"Puck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have come to him. The Nobel Prize of Literature and an honorary degree from Oxford were both awarded him in 1907. He has taken some part in politics, but he continues to write, though not so prolifically as before. His more recent books are: "Kim" (1902), a vivid panorama of India; "Puck of Pook's Hill" (1906), and "Rewards and Fairies" (1910), realistic reconstructions of English history; "Actions and Reactions" (1909), a series of stories, among them "An Habitation Enforced," a rare story of the charm of English country life; and "The Fringes of ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... course they would come first, but, oh, I would do such a lot of things! I'd find out where money was most needed and drop it on the people anonymously so that they wouldn't be bothered about thanking anyone. I would creep about like a beneficent Puck and take worried frowns away, and straighten out things for tired people, and, above all, I'd make children smile. There's no fun or satisfaction got from giving big sums to hospitals and things—that's all right for when you're dead. I want to make happiness ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... nor Junius ever dealt in more furious words than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." It would be difficult for Mark Twain to beat that. "The follies and vices of King John were the salvation of ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... "Puck" was the little dog's name, and he appeared in a fair way of "putting a girdle round the earth," if not in forty minutes like his elfish namesake, at least in an appreciable limited space of time, Teddy never being content except he carried about the unfortunate brute with him everywhere he went, ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work] To those traditionary opinions ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin— (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... feats of strength and skill, that he excited the envy of the Puck-wudj In-in-ee-sug, or fairies, who conspired against his life. 'For,' said they, 'if this man is suffered to go on, in his career of strength and exploits, we shall presently have no work to perform. Our agency in the affairs of men must cease. He will undermine our power, and drive us, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... da'kies dat have lived an' died since Ham, De whistlin'est I evah seed was ol' Ike Bates's Sam. In de kitchen er de stable, in de fiel' er mowin' hay, You could hyeah dat boy a-whistlin' pu'ty nigh a mile erway,— Puck'rin' up his ugly features 'twell you could n't see his eyes, Den you 'd hyeah a soun' lak dis un ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... but therewithal He meeteth Puck, which most men call Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall, With words from frenzy spoken: "Oh, oh," quoth Hob, "God save thy grace! Who drest thee in this piteous case? He thus that spoiled my sovereign's face, I ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... death! break head and brain at once, To be deliver'd of your fighting issue. Who can endure to see blind Fortune dote thus? To be enamour'd on this dusty turf, This clod, a whoreson puck-fist! O G——! I could run wild with grief now, to behold The rankness of her bounties, that doth breed Such bulrushes; these mushroom gentlemen, That shoot up in a night to place ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... fragrance streams from her delicate, graceful form in its princess gown of pale yellow with red bows. She dances and flutters about the room with so mysterious and elf-like a grace as though she were playing Puck in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the part in which she first enthralled ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... butter-churn, and while he was dancing his fantastic shape in the churn, in vain the dairymaid would labour to change her cream into butter: nor had the village swains any better success; whenever Puck chose to play his freaks in the brewing copper, the ale was sure to be spoiled. When a few good neighbours were met to drink some comfortable ale together, Puck would jump into the bowl of ale in the likeness of a roasted crab, and when some old goody was going to drink he would ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the fifteenth century, entering into the Greek fancy because it belongs to all ages, has expressed it in its most exquisite form, in a design of Ceres and her children, of whom their mother is no longer afraid, as in the Homeric hymn to Pan. The puck- noses have grown delicate, so that, with Plato's infatuated lover, you may call them winsome, if you please; and no one would wish those hairy little shanks away, with which one of the small Pans walks at her side, grasping her skirt stoutly; while the other, the sick or weary one, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... and Una, brother and sister, living in the English country, had the good fortune to meet with Puck, alias Robin Goodfellow, alias Nick o' Lincoln, alias Lob-lie-by-the-Fire, the last survivor in England of those whom mortals call Fairies. Their proper name, of course, is 'The People of the Hills'. This Puck, by means of the magic of Oak, Ash, ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... O'Farrell played up to me, unoffended. "Still, as a brother of one, I'm bound to search, if it takes all night. A sister's a sister. And mine is quite a valuable asset." He tossed me this hint with a Puck-like air of a private understanding established between us. Yes, "Puck-like" describes him: a Puck at the same time merry and malicious, never to ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... her sitting at a window singing and fervently keeping time with her bead, the little black Puck of a grandson meanwhile, amusing himself with ornamenting her red-and-yellow turban with green dandelion-curls, which shook and trembled with her emotions, causing him perfect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... uses of electricity which are within easy reach for the most homely and practical purposes are as mysterious and