagined, at that time, that he had a full comprehension of all those mysterious doctrines; and he heartily despised the most learned and knowing person ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... that Tony had taken for mistress, Miss HILDA MOORE was not very kindly served by her part—so rudimentary that its highest flight was achieved when, with a Parthian shot, she referred to Tony as a geni-ass. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... amusing, so observant; it became a thrilling thing to meet him in the court; one asked him to tea, one talked and told him everything. A week later, one seemed to have got to the end of it; the path came to a stop; there was not much in it after all, and presently he was rather an ass; he looked gloomily at one when one met him, but one was off on another chase; this idealising of people was rather a mistake; the pleasure was in the exploration, and there was very little to explore; it was better to have a comfortable set of friends ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... /v.,n./ [PLATO] The act of exploiting a terminal which someone else has absentmindedly left logged on, to use that person's account, especially to post articles intended to make an ass ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... deliberate opinion given by Gouverneur Morris to Alexander Hamilton in 1796, that the French people in general were royalists at heart, and utterly averse to the general overthrow of their institutions by the legislative mob at Paris, or, as Mirabeau comprehensively called them, 'that Wild Ass of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... knowledge of any intrigue, Dorise," he said in that bland, superior manner which always irritated her. She knew that a dozen mothers with eligible feminine encumbrances were trying to angle him, and that Lady Ranscomb was greatly envied by them. But to be the wife of the self-conscious ass—well, as she has already bluntly told him, she would die rather than ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... value in the general scheme to a character which the author made a person when he might have been content with a peg. Mr. DION BOUCICAULT'S physician was as bland a humbug as ever coined guineas in Mayfair. Mr. MARTIN LEWIS, as a profoundly silly ass, played a difficult hand without fault. Miss NINA SEVENING, as a consoler of handsome men in trouble, and Miss FLORENCE LLOYD, as Caroline's maid, competently rounded off in subsidiary roles the work ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... our gracious monarch, done to Philander? How disoblig'd him? Or indeed, what injury to mankind? Who has he oppress'd? Where play'd the tyrant or the ravisher? What one cruel or angry thing has he committed in all the time of his fortunate and peaceable reign over us? Whose ox or whose ass has he unjustly taken? What orphan wrong'd, or widow's tears neglected? But all his life has been one continued miracle; all good, all gracious, calm and merciful: and this good, this god-like King, is mark'd out for slaughter, design'd a sacrifice to the private revenge ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... beneath this praise, warmly returned George's grip. When they released, "I say, George, you are an ass, you know," he said. "Why on earth didn't you tell me what ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... might carry the basket. Next, philosophically, or according to the intuitions of the pure reason—in order that you might, by beholding the magnificence of that great civilisation which your fellows wish to destroy, learn that you are an ass, and a tortoise, and a nonentity, and so beholding yourself to be nothing, may ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... "An ass, then, my dear, lies down sometimes and rolls in dust. I think you are doing it to-night. I think you were preparing to do it this afternoon. Perhaps it is the ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... him. I've told him that the doctor's orders here are very simple .... "Herr Cox," says he to me—Herr's German—I must explain that to Box, because, though Box is a good fellow, yet—he's—in fact—he's an ass. "Herr Cox," says he, "you must drink a glass of sulphur wasser." Wasser's German too; it didn't take long for my naturally fine intellect to discover that it meant water. But Box doesn't know it ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... rising impatiently, "you're a consummate ass! Where the devil do you expect to get $320,000 to buy their land from them? I suppose you think I'll help you with that, also. Your stupidity annoys me, Robert. Damme, sir, you're light in ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... have been the inventor of the dilemma of the ass between two absolutely equal bundles of hay, he maintaining that the ass's choice must be so equally balanced that he would starve, there being no motive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... a great ass; in some respects the greatest ass I know; but he is a gentleman. Perhaps if you have anything else that you wish to say you will do me the honour ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... a fellow who wasn't seedy wouldn't have made an ass of himself over riding the Cresta," Winn explained, ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... was irresistible, and the only wonder was that the secret was kept for the whole day, while Allen moulded in the studio two things that might pass for ass's ears, and secreted cement enough to fasten them on. The performance elicited such a rapture of applause that the door had to be fast locked against the incursion of the little ones to learn the cause of the mirth. When Mother ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did like the beggar. I couldn't stand his infernal manner. But it never occurred to me that he was a bad hat. I merely thought him a pretentious young ass who didn't know his place," ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... thoroughly, put a lot of nice, clean straw on the floor, hung a lantern from the top for heat and drove her down to the party in state. She was game and didn't make a murmur, but Frankling made a pale-gray ass of himself. As I said, I never liked Frankling. He had a nasty, sneering way of looking at the whole school, except his own crowd. His father owned the locomotive works and he always went to Europe for his summers. He was one of those unnecessary individuals ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... from others. Of righteous practices they have none. Their women, intoxicated with drink and divested of robes, laugh and dance outside the walls of the houses in cities, without garlands and unguents, singing while drunk obscene songs of diverse kinds that are as musical as the bray of the ass or the bleat of the camel. In intercourse they are absolutely without any restraint, and in all other matters they act as they like. Maddened with drink, they call upon one another, using many endearing epithets. Addressing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... try to be funny. And all I have to say, Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an egregious ass ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... leopard cannot change his spots, and an ambitious, mercenary woman cannot change her nature. And, as a rule, ladies of wealth and title don't throw themselves away on impecunious dry goods clerks. No! I made an egregious ass of myself once, and once is quite enough. We have turned over a new leaf, and are not going back at this late day to the old ones. With her youth, her fortune, and her beauty, Edith can return to England and ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Lord in the manger of the ass: I strengthened Moses through the water of Jordan; I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene; I have obtained the muse from the cauldron of Caridwen; I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin. I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... a conversation, and his "Cockney" sure did sound funny to me; he was one of the sappers, and when he found that I had left the Infantry to join them he was disgusted. "Well," said he, "you are a bloomin' ass. Why, blime me, mite, this here's the worst bleedin' job in the Army; a man digs till the sweat rolls off, and all he gets for it is a bleedin' shilling, and he has to give six-pence of that to the old woman; blime, it doesn't leave ye enough for bacca, and all the fellas think this ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... seen the rod of Moses, the nail with which Jail slew Sisera, the lamps with which Gideon put to flight the host of Midian, and the ox goad with which Shamgar slew his foes. And they brought out the jaw bone of an ass with which Samson did such great feats, and the sling and stone with which David slew ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... idiot!" I said. "And I should advise you not to go gassing about like this, round the decks. Take my tip, and turn-in and get a sleep. You're talking dotty. Tomorrow you'll perhaps feel what an unholy ass ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... Quite unaccountably and very foolishly. But we shall persuade him still to be of our opinion. The ass that will not walk must be beaten till he gallops! I have no anxiety whatever on any point; even the advent of Jost's spy, with an imitation of your signet on his finger appears to me quite melodramatic, and only helps ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... both parties. A swarm of monks were already buzzing about him for the bold language of his Commentaries and Dialogues. He was called Erasmus for his errors—Arasmus because he would plough up sacred things—Erasinus because he had written himself an ass—Behemoth, Antichrist, and many other names of similar import. Luther was said to have bought the deadly seed in his barn. The egg had been laid by Erasmus, hatched by Luther. On the other hand, he was reviled for not taking side manfully with the reformer. The moderate man received ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... be in the wrong and Erskine in the right in any misunderstanding between them. She had a slovenly way of summing up as "asses" people whose habits of thought differed from hers. Of all varieties of man, the minor poet realized her conception of the human ass most completely, and Erskine, though a very nice fellow indeed, thoroughly good and gentlemanly, in her opinion, was yet a minor poet, and therefore a pronounced ass. Trefusis, on the contrary, was the last man of her ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... this is no excoose for talkin bald noncents. Yoo old ass," sed he, addressin Genral McStinger, "yoo talk uv wat yoo will do, and what yoo wont. Hevent you diskivered that yoo are whipped? Hevent you found out that yoo are subjoogated? Are yoo back into the Yoonyun uv your own free will and akkord? Hevent ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... at last, "you're positively the sentimentalest ass I ever met. But maybe after all you are right. Brenchfield has had this thing eating at his liver like a cancer for six years now and the longer it eats the worse he'll suffer. He is on the down-grade right now, or ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... undervalue my sense, when she hears you telling me every minute you despise me."—"It is impossible, it is impossible," cries the aunt; "no one can undervalue such a boor."—"Boar," answered the squire, "I am no boar; no, nor ass; no, nor rat neither, madam. Remember that—I am no rat. I am a true Englishman, and not of your Hanover breed, that have eat up the nation."—"Thou art one of those wise men," cries she, "whose nonsensical principles have undone the nation; by weakening ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... great city shining in the morning sunlight across a narrow valley; a crowd of shouting peasants waving palm branches in their rustic hands; in the centre the meek carpenter's Son, sitting upon the poor robes which alone draped the ass's colt, the tears upon His cheeks, and His lamenting heard above the Hosannahs, as He looked across the glen and said, 'If thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace!' That is the fulfilment, or part of the fulfilment, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... than a desire to do that which he believed to be right. Such a person was deemed to be wanting in natural abilities, and, as a matter of course, he was defeated; for your Leaplow elector was not such an ass as to confide the care of his interests to one who knew so little how to take care of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... as you pass The carcase buried of a great jack-ass: Perfidious, smiling, fawning, cringing slave, Hell holds his spirit, and his flesh this grave. Corruption revels in a kindred soil: A carcase fatted on an ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... moment under the wing of the Federal courts, despite the laws of the general government affecting the working and management of every one of over a dozen great trunk lines centring in Chicago, Uncle Sam would be ass enough to confide them all to the care of State authorities notoriously dependent upon the masses, and that he would not venture to protect his property, sustain his courts, enforce his laws, demand ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... said Warrington. "I don't tell the world that I do so," he added, with a blush. "I do not choose that questions should be asked: or, perhaps, I am an ass, and don't wish it to be said that George Warrington writes for bread. But I write in the Law Reviews: look here, these articles are mine." And he turned over some sheets. "I write in a newspaper now and then, of which a friend of mine is editor." ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Olive farm, number of hands for working an Olives, allowances of, for farm hands reasons for growth in Attica effect of oaks in neighbourhood of advice on planting propagating from truncheons harvesting of methods of preserving eating preserved Olive salad Onager, wild ass Orchards laying out and planting of olive Ornithones See Aviaries Ortolans, houses for keeping Overseer duties of the location of room of Ovid, quoted Oxen selling of worn-out comparison of horses and care of hoofs of treatment of sick number of, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... hung nearly to their feet. Each had a coarse hair halter held in the hand of a lepero driver, also fantastically dressed in the same black stuff. Behind each stood a lepero similarly attired, and carrying "cuartos" of buffalo-skin. By the side of each ass was one of the padres of the mission, and each of these held in his hand the implements of his trade—book, rosary, and crucifix. The priests wore an official look. They were in the act ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men would cause trouble, and ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... fearful stench of the slime round you. What little time you have over you will employ in wondering why you came to West Africa, and why, after having reached this point of folly, you need have gone and painted the lily and adorned the rose, by being such a colossal ass as to come fooling about ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... and often having big, lazy men on their backs,—so immeasurably disproportioned to the animals as to seem liable to break their tiny limbs like pipe stems. Of course the fable, wherein the old man was told it was more fitting that he should carry his ass than that his ass should carry him, occurred to us. Scores of Egyptian porters, bent half double, carried on their backs loads that would stagger a brewer's horse. Women who rode their ponies and donkeys astride, man-fashion, were yet very careful to cover ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... Midas, for his care of Silenus, receives the power of making gold. He loathes this gift; and bathing in the river Pactolus, its sands become golden. For his stupidity, his ears are changed by Apollo into those of an ass. After this, that God goes to Troy, and aids Laomedon in building its walls. Hercules rescues his daughter Hesione, when fastened to a rock, and his companion Telamon receives her as his wife; while his brother Peleus marries the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... outside the wall. He has ridden up to Jerusalem on an ass, with a multitude before and behind; and some, poor dupes, have hailed him as he passed as King of Israel. That finally is the pretext with which Hanan will compel Pilate. Truly, though not yet taken, the sentence is already ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... driver, who was mad, kept missing three-ton lorries and gun-limbers by the width of the paint. One transport mule, who pretended to be frightened of us, but whose father was the devil and his mother an ass, plunged into a pond of black Flanders mud as we passed, and raked us with solvent filth. We wiped it off our mouths. God rest you merry, gentlemen. A land so inundated that it inverted the raw and alien ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... insane superstition glories in crimes. Nor, concerning these matters, would intelligent report speak of things unless there was the highest degree of truth, and varied crimes of the worst character called, from a sense of decency, for an apology. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion—a worthy and appropriate religion for such morals. Some say that they worship the genitalia of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their parent. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... "take the wing bones out first. Now, my method of beginning at the legs and working forward, is infinitely superior. Yet that ass at Crediton, after I had condescended to show him, persisted his own way was the best." All this time he ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... approached Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, [21:2]and said to them, Go into the village opposite to you, and you will immediately find an ass tied, and a colt with her; untie them, and lead them to me: [21:3]and if any one asks you why, say that the Lord has need of them, and he will immediately send them. [21:4] But all this was done that the words spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled, who says; [21:5]Tell the daughter ...
— The New Testament • Various
... affairs of one kind," he burst out angrily, "and I do not wish to know; but I want to tell you that I think you are making an ass of yourself to be hanging around that Wentworth woman, having every one talking about you and ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... walked to the church, but the church gate was locked and broken—a calf, two pigs, and an ass, in the church-yard; and several boys (with more of skin apparent than clothes) were playing at pitch and toss upon a tombstone, which, upon nearer observation, he saw was the monument of his own family. One of the boys came to the gate, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... did not venture to approach her, but when she got into a cab, took a Hansom and followed her to the entrance of the square, where he got down, his heart beating with exultant hope that "the rascal ass of ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... face, opened two enormous jaws, put up two very long ears, and instead of a roar full of rage and ferocity, sent forth the most agonizing and dolorous bray that was ever heard from the throat of any ass, French, English, or Spanish! Yes! it was an ass the banker had mortally wounded; an unfortunate ass, which, driven by thirst and the heat of the weather, had left his shed at the neighbouring farm-house, to quench it and refresh himself ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... fly for justice and relief into the hands of that great rectifier of saddles and lover of mankind, Dr. Bentley, begging he will take this enormous grievance into his most modern consideration; and if it should so happen that the furniture of an ass in the shape of a second part must for my sins be clapped, by mistake, upon my back, that he will immediately please, in the presence of the world, to lighten me of the burthen, and take it home to his own house till the true beast thinks fit to ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... horse tribe, commencing with an early four-toed ancestor in the Eocene age, has increased in size and in perfect adaptation of feet and teeth to a life on open plains, and has reached its highest perfection in the horse, the ass, and the zebra. In birds, also, we see an advance from the imperfect tooth-billed and reptile-tailed birds of the secondary epoch, to the wonderfully developed falcons, crows, and swallows of our time. So, the ferns, lycopods, conifers, and monocotyledons ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a silly smile. But did not Bottom in an ass's head win the fairy princess? A moon, sweet sir! And now—suddenly!