magical as the dreams of the magicians. We are served by invisible ministers who are more powerful than the genii and more nimble than Puck. There has been a girdle around the world for many years; but there is good reason to believe that the time will come when news will go round the globe on waves of air. If we were not accustomed to ordering ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... struck upon one of these rocks. Its mast was carried away by the shock, but fortunately no other damage sustained. The Indians ascribe the muddiness of these lakes to an adventure of one of their deities, a mischievous fellow, a sort of Robin Puck, whom they hold in very little esteem. This deity, who is named Weesakootchaht, possesses considerable power, but makes a capricious use of it, and delights in tormenting the poor Indians. He is not, however, invincible, and was soiled in one of his attempts by the artifice of an ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... existence, and all Europe is delighted when it rises with Astolfo in the air. We never pause to ask the poet whether such an animal exists. He has seen it, and we see it with his eyes. Talking trees do not startle us in Virgil and Tennyson. Puck and Titania, Hamlet and Falstaff, are as true for us as Luther and Napoleon so long as we are in the realm of Art. We grant the poet a free privilege because he will use it only for our pleasure. In Science pleasure is not an object, and we give ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... there's no end of good luck in you, Will-o'-the-wisp, with a flicker of Puck in you, Wild as a bull-pup, and all of his pluck in you— Let a man tread on your coat and he'll see! Eyes like the lakes of Killarney for clarity, Nose that turns up without any vulgarity, Smile ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... bug oz a led o' ten. Old Tom hed been goun' from bed tull worse, ploughun' up an' down the fields an' talkun' an' mutterun' tull humself. On the marnun' o' the day I mind me, he was suttun' on the bench outside the kutchen, a-futtun' the handle tull a puck-axe. Unbeknown, the monster eediot crawled tull the door an' brayed after hus fashion ot the sun. I see old Tom start up an' look. An' there was the monster eediot, waggun' uts bug head an' blunkun' an' brayun' like the great ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... not knowing where he was going; he had put sugar instead of salt into the salt-cellars at the housekeeper's dining-table, that he might see what she would say; and he had been caught dressing up Miss Jane's Skye terrier in one of the butler's clean cravats; so, though Puck, the aforesaid terrier, liked him better than any other person, Miss Jane not excepted, a regular complaint went up of him to my Lady, and he was sent home. He was abashed, and sorry to have vexed mother and disappointed Miss Jane; but somehow he could ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and Orlando wandered out of Arden into a New England moonlight; when flitting Ariel forsook Prospero's isle to make his nest in Wellesley's bowering rhododendrons—in blossom time he is always hovering there, a winged bloom, for eyes that are not holden. Those were the nights when Puck came dancing up from Tupelo with Titania's fairy rout a-twinkle at his heels; when the great Hindu Raj floated from India in his canopied barge across the moonlit waters of Lake Waban; when Tristram and Iseult, on their way to the ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... which must be classed by themselves, are not wanting in local flavor. Herrick's fairy world is an immeasurable distance from that of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Puck and Titania are of finer breath than Herrick's little folk, who may be said to have Devonshire manners and to live in a miniature England of their own. Like the magician who summons them from nowhere, they are fond of color and perfume and substantial ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Watts Phillips, first declared himself in Punch with a few examples of his art, which George Cruikshank had fostered. They lasted up to 1846, but amounted to very little. He gave more attention to "Puck," of which Chatto was the editor; and when, a few years afterwards, he joined "Diogenes" as its cartoonist, he gave full rein ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... superstition, it seems, are less objectionable than our own folk lore; the tremendous shades of Brahma and Budhu, of Juggernaut and the goddess Kali, with their uncouth images and horrid worship, are harmless when compared with Puck, the Pixies, and Robin Goodfellow; and Caste, Suttee, and Devil-worship[3] are evils of less magnitude than cairns, kist-vaens, and cromlechs. The mental balance must be peculiarly constructed that could lead to such a decision. Certainly H. N. is no Rhadamanthus. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... heavily, I pray; Like elephants you're treading! And 'mong the elves be Puck to-day, The stoutest ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... are told of a certain evil spirit named Kleure who transforms himself into a tree to escape notice, a superstition which under a variety of forms still lingers here and there.[2] It would seem, too, that in some of our old legends and superstitions the terms Puck and Devil are synonymous, a circumstance which explains the meaning, otherwise unintelligible, of many items of plant-lore in our own and other countries. Thus the word "Puck" has been identified with Pogge—toad, under which form ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... Ariel," she said. "I was footing it featly, you know, on these yellow sands. Sometimes I am Puck, and sometimes Titania; but Daddy likes Ariel best, and so do I. Did you ever play it?" she asked, looking up into the kindly face that ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... the progress of his negotiations. It will be observed that he surrounds the subject with a degree of mystery, through the names which he gives to the gentlemen whom he interviewed. Thus the Chevalier is Sir Walter Scott; M. is Mr. Lockhart; X. is Mr. Canning; O. is the political Puck (could