—the magic night dissolves ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... ordinary man, for the greater the wisdom the greater the offence. They that commit the Five Great Sins live many years in hells, and afterwards obtain vile births; the slayer of a priest becomes in turn a dog, a pig, an ass, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, etc, etc. A priest that drinks intoxicating liquor becomes various insects, one after another. A priest that steals becomes a spider, snake, etc, etc. By repeating sinful acts men are reborn in painful and base births, and are hurled about in hells; ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the spirit," he said. "A pretty girl like Eileen need not go wasting her charms on a young ass who doesn't know ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... She never carries a white Shock-dog with Bells under her Arm, nor a Squirrel or Dormouse in her Pocket, but always an abridg'd Piece of Morality to steal out when she is sure of being observ'd. When she went to the famous Ass-Race (which I must confess was but an odd Diversion to be encouraged by People of Rank and Figure) it was not, like other Ladies, to hear those poor Animals bray, nor to see Fellows run naked, or to hear Country Squires in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the Man Would mount, too, quickly as he can: The Sailor—Sailor now no more, 255 But such he had been heretofore— To courteous Benjamin replied, "Go you your way, and mind not me; For I must have, whate'er betide, My Ass and fifty things beside,—260 Go, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... is a theological novel. It is, without any doubt, the most brilliant of Chesterton's novels; it is an argument between a Christian ass and a very decent atheist. Atheists, if they are sincere, are on the way to becoming good Christians; Christians, if they are insincere, are on the way to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... continued, "I'm into this now, sir, and I intend to see it through to the end. I'll keep your secret, too, though I doubt if it'll ever be of much value to you. Know what I think? I think this Carlos is a damn clever fellow instead of the ass you took him to be. He probably just pretended he was ignorant of science. Why shouldn't he? That way he got a liberal education from you in the very things he wanted to find out. Since you tied the can to him he's had plenty of chances to build a duplicate of your ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... soon as he had struck fire, became imperturbable. "Well, I've known you a long time, Patty, and I take an interest in you, you see. Now, I don't fancy this young Culpeper. He is a conceited sort of ass like his father before him, the sort that thinks ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... suspected) in the neighbourhood! This useful faculty of transformation also extended, in some measure, to the persons of others; for Dr. Bulwer gives the following easy recipe for "setting a horse or ass' head" on a man's neck and shoulders:[3]—"Cut off the head of a horse or an ass (before they be dead, otherwise the virtue or strength thereof will be less effectual,) and take an earthen vessel of a fit capacity to contain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... And sometimes the Glove is well manag'd, and the white Hand display'd. Thus, with a thousand other little Motions and Formalities, all in the common Place or Road of Foppery, he takes infinite Pains to shew himself to the Pit and Boxes, a most accomplish'd Ass. This is he, of all human Kind, on whom Love can do no Miracles, and who can no where, and upon no Occasion, quit one Grain of his refin'd Foppery, unless in a Duel, or a Battle, if ever his Stars should be so severe and ill-manner'd, to reduce ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... flying too: don't you see that I want to write my fable. Let me see: Ass, 1; Farmer Killwell, 2; somebody's papa, but not mine. Turkey, 3; Barn-fowls, 4; Little schoolgirl, 5. O, how shall I put all these words together to make any thing of them! O, that I could but begin! There it is!" said Miss Bruce joyfully; and she wrote ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... an ass!" I grunted. "Be off, Arthur, there's a good chap, and don't listen to him. He hasn't the least idea what he is ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one who doth not, Ralf? Then should he have a free gift of my bauble," responded the jester, shaking on high that badge, surmounted with the golden head of an ass, and jingling with bells. "How now, friend Wry-mouth? 'Tis long since thou wert here! This house hath well-nigh been forced to its ghostly weapons for lack of thy substantial ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... up to us and joined the column for company; he earned his keep, too, after he had recovered from the effects of his long fast and had been fattened up again. While on the subject of animals let me state that on this first day a goat, an ass, another camel, and numerous pariah dogs added themselves to ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... ox, found in Virginia; a still larger sloth, called the megatherium, found near Buenos Ayres; the fossil elephant, as different from the living elephants of India or Africa, as the horse is from the ass, and which has been found in Europe, in Asia, and in America. The mastodon, of which several species have been discovered on the banks of the Hudson, in Kentucky, in Louisiana, in the plains of Quito, in France, and finally on the borders of ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... young clergyman. She felt, on the whole, grateful to Mr. Slope and anxious to get on her dress that she might run with the news to her father. Then she came to the allusion to her own pious labours, and she said in her heart that Mr. Slope was an affected ass. Then she went on again and was offended by her boy being called Mr. Slope's darling—he was nobody's darling but her own, or at any rate not the darling of a disagreeable stranger like Mr. Slope. Lastly she arrived at the tresses and felt a qualm of disgust. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... and changing my clothes, betook myself to her house, but found the door locked and covered with dust. So I questioned the neighbours of her and they said, "This house hath been empty these many days; but three days agone there came a woman with an ass, and yesternight, at eventide, she took her gear and went away." So I turned back, confounded in my wit, and every day [after this, for many a day,] I inquired of the inhabitants [of the street] concerning her, but could ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... ... and yet, Dumont, it can hardly have escaped your penetration that if I were to shift from this hostelry without a farthing and leave my offspring to wallow—literally—among millions, I should play the part of little better than an ass. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I am a great ass," he said, kissing her hands. The terrible queen was a woman once more.—"Antoinette," he went on, laying his head on her feet, "you are too chastely tender to speak of our happiness ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... to church next Sunday? I don't mean in the morning, but in the evening. Please don't think for a moment that I have any faith in my power to influence your mind in any way. I am not such a conceited ass as to imagine anything of the sort. My motive for making the request was quite independent of any such considerations. My experience is that those who lose faith in Christianity do not recover it. I speak, of course, of people who ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... low and impressive whisper, laying at the same time his finger on his lip; "ask no more about it—somebody got foul play, and somebody got the blame of it; and the game began there which perhaps may not be played out in our time.—Poor Henry Darnley! to be an ass, he understood somewhat of a hawk; but they sent him on the wing through the air himself ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... of them, they stood in shivering groups, cursing the enterprise and the author of it. Menendez heard Fernando Perez, an ensign, say aloud to his comrades: "This Asturian Corito, who knows no more of war on shore than an ass, has betrayed us all. By God, if my advice had been followed, he would have had his deserts, the day he set out on ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... can," replied the superintendent. "I was a blind ass not to see it earlier. Lola's alibi—which is proved to be false, if what Grell and Abramovitch say is true—helped to blind me. I was thrown off, too, by the finger-prints on the blotting-pad, which corresponded to those on the dagger, and also to those on the typewritten warning which Ivan ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... shame coupled together make a balking team. Now the man was really at a loss what to say. Lucy sat before him with her expression of pitiable self-revelation, and waited, and Horace sat speechless. Now he was there, he wondered what he had been such an ass as to come for. He wondered what he had ever thought he could say, would say. Then Rose's face shone out before his eyes, and his impulse of protection made him firm. He spoke abruptly. "Miss Lucy—" he began. Lucy cast her eyes down and waited, her whole attitude was ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... patches on the knees. Was there ever such a picture of savage good nature and childishness as the giant Willem swung the great bamboo haft of his whip above his head, and chided or exhorted his team straining in the drift! "Come up, Buller," to a favourite ass. "Kruger, you scellum," to a refractory lead, while the great thong cracked like a pistol as the leather hissed between the culprit's ears without touching a ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... been well abused, yet I have had so much praise, that I have become a gourmand, both as to capacity and taste; and I really did not think that mortal man could have tickled my palate in the exquisite manner with which you have done the job. So I am an old ass, and nothing more need be said about this. I agree entirely with all your reservations about accepting the doctrine, and you might have gone further with further safety and truth. Of course I do not wholly agree about sterility. I hate beyond ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Versailles road, Lushington eschewed disguises, changed his lodgings again and appeared in clothes that fitted him. It was a great relief to look like a human being and a gentleman, even at the cost of calling himself an ass for having tried to look like something else. There was but one difficulty in the way of resuming his former appearance, and that lay in the loss of his beard, which would take some time to grow again, while its growth would involve retirement from civilisation during several weeks. But he reflected ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... love of music is a natural taste, especially the sound of instruments, and that beasts themselves are touched by it, being one day in the country I tried an experiment. While a man was playing on the trump marine, I made my observations on a cat, a dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, cows, small birds, and a cock and hens, who were in a yard, under a window on which I was leaning. I did not perceive that the cat was the least affected, and I even judged, by her air, that she would have ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... been with my Lord in the manger of the ass; I strengthened Moses through the water of Jordan; I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene; I have obtained the muse from the cauldron of Ceridwen; I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin. I have been on the White Hill, in ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... of God's faithful ministers, to understand every part of divine revelation, be neither surprised nor disheartened at the want of comprehension, far less attempt to reduce it to human reason, as many have done to their ruin. The Scripture says, 'Vain man would be wise, though born like the wild ass's colt.' 'The wisdom of this world is ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... the last judgement? What can be more anxious and miserable than such an expectation? May not their lot in such a case be compared with that of prisoners bound hand and foot, and lying in a dungeon? If such be a man's lot after death, would it not be better to be born an ass than a man? Is it not also contrary to reason to believe, that the soul can be re-clothed with its body? Is not the body eaten up by worms, mice, and fish? And can a bony skeleton that has been parched in the sun, or mouldered into dust, be introduced into a new body? And how could the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... sure there are in this town many astonishing privations of all that are used to make other places delightful: and as poor Omai the savage said, when about to return to Otaheite—No horse there! no ass! no cow, no golden pippins, no dish of tea!—Ah, missey! I go without every thing—I always so content ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would have done it. The miserable ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... the fresh air! They would walk away from their ennui, their worldly cares, their uncharitableness, their pride of dress; for these devils always want to ride, while the simple virtues are never so happy as when on foot. Let us walk by all means; but if we will ride, get an ass. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... up the earth on their own side. [11] Then he set to work to build his towers by the river. The foundations were of palm-trees, a hundred feet long and more—the palm-tree grows to a greater height than that, and under pressure it will curve upwards like the spine of an ass beneath a load. [12] He laid these foundations in order to give the impression that he meant to besiege the town, and was taking precautions so that the river, even if it found its way into his trench, should not carry off his towers. ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... at him all the time, at his inventions and that kind of thing. Markovitch gets awfully wild. He is bit of an ass, isn't he?" ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... the universe behind them, the defence only that small part which is shut up in their walls. And he felt most strongly at this time that hard fighting was needed. "It is a pity" he writes to Mr. Ludlow, "that telling people what's right, won't make them do it; but not a new fact, though that ass the world has quite forgotten it; and assures you that dear sweet 'incompris' mankind only wants to be told the way to the millennium to walk willingly into it—which is a lie. If you want to get mankind, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Oberon seeing a clown near her, who had lost his way in the wood, and was likewise asleep: 'This fellow,' said he, 'shall be my Titania's true love'; and clapping an ass's head over the clown's, it seemed to fit him as well as if it had grown upon his own shoulders. Though Oberon fixed the ass's head on very gently, it awakened him, and rising up, unconscious of what Oberon had done ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and bootless boast! For which he paid full dear; For, while he spake, a braying ass Did ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... we could likewise breed for spirituality, humanity's chances, I believe, would be bettered by as much again or more. But how is this to be done? Science must somehow find out. To leave it to nature is treason to the mind. Man may be an ass on the whole, but nature is even more of an ass, especially when it stands for human nature minus its saving grace of imaginative, will-directed intelligence. So let us hope that one day people will marry intelligently, and that the best marriages ...