this be himself?); and Chronometer ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... sleighbells died away across the snow, Hi offered to read jokes to Anna from "Pickings from Puck," which he had selected as a Christmas present from Kate, if she would consent to have supper in the sitting-room, where it was warm and cosy. Anna began to pop the corn, and Hi to read the jokes with more effort than ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... clearly; but to explain a thing so delicate, so illusive, would be like taking a soap-bubble in your hand to demonstrate that it was round. It's an effect of imagination and climate: imagination which gave graceful lightness and simplicity to Georgian models; climate which has played Puck-tricks with elms and other stately trees of England, turning them into fairy trees while leaving the family resemblance. Why, there's something different even about the paint on those dear old frame houses in the country over here! In no other part of the world, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... of Used-to-Be, Strange folk were known to you and me,— Mowgh and Puck, and all their kin, Launcelot, and Huckleberry Finn, Wise Talleyrand, brave Ivanhoe, Juliet, and Lear, and Prospero, Alleyne and his White Company, And trooping ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... be good, dear," had been the verdict of the Commissioner's wife when she had first seen little Puck Merryon, the ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... from the moment that gentleman thrust a wet paw out of the water to shake hands and tossed the brine from a grinning face to acknowledge the girl's introduction. He liked him even better for the Puck-like irresponsibility of his good humor as, later on, he introduced Stuart to the others ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... behaved like a marplot, rather than as the guest of a king. Quarrel succeeded quarrel. Most of his embroilments with the king were of less credit to Voltaire than to Frederick. The former was as full of tricks as Puck, and impish in his mischief. Frederick was overbearing and tyrannical. Having a rude sense of justice, being German, he would grant no license to the stinging, envious satires of the jealous, envious Frenchman. They managed to get on with each other for about three years. Voltaire ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... "Ball and Bell, Bell and Ball." But the Greek letter episode, or rather, the episode about the Greek letter which never was written, is, if possible, more flagrantly rigmarolish. The-cop-and-bore-and-woman digression contains some remarkable description as a kind of solace to the Puck-led traveller; the other is bare of any such comfort. The Bishop's old housekeeper, who was De Quincey's landlady, told him, it seems, that the Bishop had cautioned her against taking in lodgers ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... through coppices of water-loving willows and straggling brier. This, which was difficult by day, was dangerous in a threefold degree at night. Moreover, the Moor was reputed to be haunted by spirits, shadows that ran and leaped, and peered and jabbered; and Puck wi' the lantern flickered over the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... is flat. I'll give Mr. Smith his address, and when he gets home he can go and prove to him that he's a flat. (Laughter.) You remember in a play of Shakespeare there's a little chap that says he'll put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes. His name was Puck, gentlemen. Mr. Smith won't do it quite so quick—not this journey, at any rate—but who knows what these young scientific fellows will be a-doing of next? Mr. Smith's aeroplane hasn't got a name, I believe, but he'd better christen it Puck, which ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... "I, my sister, shall live on the mountains and rocks. There I can see you at the earliest hour; there are the streams of water clear; the air is pure, and the golden lights will shine ever around my head, and I shall ever be called 'Puck-Ininee, or the Little Wild Man of the Mountains.' But," he resumed, "before we part forever, I must go and try to find what manitoes rule the earth, and see which of them ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... of such magazines as Life, Judge, Puck and Punch were drawn on extensively; also magazines having humorous pages or columns, such as the Literary Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, Everybody's, Harper's; also Bindery Talk and various other house organs. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... poet in the eye when he would sing to you praises of the month of May. It is a month presided over by the spirits of mischief and madness. Pixies and flibbertigibbets haunt the budding woods: Puck and his train of midgets are ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... "thorough" are originally the same word, and in Shakespeare's time both forms were used for the preposition. Cf. Puck's song in "Midsummer Night's ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, And something of the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... 'Puck.' Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores All with weary ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... non habentes," but then they were "senili vultu, facie corrugata." The wrinkled face and aged countenance of the Portuni remind us of nursery Fairy tales in which the wee ancient female Fairy figures. The pranks of the Portuni were similar to those of Shakespeare's Puck. The species Grant is not described, and consequently it cannot be ascertained how far they resembled any of the many kinds of Welsh Fairies. Gervase, speaking of one of these species, says:—"If anything should be to be carried on in the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... furnished, rolled off her horse, and went into the house. She then discovered, for the first time, that there was no one at home. After resting awhile, she mounted to depart. But Isaac, as full of mischief as Puck, put the bars up, so that she could not ride out. In vain she coaxed, scolded, and threatened. Finding it was all to no purpose, she rode up to the block and rolled off from her horse again.