— Progress and History • Various
... in trooper, we've fought 'em in dock, and drunk with 'em in betweens, When they called us the seasick scull'ry-maids, an' we called 'em the Ass Marines; But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo, We sent for the Jollies—'Er Majesty's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too! They think for 'emselves, an' they steal for 'emselves, and they never ask what's to do, But they're ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... Himself on the ground that this precept does not forbid works which are needful for bodily health. Wherefore He says (Luke 13:15): "Doth not every one of you on the Sabbath-day loose his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead them to water?" And farther on (Luke 14:5): "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately draw him out on the Sabbath-day?" Now it is manifest that the miraculous ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... is seen throughout the extensive area over which the eye roams from Bhomtso, and the general character of the desolate landscape was similar to that which I have described as seen from Donkia Pass (chapter xxii). The wild ass* [This, the Equus Hemionus of Pallas, the untameable Kiang of Tibet, abounds in Dingcham, and we saw several. It resembles the ass more than the horse, from its size, heavy head, small limbs, thin ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... I am a most preposterous ass!—and that last, look you, is more valuable than all the others. Solomon, I think, says something about a wise man being truly wise who knoweth himself ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... some of the royal pets: Flora and Alma, two horses fourteen hands high, presented to the Queen by Victor Emmanuel. Jenny, a white donkey, twenty-five years of age, which has been with the Queen since it was a foal. Tewfik, a white Egyptian ass, bought in Cairo by Lord Wolseley. Two Shetland ponies—one, The Skewbald, three feet six inches high; another, a dark brown mare like a miniature cart-horse. The royal herd of fifty cows in milk, chiefly shorthorns and Jerseys. An enormous bison named Jack, obtained in exchange for ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... bad ass, is Moggridge," assented the Honourable Frederic. "Come, Nellie, we've a day's work ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... faith or conscience, ignore the Law entirely. If it is a question of works, then lift high the lantern of works and the righteousness of the Law. If your conscience is oppressed with a sense of sin, talk to your conscience. Say: "You are now groveling in the dirt. You are now a laboring ass. Go ahead, and carry your burden. But why don't you mount up to heaven? There the Law cannot follow you!" Leave the ass burdened with laws behind in the valley. But your conscience, let it ascend with ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... an animal that resembled an ass, but it had a cloven hoof, as we discovered afterwards by tracking it, and was as swift as a deer. This was the first animal we had seen in the streight, except at the entrance, where we found the guanicoes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... attack took place, abruptly and hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass, the attack of the spider on the fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed away his rose, bounded upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, and Gavroche with difficulty restrained a scream. A moment later one of these men was underneath ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... "Cortlandt shot himself. Anybody but a blithering Spanish ass would have known it at the start. We have a letter he wrote to his wife an hour before he did it. She just found it and turned it over. She left here a moment ago, by-the-way, all broken up. She's a great woman, Kirk. That's not all, either. Clifford followed you that night, and knows you didn't ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... on in the tone of one who deplores the inevitable; and went on quickly, "You needn't infer that I've made an ass of myself or that I'm going to. In our position..." He abandoned that as being, perhaps, too obvious. "What I mean to say is," he continued, "that I can't understand about Brenda. And it was such an infernally silly way of going about things. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... his temper. And I knew he would presently close the session with the same old argument that was always his stay and his support in time of need; the same old argument, the one I couldn't answer—because I dasn't: the argument that I was an ass, and better shut up. He ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... kind of a thing is that, master?" said the Prince, making himself look as stupid as an ass; "I should like to ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various |