—Isaac, having the fear of her whip before his eyes, ran and hid himself. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... I protested that I had not; I had fed him in the morning in her own presence; the darling was in his usual health and spirits when we left, but—intercede for me, Puck, and you aerial imps of mischief, for no other spirit will—I could not help murmuring in audible soliloquy, "The carcase of that mongoose, which was on the square outside this morning, is no ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... prevent the operation of this first law of economics. Production exists solely for the sake of consumption, and must therefore—as ought long since to have been seen—depend, both in its amount and in the character of its means, upon the amount of consumption. And if some tricksy Puck were to carry off overnight to some European country all our wealth and all our machinery, without taking to that country our social institutions as well, it is as certain that that country would not be a farthing richer than it was before, as it is that China would not ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... extremity, and diving into the streets that lie to the south of Washington Square. There was the old French Quarter, and there foregathered the professional joke-makers and the machine poets who contributed to "Puck," and the "New York Ledger" when that periodical felt the guiding hand of Robert Bonner. Of that group Henry Cuyler Bunner was probably the most conspicuous. In his early days he was a twenty-four-hour Bohemian. In later life, when he had moved to the country, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... Meanwhile Venus herself falls a victim to the charms she has bestowed upon the ferryman. Cupid is therefore called in to remedy matters on her behalf. The boy, who plays a part which no one can fail to compare with that of Puck in the Midsummer Night's Dream, succeeds in curing Sapho's passion, but, much to his mother's disgust, won over by the Queen's attractions, refuses to go further, and even inspires Phao with a loathing for the goddess. The play ends with Phao's departure ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... here, and must content myself with saying that during my three years at the Princess's I was a very strong, happy, and healthy child. I was never out of the bill except during the run of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," when, through an unfortunate accident, I broke my toe. I was playing Puck, my second part on any stage, and had come up through a trap at the end of the last act to give the final speech. My sister Kate was playing Titania that night as understudy to Carlotta Leclercq. Up I came—but ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... sentient, seething world Is, after all ideal, Or in the Immaterial furl'd Alone resides the Real, FREED ONE! there's wail for thee this hour Through thy loved Elves' dominions[33]; Hush'd is each tiny trumpet-flower, And droopeth Ariel's pinions; Even Puck, dejected, leaves his swing[34], To plan, with fond endeavour, What pretty buds and dews shall keep ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... "Othello," producing such a weak wash of words at the same time when he was writing those tragedies. And even turn back and compare it with the rhyming speeches of his other supernatural personages, of Puck and Titana and Oberon in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which he wrote at least ten or twelve years earlier, and you will see that it is not only so inferior, but so unlike his undoubted work that it must be rejected. Turn next to Scene 3 of Act II., and read the speeches of the Porter. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... doggie!" she said, stroking the affectionate animal, which was licking its mistress's gentle hand; "poor Puck! you'll have to love me very much after Dick goes away. I like to be loved, doggie; but no one in this house believes in love except my dear boy, and it is lonely when not a single creature cares, for you. I should like to enjoy a good cry, Puck; but I must not make Dick sad, ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... not at some time given ear to the whispers that tell of long-lost treasures, of forgotten cities, of Atlantis swallowed by the sea? It is* not only children who love the tales of Fairyland. How happily we have read Kipling's 'Puck of Pook's Hill,' De la Motte Fouque's 'Undine,' Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind in the Willows,' or F.W. Bain's Indian stories. The recent fairy plays—Barry's "Peter Pan," Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird," and the like—have been enormously successful. Say what we will, ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... is of a nice conscience and anxious to place responsibility where it is due. He therefore wishes to make all proper acknowledgments to the editors of Vanity Fair, The American Magazine, The Popular Magazine, Life, Puck, The Century, Methuen's Annual, and all others who are in any way implicated in the making of ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... her is seated the formidable Bottom, in his ludicrous metamorphosis: he is placed in such a situation, that her majesty must see him before any other object when she awakes. At a little distance Puck is displayed laughing at the trick he has played on the queen, and seems to anticipate with delight the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... corpulent person, and rolled considerably in her gait, would, in a rage, endeavour to catch him, for the purpose of inflicting punishment, the young urchin, proud of being able to out-strip her, notwithstanding his lameness, would run round the room, laughing like a little Puck, and mocking at all her menaces. In a few anecdotes of his early life which he related in his "Memoranda," though the name of his mother was never mentioned but with respect, it was not difficult to perceive that the recollections she had left behind—at least, those that had made ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore |
