"Ridiculously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a week after that. Of course his polling at the election had been ridiculously small compared with that of the other candidates. When he returned he went about his ordinary occupations; he was seemingly not in his usual health, but the constant irritableness had left him. Adela tried to bear herself as though ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... not unlike the rocking of a cradle. Once or twice he opened his eyes sleepily upon the waltzing trees in the double planes of distance, and again closed them. Then, in one of these slight oscillations, he felt himself ridiculously slipping into slumber, and awoke with some indignation. Another station was passed, in which process the pictorial advertisements on the hoardings and the pictures in his lap seemed to have become jumbled up, confused, and to dance before him, and then suddenly and strangely, without warning, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... have turned up his nose at my ivories, for I didn't think much of his statue—except that it was a great, lumping, extraordinary piece of work. It had an outstretched arm that, I remember thinking, was absolutely misshapen—disproportioned, big enough for a giant, ridiculously out of drawing. And as I looked at the thing this way and that, I knew that his eyes in their deep cellars never left my ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... unreliable, the nervous system erratic—we are but a job lot even in what we call "good health"; and are subject to a burden of pain and premature death that would make life hideous if it were not so ridiculously unnecessary. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... desire to roam, that kept cropping out at intervals, paid me a characteristic trick at this time. I was passing through a horse-market when I saw a fine-looking, shapely young horse put up at what seemed a ridiculously low price. Eighteen dollars was the bid, and it was about to be knocked down at that. The October sun was shining warm and bright. A sudden desire to get on the horse and ride out into the wide world, away ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... so near and yet not accomplished, Ranny's nerve went. He began to be afraid, childishly and ridiculously afraid, of something happening to prevent it. He had a clear and precise idea of that something. He would die before he could file his petition, before he could get his divorce and marry Winny. His heart to be sure was better; ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... was often startling. Some of the civilians he imprisoned: others he desired to shoot; but as the hardiest robbers had generally made to themselves friends of the military mammon of unrighteousness, they escaped with a fine ridiculously out of proportion to their ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... being ridiculously small and shabby in point of efficiency in rigging, sails, and general outfit, it will always be a mystery how it was that so few were lost by stress of weather or even ordinary navigable risks. They were veritable boxes in design, and their rig alone made it impossible for them to make rapid ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... very good-natured," said Ingram with decision. "I have known him for years, and I know that he is exceedingly unselfish, and that he would do a ridiculously generous thing to serve a friend, and that a better-intentioned fellow does not breathe in the world. But he is at times, I admit, very ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... very informal signal, the curtain rose upon a ridiculously small stage, and an insignificant, nervous-looking man stepped toward the footlights at the same moment that M. Fruvier and his followers entered and seated themselves in a row, their backs to ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... here a controversy between a fishwife and a buyer called Thomson. the buyer offered a price so ridiculously small for a parcel of fish that the seller became quite indignant, and she terminated at once all further higgling. Looking up to him, she said, "Lord help yer e'e-sight, Maister Tamson!" "Lord help my e'e-sight, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... one-third larger. Of course it is understood that side shakes do not increase in proportion according as the pivot increases in size, for if they did a six-inch shaft would require at this rate a side shake of 1/2 inch, or 1/4 inch on each side, which would be ridiculously out of all proportion, as the 1/64 of an inch would be ample under any circumstances. Neither can we arrive at the proper end shake for a pivot by reducing in proportion from the end shake allowed on a six-inch shaft, because ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... prisoners received permission from the authorities to pursue the various crafts and employments with which they were conversant, at the small daily wage of between sixpence and a shilling. This pay was a ridiculously small remuneration for the large amount of work which the men executed. A great diversity of trades were represented by us prisoners. One was a mason, another a farmer, a third an apothecary, while a fourth was a goldsmith, and so far did we go that one man was ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... coming back light. By the Intercoastal Canal and the shallow string of bays along the Texas-Louisiana line, the bayou boat could crawl safely back to the grassy swamp lands that fringe the sugar plantations of Bayou Teche. Tedge had bought his living cargo so ridiculously cheap that if half of them stood the journey he would profit. And they would cost him nothing for winter ranging up in the swamp lands. In the spring he would round up what steers had lived and sell them, grass-fat, in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... I might describe myself as being, according to the modern phrase, "in a false position." I had, for instance, a vast superiority, as was to have been expected, in bookish attainments, and in adroitness of logic; whilst, on the other hand, I was ridiculously short-sighted or blind in all fields of ordinary human experience. It must not be supposed that I regarded my own particular points of superiority, or that I used them, with any vanity or view to present advantages. On the contrary, I sickened over them, and labored ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... downstairs and helped him mount the ridiculously small pony, then watched the sweating, cussing, bighearted doctor ride out into the sun on his errand of mercy. As the tough little pony bore his heavy burden into the trail and out of sight in the brush, Terry decided humorously that Casey ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... have! They've suppressed me, stifled me, bottled me up, tinkered at me, overgroomed me, dressed me ridiculously, and stuffed my mind. And I'm starved all the time! O Kathleen, I'm hungry! hungry! Can't ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... began to make her preparations immediately, and only halted over them once, and that was when she hesitated about packing a dress that had just come home, which she said was ridiculously young for her. ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... must strike you at once that it's ridiculously short compared with the huge country behind it. From Borkum to the Elbe, as the crow flies, is only seventy miles. Add to that the west coast of Schleswig, say 120 miles. Total, say, two hundred. Compare that with the seaboard of France and England. Doesn't it stand ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... meat of a quality suitable for export. The hardy American animals could survive in spite of casual care. Americans had few barns and sheds, but the world market for meat did not demand barns, stalls, and fancy feeding. American dairy cows yielded ridiculously low volumes of milk, butter, and cheese, but dairy products, after all, served only the resident Americans. The corn- and mast-fed hogs of America provided ham that was equal to any in Europe. If the European consumer ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... always been three. For even in the days when Cyril and Elizabeth had belonged to the baby class there had been Dorothea, Dorothea who was sixteen and quite old now, who was a weekly boarder in a fashionable Sydney school (for a ridiculously small quarterly fee). ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... by her kindness accustomed me to speaking freely, I used this privilege without embarrassment, but always observing that measure which keeps a man of good society within just limits, equally careful not to put himself ridiculously at ease and not to be so abashed by exaggerated respect as to become insipid. I have always thought that a princess no more than any other woman likes to be bored. I talked much with her in the carriage, seeking to amuse the Princess with a few anecdotes, and ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... of a locality was made eventually upon ridiculously inadequate grounds. In a newspaper article dealing with charitable work, I came upon some such words as these: 'Life is supported upon an astoundingly small outlay of money among the poor householders, and even poorer lodgers, in these streets opening out of the Seven Sisters ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... the following morning, and the soldiers went to roost at once, with easy minds. It was believed that the attack would be but a harmless bit of child's-play, as it was more than suspected that the defending force within the town was very small, though how ridiculously small it really was none of the besiegers at the ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... her arms around his neck, but Napoleon pushed her back. "You are a fool, Josephine!" he said, angrily. "This is childish; you ridiculously retard my departure. I do not wish to hear any more! Be kind enough to leave the carriage! It is necessary that I set ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... such a ridiculously silly little softie, that nobody could put a grain of sense into your head," Elsie replied, angrily. "Supposing it had been mother. A nice row you'd have got us into. Why couldn't you keep quiet, and she'd have thought we were both ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... him and cared for him for years, and, seizing him, kick him with his great feet until he is stunned, or dance upon him for no reason at all. He does not look safe; his narrow flat head and cruel eyes would make you think he was a tyrant. The little ones running about at his feet look so ridiculously small in comparison that you would hardly think they could be his children; but in time they, too, will grow big like papa and have splendid tails, and lord ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... on the ramp and looked down at the ridiculously tiny wings and watched the control surfaces move in response to Jerry's gentle touch on the controls within the blockhouse. The drone control was working perfectly. Rick felt a surge of pride. This particular part of Pegasus ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... liked him from the start. A better figure of a man I shall never see; six feet to an inch, square set and wonderfully muscular. His hair was dark and ridiculously curly, so much so that talk of the "irons and brown paper" was the standing joke amongst the racing men in Paris, who knew no more of him than that he was an Italian by birth and had spent half his life in America. For the rest, he spoke English as well as I did, and I never knew ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... to Spain would, however, do well to learn the etiquettes of the country before going there, for they are manifold, and their non-observance may sometimes be taken as an insult by the sensitive Spaniard. The latter have an almost ridiculously keen sense of personal dignity, even to the very beggars, who consider themselves caballeros (gentlemen), and expect to be treated as such, as indeed they are by their own countrymen. It is also a good rule in Spain, to bear in mind when much pressed ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... which bear the name of Hegel. And the thought is this: The earth is enough for us, away with heaven; man suffices for himself, away with God; reality suffices for us, away with chimeras! Wisdom consists in contenting ourselves with the world as it is. It is attempted ridiculously enough to place this wisdom under the patronage of the luminaries of our age. We are bidden, forsooth, to see in the negation of the real and living God, a conflict of progress with routine, of science with a blind tradition, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Lithuania, having been seriously delayed in Liverpool by men who were most ridiculously striking for the fantastic remuneration of one pound a week, was engaged on the business of making new records. And every passenger was personally determined that she should therein succeed. And, despite very bad June weather towards the end, ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... sagacity of their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together usurped from one author; their necessities compelling them to read for present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more ridiculously and palpably guilty than those who, because they cannot trace, they yet would slander ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... his forces and mentally struggling to penetrate the pall which obscured the future. He felt himself to be playing a winning game; at least, that his vengeance and chastisement of Lablache had been made ridiculously easy for him. But now he had come to that point when he wondered what must be the outcome of it all as regarded himself and the girl he loved. Would his persecution drive Lablache from Foss River to the security of Calford, Where he would be able to ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... picture is practically done," she said. "I'll sign and deliver it to-morrow. I think it will get to you to-morrow. The long, ridiculously long, preliminary work gave me the modelling, as well as I could have it.... This weather makes one think of the ocean or ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... of his life he attended in a ridiculously minute manner to his diet and its results, and entered into discussions which drove his doctors to despair. Fever and gout at last attacked him, and he augmented them by the course he pursued. Finot, our physician and his, at times knew not what to do with him. What embarrassed ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... things these two girls found to dispute, and get angry, and get miserable, and make the whole family miserable over, were so ridiculously petty that I hardly expect to be believed in telling of them. The front side of the bed, the upper drawer in the bureau, a hair-ribbon, who should be helped first at the table, who was the best scholar, which was the more stylish ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... This sum seems ridiculously small for the Province of Bruttii. Can it be the sum ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... but is not accounted good ton by heads of families. He is liked at the Hells and Clubs, where he has a knack of distinguishing himself without presumption or affectation. He is a dresser by right divine, and dresses ridiculously. The fashionable fellows affect loudly to applaud his taste, and laugh to see the vulgar imitate the foreigneering swell. He is the idol of equivocal women, and condescends to patronize unpresentable gentility-mongers. He is not unhappy at heart, like the indigenous heavy swell, but enjoys his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... her friend Miss Palliser, whose green eyes smiled in recognition. He bowed with the stiffness of a back unaccustomed to that form of salutation. He hardly knew what happened after that, till he found himself backing, nervously, ridiculously backing into a lonely seat in the middle of ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... The Hankow was ridiculously small, and monstrously strong. Chiefly it consisted of engines and boilers. Despite their security, despite the shipwrecks and deaths that have been poured into their present design, Yangtze river-boats sink, a goodly crop of them, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... (Was there ever a man who failed to be ridiculously flattered by a feminine tribute to his physical strength?) Nor did his hands ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... left to his own thoughts. Wasn't she a girl, though? So like Cora in her impulses. Well, a girl has to be impulsive to get ahead - she is so ridiculously hampered by conventionalities. ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... had been shown that I was the more skilful swordsman, yet now he stood without the least sign of fear. If he had formerly retreated, on being disarmed, it was from situations in which he had figured ridiculously, and could not endure to remain before Mademoiselle de Varion. Also, he had sought to preserve his life, so that he might have revenge. But now that events had taken their turn, he showed himself ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... many feminine characteristics which I have noticed, either from the expression of the eyes or the formation of the mouth, the countenance of this individual generally conveyed an impression of firmness and energy. This description will not be considered ridiculously minute by those who have never had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the person of so celebrated a gentleman as ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... already in this, where I have said that the word for prophet is the Bible-word for Poet, and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many of which have become obscure by the lapse of time and the change of circumstances, have been ridiculously erected into things called prophecies, and applied to purposes the writers never thought of. When a priest quotes any of those passages, he unriddles it agreeably to his own views, and imposes that explanation ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... therefore turned, and thus took the same course that the girls had taken. The current was at right angles with its advance, though the houses on the north somewhat broke that force. The roofless building, ridiculously shortened in its height, had more the look of a fortress than when it was used as one. The walls had been washed out above both great entrances, making spacious jagged arches through which larger craft than theirs could pass. Colonel Menard was quick to see this; he ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... She was looking over to the other side of the street, where that shrinking, pitiable old figure in its threadbare neatness trembled; not daring to seek safety across the dangerously smooth street, nor daring to remain exposed here, where it ducked ridiculously every now and then to avoid the whizzing ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... than a Petar Plamenatz or a Marusitch. Nor was the Austrian Consul Kral better pleased with my Albanian travels. It was reported to him that whereas the mountains had formerly been pro-Austrian, they had become, since my visit, entirely pro-English. He concluded, ridiculously enough, that I was sent by the British Government, and made a long report to Vienna about me, as I ascertained later. I was unaware then of the activity being shown by the Franco-Russian combine and England, and thought his ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... companion, was a lean, lanky, pallid fellow, clad wholly in black of a rustier and shabbier kind than that worn by the reader in the window. From beneath his dingy black felt hat thin wisps of flaxen hair flowed ridiculously enough about his scraggy neck. While his Gascon comrade entered the room with the manner of one who carries all before him, the Norman seemed to creep, or rather to slink, in with lack-lustre eyes peering apologetically ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... themselves. Conceive this in a great hotel, with not only their own servants, but half a dozen waiters coming constantly in and out! I showed no atom of surprise, but I never was so surprised, so ridiculously taken aback, in my life; for in all my experience of 'ladies' of one kind and another, I never saw a woman—not a basket woman or a gipsy—smoke before!" This last remark is highly significant. Forster says that Dickens "lived to have larger and wider ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... told, it was ridiculously weak in her to lose her reason. And here again her critics seem hardly to realise the situation, hardly to put themselves in the place of a girl whose lover, estranged from her, goes mad and kills her father. They seem to forget also that Ophelia must have believed that these frightful calamities ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... may, when the period extending from 1873 to 1893 had passed, the same result had occurred, and with quite as much force as any of its predecessors. Land speculation had reached the point of absolute insanity. Everybody thought he could become rich if he only bought. Values, already ridiculously expanded, continued to increase with every sale. Anyone who had money enough to pay down a small amount as earnest and intelligence enough to sign a note and mortgage for the balance of the purchase price became purchasers ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... years following the close of Lincoln's Congressional service, in 1849, were given to the uninterrupted practice of the law, to which he devoted himself laboriously and successfully, though not with great pecuniary gains. His legal fees were regarded by his brethren at the bar as "ridiculously small." His practice had extended to the Supreme Court of his State and to the United States District and Circuit Courts, and he was occasionally retained for cases in other States. With greater love of money and less sympathy for his fellows, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... had been dried and pressed and hung over a chair beside the cot. His dress-coat seemed ridiculously out of order after that swim and, now, for the morning's work. But he smiled as he donned the clothes, and started for the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... sizes and bindings; there was a globe or two, a couch, and an easy chair. Statues and busts there were none, and only one painting, a portrait, that of my host, but not him of the mansion. Over the mantelpiece, the features staringly like, but so ridiculously exaggerated that they scarcely resembled those of a human being, daubed evidently by the hand of the commonest sign-artist, hung a half-length portrait of him of round of beef celebrity—my sturdy host of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... expressionless, utterly motionless. He opened his mouth and shut it again, still watching his wife as she stooped with ridiculously too busy fingers, searching through ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... the much abused sentiment of Governor M'Duffie, that "slavery is the corner-stone of our republican edifice;" while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that "all men are born equal."[255] No society has ever yet existed, and I have already incidentally quoted the highest authority to show that none ever ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... of the colonel; but why he had so done, and what communications he could possibly have made with regard to me, that Colonel Carden should speak of "my plans" and proffer assistance in them was a perfect riddle; and the only solution, one so ridiculously flattering that I dared not think of it. I read and re-read the note; misplaced the stops; canvassed every expression; did all to detect a meaning different from the obvious one, fearful of a self-deception where ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate is provided in the newest fashion.'[482] As to dress, no one could tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in Warwickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a brown jug, or a glass if ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... slim, well-shaped youth, with a simpering lip, and dainty ringlets descending to his shoulders. He was dressed extravagantly even for the land, and for the sea ridiculously. His doublet was of satin, bravely slashed and laced, and puffed to the size of a globe on either thigh. His hose were of crimson silk, gaily tied with points and knots. His shirt was of the same hue, with a short taffeta cloak over, bound at the neck by a monstrous ruff, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... were sacred to true dignity, as well as the sensual movements, and destroys all the mimic play of the features by which the soul gleams forth upon the face. It arms itself not only against rebel nature, but against submissive nature, and ridiculously seeks its greatness in subjecting nature to its yoke, or, if this does not succeed, in hiding it. As if it had vowed hatred to all that is called nature, it swathes the body in long, heavy-plaited garments, which hide the human structure; it paralyzes the limbs in surcharging them ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... man force himself into a seat here, and for what? only to prostitute his vote to a man, the sworn enemy of his country," (Lord George Sackville, then Secretary for Ireland.) The Speaker, too, was equally hostile. The government were finally defeated by 124 to 116. Never was ridiculous triumph more ridiculously triumphant. The strangers in the gallery huzzaed, the mob in the streets huzzaed. When Lord Kildare returned to his house (he had been the leader of the debate,) there was a procession of some hours. All the world was rejoicing, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... asking us to believe when they say that the primal physical functions of maternity will be best fulfilled by the mother who "mingles in the natural industries of a human creature." This statement is either ridiculously false or can be rendered true by rendering it as a truism. The primal physical functions of maternity are the natural industries of the particular human creature we call a mother; and the better she fulfils them, the better she fulfils them, certainly. But the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... for monarchs. Boston has, for several weeks, had upon Exhibition His Marine Majesty the Whale. The captive was shown for the ridiculously small sum of two shillings, and great was the gathering to gaze upon the spouter, who would have come just in time to attend the political caucuses, only he happens to be dead, and cannot spout any more, albeit his jaw is still tremendous. His defunct ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... work and relieve my poor old wearied fairy of her sentry duty. This man here suits my purpose, and I thought of him from the first time I met him. He is ugly, but he has a kind manner; then, too, he is ridiculously rich, and wealth, upon that scale, must be amusing. Oh, I know well enough. No doubt there is in his life some blemish that has brought him luck. All that money cannot be made honestly. But come, truly now, Jenkins, with your hand on ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... great points in the successful management of time are concentration and system. At the beginning of each day set duties in array before your mind's eye, and attack them, one at a time. This may at first sight sound like ridiculously unnecessary advice. But unless my readers are exceptional women, they all know what it is to be so pressed with things that must be done that they do not know what to begin first. Having chosen the most important task, attack that, and when you have once ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... "It's ridiculously false," said Pauline to herself; but she tossed for hours each night, trying to soothe the sick pain in her heart. And while she scouted the possibility of losing him, she was for the first time entertaining it—a cloud in the great horizon of her faith in the ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... Street car he found a seat, and, without the distraction of maintaining his foothold or the diversion of an unfolding panorama, his thoughts turned naturally on his immediate problems. The five dollars had gone a ridiculously small way. Four oyster cocktails came to a dollar and a quarter, and he had to have at least six cigars at twenty-five cents apiece. This left him somewhat short of the maid's wage of three dollars for cooking and serving dinner and washing ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... his vision of the Queen. The Spenserian allusion was very pleasant—the elegant evocations of Gloriana; but there was more in it than that: there was the suggestion of a diminutive creature, endowed with magical—and mythical—properties, and a portentousness almost ridiculously out of keeping with the rest of her make-up. The Faery, he determined, should henceforward wave her wand for him alone. Detachment is always a rare quality, and rarest of all, perhaps, among politicians; ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... the idea of attempting anything that may be considered a work of art in the ridiculously limited space of a postage stamp. The restriction of a postage stamp when viewed alongside a canvas measuring several yards in length and height is probably hopeless enough. Nevertheless, many a stamp collector who is not devoid of art can find stamps which seem to him to be entitled to ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell
... taken away, and nothing has been substituted, save a few dull jests exchanged with stupid friars. So far from having entertained and even expressed that sentiment of religious toleration for which he was said to have been condemned as a heretic by the inquisition, and for which Philip was ridiculously reported to have ordered his father's body to be burned, and his ashes scattered to the winds, he became in retreat the bigot effectually, which during his reign he had only been conventionally. Bitter regrets that he should ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... plaintiff and her grandfather," rejoined Mr. Barnes, "that it was too late to bespeak counsel's attention to the case; and that the fee, all they have, with much difficulty, been able to raise, was ridiculously small; but they insisted on my applying ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... "She is ridiculously overmodest," said Isabel Tristram to Merry, "for she always did play every sort of game better than the rest of us. She is not quite so good at her books; except, indeed, at certain things, such as recitation. I wish you could see and hear her then. She is almost ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... some charcoal." The very small voice at his feet must have pleased him, for his black brows relaxed into a smile, and he poked the little one's chin with a hard, dirty finger, as he emptied the ridiculously small bucket of charcoal into the child's bucket, and gave ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... had the baby in her lap, and tossed it about ridiculously, finally throwing it in the most heartless way to Alice. She took it out of doors, and behold, it turned into a little pig, jumped out of her arms, and ran ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Davy Muir," said Lundie, stepping short in his walk, and looking the other earnestly in the face with a comical expression of surprise, that rendered the veteran's countenance ridiculously earnest,—"do you really suppose a girl like the daughter of Sergeant Dunham can take a serious fancy to a man of your years and appearance, and experience, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... interest interesante, interesting interin (en el), in the meantime interino, interim interior, interior, inland intervista, interview interpretar, to interpret invertir, to invest (money) invierno, winter ir, to go, to lead to irrisorio, laughable, absurd, ridiculously low (of prices) irse, to go away isla, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... movement was, that Matthias was received at Antwerp by Orange at the head of two thousand cavalry, and attended by a vast concourse of inhabitants. Had the Prince chosen a contrary course, the Archduke might have been compelled to return, somewhat ridiculously, to Vienna; but, at the same time, the anger of the Emperor and of all Germany would have been aroused against Orange and the cause he served. Had the Prince, on the contrary, abandoned the field himself, and returned to Holland, he would have left the game in the hands of his adversaries. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... violently hurt. Her mamma begged to know the cause of her sudden alarm. Upon which she called out, 'A mouse! a mouse! I saw one under the chair!' 'And if you did, my dear,' replied her mother, 'is that any reason for your behaving so ridiculously? If there were twenty mice, what harm could they possibly do? You may easily hurt and destroy then; but, poor little things! they cannot, if they would, hurt you.' 'What, could they not bite me?' inquired the ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... what pitch their conceit will have arrived by the time they are nothing at all. They are proud that they love but a little, believe less, and hope for nothing. Every fool prides himself on not being such a fool as believe what would make a man of him. For dread of being taken in, he takes himself in ridiculously. The man who keeps on trying to do his duty, finds a brighter and brighter gleam issue, as he walks, from the lantern of ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... his arms. The result, when the rebels above began to haul, can be imagined. Hips and heels were hoisted, while arms and head hung down, causing him to resemble very strikingly a frog hooked on for bait at the end of a fish-line. The affrighted face drawn out of its hole, looked down ridiculously hideous into the rocky and bristling gulf over which ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... lodging, and the excitement of his feelings had died away. It is impossible to describe that which could not be separated into parts, in which there was no foreground, no distance, but only one dead, black, colourless present. After a time, however, he began to find that fancies, almost ridiculously trivial, arrested and absorbed his attention; even as when our eyes have become accustomed to darkness, every light-coloured mote shows luminous against the void blackness of night. So we are tempted to unseemly frivolity in churches, and at funerals, and all ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... and Texas, was organized in 1903 to secure desirable immigrants for those states. "It was keenly realized," observed the Chattanooga Times, "that of the enormous inflow from the old country, the number seeking homes in the South was ridiculously small and out of all proportion to the importance of the country and the inducements our productive fields hold out to home seekers." An Immigration Bureau has been established in Chattanooga, and South Carolina ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... incomes, direct and derivative. Persons who live on rent of land and capital are economically, though not legally, in the category of robbers, and have grotesquely different incomes. But in the huge mass of mankind variation Of income from individual to individual is unknown, because it is ridiculously impracticable. As a device for persuading a carpenter that a judge is a creature of superior nature to himself, to be deferred and submitted to even to the death, we may give a carpenter a hundred pounds a year and a judge five thousand; but the wage for one carpenter ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... second-hand dealer in Lynnwood whose hobby was picking up antiques at a ridiculously low price and selling them at fabulous sums. In a ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... swept overhead, with the whistle of complaint of spent bullets at having travelled far without hitting any object. It had gone high over the British trenches; it had carried the full range, and the chance of its hitting anyone was ridiculously small. But the nearer you get to the trenches, the more likely these strays are to find a victim. "Hit by a stray bullet!" is a very common ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... and there those I bury must stay till they come back as new and improved characters. I inscribe their life and their deeds, looked at in my fashion, in my record; and that's what all people ought to do. They ought not to be vexed when any one goes on ridiculously, but bury him directly, and maintain their good humour, and keep to the Intelligencer, which is often a book written by the people ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... reached Petrograd and had perfected arrangements to cross the boundary at will, and to communicate with the mission via the consul at Helsingfors; that the journey had been easy, and that the reports of frightful conditions in Petrograd had been ridiculously exaggerated. ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... re-entered the room with her bonnet on; determination was painted on the lady's countenance. Cockayne should not escape this time. He should be led off like a lamb to the slaughter. Were not the silks marked at ridiculously low prices? Was not the shawl-room a sight more than equal to anything to be seen in any other part of Paris? Was not the folding department just as much a sight of Paris as that wretched collection of lumber in ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... with almost everybody; and have a seeming reserve with almost nobody; for it is very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so. Few people find the true medium; many are ridiculously mysterious and reserved upon trifles; and many imprudently communicative of ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... veteran of the studios, with a bald head which glistened rather ridiculously, entered as though he expected to be held for the death of ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... lean man, as he rose and showed a ridiculously long nose, neck, and legs,—a type still not uncommon in the fens,—a quilted leather coat, a double-bladed axe slung over his shoulder by a thong, a round shield at his back, and a pole three times as long as himself, which he dragged after him, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... a touch or two, and then gave her his sketch. She looked at it, but she went on with her idea of a moment before. "If a woman were to ask you to marry her you would say, 'Certainly, my dear, with pleasure!' And you would marry her and be ridiculously happy. Then at the end of three months you would say to her, 'You know that blissful day when I begged you ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... EDDY, if you'll please to be so ridiculously kind," interrupted FLORA. "Mr. BUMSTEAD would certainly insist upon it that there were two wills, instead of one: and that would ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... to him a shilling discovered upon the curb, and a high-class evening paper left upon a seat in the Park. He had no sooner eaten and drunk with the former than he opened the latter. There was an article on the front page entitled "London Awake." He read it line by line and laughed. It was all so ridiculously simple. He hurried back to his rooms and wrote a much better one on "London Asleep." He was master of his subject. He wrote of what he had seen with effortless and sublime verity. Why not? Simply with the aid of pen and ink he transferred from the cells of ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Pshaw, how ridiculously you talk; there is a great deal more difference between two babies, than between you and all the other young dandies who walk Broadway. They are all alike, the same cut of the coat and collar, and whiskers; the same ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... Their decks were not even cleared for action. Yet, even taking this into consideration, it is inexplicable that, when two or three torpedoes from any one of them would have saved the day, none was fired. The ships need not have moved an inch to have done so. The range was ridiculously short—less than 200 yards at one time. But surprise, lack of discipline, and general inefficiency seemed to hold ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... thought he might be one of the tribe's runners, lying in wait to discover the condition of the coach—whether it had an escort, and how many were riding in it, and that then he would go and tell how ridiculously small the outfit was, and swoop down on us with a band of his colleagues, that were hidden somewhere in the sand hills south of the river. He rose as we came near, and made the sign, after he had given vent to a series of "How's!" that ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... old gold, with her tiny feet shod in ridiculously small, gilt slippers, she stood by the screen watching the stupefied man—an exquisite, fragrantly youthful casket ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... week, aroused The Author's professional interest. For once his tried and tested powers of turning other people's minds inside out failed utterly. His innocent-sounding queries, his adroit leads, were smilingly turned aside. The defense, so far as Mr. Jelnik was concerned, was ridiculously simple: he didn't want to talk about himself ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... speaking; for she was said to be a woman of great sense, and devotedly attached to the King and Madame de Pompadour. Some people pretended that she tried to captivate the King, and to supplant Madame: nothing could be more false, or more ridiculously improbable. Madame saw a great deal of these two ladies, who were extremely attentive to her. She one day remarked to the Duc d'Ayen, that M. de Choiseul was very fond of his sisters. "I know it, Madame," said he, "and many sisters are the better for that." "What do you mean?" said she. "Why," ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... but he had no time to go inside the shop and test either the machine or his own temper. Other temptations to irritability required the agency of living people, or at any rate living beings. Crying children, screaming parrots, a spiteful monkey, might be hired on ridiculously easy terms. He saw one advertisement, nicely framed, which ran ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... Tanatepec was La Azteca (The Aztec Lady), while our next one was La reina de las flores (The queen of the flowers). At Zanatepec, La Azteca was an advertising part of a traveling circus. The troupe consisted of three men and three women, the latter of whom seemed to be mulattos. The men were ridiculously garbed and painted to represent wild indians. The real, live indians, who followed these clowns in delighted crowds, enjoyed thrills of terror at their whoops, fierce glances, and wild antics, and assured us that these actors were, if not the real thing, at least wonderfully accurate ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... will appear when they have been cooped up in a ship with you day and night for a week. An ocean steamer is the next worst thing to the Palace of Truth. Poor Sholto did not stand the ordeal. He was ridiculously distant in his manner to the rest of the passengers, and in little matters at table and so forth he was really just as selfish as he could be. He was impatient because I was ill the first two days, and afterwards he seemed to think that I ought not to speak to ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... smiling gratefully at his ready acceptance. And then a curious change came. She felt her heart begin to beat faster, the strange intrusion of a new element into her life and thoughts and being. It was shining out of her eyes, something which made her a little afraid yet ridiculously light-hearted. Suddenly she felt the colour burning in her cheeks. She withdrew her hands, lost her presence of mind, and found it again at the sound of the servant's ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... herself ridiculously and angrily blushing. "I don't know what you mean," she said icily. "What ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... assistant-hostess with grace and tact, giving a smile to one, a word to another, entering into low-toned conversation, which brightened her eyes and flushed her fair cheek, with another. Oliver thought her perfection. Beside her stately proportions, Ethel seemed to him ridiculously tiny and insignificant, and her sparkling prettiness was altogether eclipsed by Lesley's calmer beauty. He was not in an amiable mood. He had steeled himself against the dictates of his own taste and conscience, to encounter Caspar Brooke's cold stare and freezing word of conventional ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... at last when the sun shone out warm. Daddy Longlegs crowed hoarsely his delight, the peacock tried his musical powers by shouting Ne-onk! ne-onk! and Duck Waddler quacked away more ridiculously than ever. Just then the mocking-bird ruffled his brown neck-feathers and began to sing. All the melody of all the song-birds of the South seemed to be bottled up in that one little bosom. Even Miss Guinea-fowl ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... much. The line ends here; it runs as far as it can go, and then stops, like a cork in a bottle. And there's something cosy and pleasant about the tiny carriages on the trains; but folk seem ashamed of them, they are so ridiculously old and worse for wear, and there's not even room to sit ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... purpose is often represented to be, it may, especially before she becomes thoroughly hardened to crime, be swayed by shades of feeling or sentiment which would appear, to a man, ridiculously trifling, and which, indeed, she could not herself explain or calculate upon; and there is the more likelihood of this, in proportion to the depth to which her emotions and affections are involved in the affair. As to Cornelia, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Stephen decided, trying to appear indifferent, though he was ridiculously pleased at the idea of having a few ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... are all Russian companies, ridiculously amused about nothing. At the most serious crises we would, like Gayeff in "The Cherry Orchard," suddenly break into stupid bursts of laughter, quite aimless but with a great deal of sincerity. Whirls of laughter would invade our table. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... and his protracted modes of study, as well as the esoteric character of his compositions, were little likely to meet with adequate return. Overbeck never realised large sums; his prices measured by present standards were ridiculously low, and even when overcrowded with commissions, he is known to have fallen short of ready cash. Happily, after early struggles, he became relieved from pressing anxieties, yet he remained ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... the 'going-to-bed' of Prince Robin before you left the Castle?" she said, lying back in the comfortable chair and stretching her feet out to the fire. He handed her a match and watched her light the long, ridiculously thin cigarette. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... been as busy as a showman out West. She had followed with unusual vigour her customary role of "advance agent," and had spread most ridiculously exaggerated reports of my supernatural prowess and magical attributes. I controlled the denizens of Spiritland, and could call them up in thousands to torment the blacks. I controlled the elements; and ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... of the old doge, Cristofero Moro, as he sat in state upon his massive throne, and the bewildering array of the seventy-two candidates for a king's choice. Seventy-two, I say, but in all that company of puffed and powdered, coifed and combed young ladies, standing tall and uncomfortable on their ridiculously high-heeled shoes, one alone was simply dressed and apparently unaffected by the gorgeousness of her companions, the seventy-second ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... meanest sense—in mere vulgar outward show. We have not the courage to go patiently onward in the condition of life in which it has pleased God to call us; but must needs live in some fashionable state to which we ridiculously please to call ourselves, and to gratify the vanity of that unsubstantial genteel world of which we form a part. There is a constant struggle and pressure for front streets in the social amphitheatre; in the midst of which all noble self-denying ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... thoughts of the bowler who might have prevented the other fellow from making a certain boundary hit, of the wicket-keeper who might have saved a bye, or of the batsman who might easily have got a few more runs if he hadn't played such a ridiculously fluky stroke. To be beaten by a hundred runs is bad, but bearable; to be beaten by an innings and a hundred runs is humiliating and horrible; to be beaten by a single run is exasperating ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... a ridiculously sentimental tone, that we all laughed outright, and cousin Bessie pulling him forcibly away by the coat-sleeve, looked over his shoulder at ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... away for seven years," said Daniel as they passed through the village gate. Everything seemed so ridiculously small—the Town Hall, the Church, the Market Place, and the Eschenbach Fountain. He had also pictured the houses and streets to himself as being cleaner and better kept. As he passed over the three steps at the front gate, each one of which was bulging out like a huge oyster shell, and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... contemplative rabbits there were faint suggestions of some of his own truants. The woods were trembling with gentle memories of the independence he had always known here—of that sweet and grave retreat now so ridiculously invaded. ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... nonsensical quotation," says Molly, gayly. "Were you to see with my eyes, just consider how different everything would appear. Now, for instance, I would never have so far forgotten myself as to fall so idiotically and ridiculously in love, as you did, with beautiful ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... as by the bedside of death. If those ridiculously bobbing figures in the ring would only cease ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... that it was known he had it, would you have imagined that he would use it as he did? The whole affair was so ridiculously simple that perhaps this offered a reason ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... whether the adoration be offered to heavenly or earthly objects. And so it came to pass that, at the Bottle Flat singing-school, the boys looked straight at the teacher while they raised their tuneful voices; that they came ridiculously early, so as to get front seats; and that they purposely sung out of tune, once in a while, so as to be personally addressed ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... appeared and innocently demolished the photo-play romances we had constructed about him. It was a warning to us to avoid nonsense, in future, when discussing our neighbours. Miss Fraenkel had fared no better. Evidently he was not "held" for something with which his wife had "got away." We were all ridiculously wrong and ought to be ashamed of ourselves. And so we were; avoiding mention of him, and devoting our attention to the fish, for it was Friday, and we kept ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... they had not found the secret of making of it a monster which shocks me. Let who will go to see bad tragedies set to music, where the scenes are contrived for no other end than to introduce two or three songs ridiculously out of place, to show off an actress's voice. Let who will, or who can, die away with pleasure at the sight of an eunuch quavering the role of Caesar, or of Cato, and strutting awkwardly upon the stage. For my part I have long since renounced those paltry entertainments which constitute ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... He bounded into the middle of the flock and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any more. He "honked" ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... reached the boulevard, however, a new idea entered his brain, an idea of so startling a kind that he could scarcely restrain a loud exclamation of surprise. "What a fool I am!" cried he, striking his hand violently against his forehead. "Is it possible to be so strong in theory, and yet so ridiculously weak in practise? Ah! I am only a child, a mere novice, disheartened by the slightest obstacle. I meet with a difficulty, and at once I lose all my courage. Now, let me reflect calmly. What did I tell ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates subordinate positions. His chance of errour is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the passage, a slight misapprehension of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient to make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he succeeds best, he produces, perhaps, but one reading of many probable, and he that suggests another will always be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... very out-works of Berwick, but nobody cared to meddle with them. And in this posture things stood when the pacification was agreed on by both parties, which, like a short truce, only gave both sides breath to prepare for a new war more ridiculously managed than the former. When the treaty was so near a conclusion as that conversation was admitted on both sides, I went over to the Scotch camp to satisfy my curiosity, as many of our English ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... warlike fire, peaceful though I be. Close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys ranged in crooked and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band. Nevertheless, as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-spire, one might be tempted to ask, "Which are the boys?" or, rather, "Which the men?" But, leaving these, let us turn to the third procession, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... out of action, Sergeant Barboux must take a turn with the rod. He did not (he protested) count on landing a fish; but the hooking of one had been so ridiculously prompt and easy that it was hard to see how he ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... or so. Elise was a mere child and George never spoke to her of having wished to become an artist. It seemed best to me for her to live in ignorance of the fact as she is already ridiculously fond of trying to paint; and if she knew there were any hereditary reasons for it, there is no telling what stand she would take. I hate the Bohemian life that artists lead, and now that I have made so many sacrifices for her to place her in the ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... puzzle, though, as the Professor remarked when Hawkhurst hit on the solution, it is "just one of those puzzles that a person might solve at a glance" by pure luck. Yet when the solution, with its pretty, symmetrical arrangement, is seen, it looks ridiculously simple. ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... shouting. "Stop all work. Stop all work," and a swarthy hunchback, ridiculously gay in green and gold, came leaping down the platforms toward him, bawling again and again in good English, "This is Ostrog's doing, Ostrog the Knave! The Master is betrayed." His voice was hoarse and a thin foam dropped from his ugly shouting ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... ridiculously superstitious, and he has as much terror of an odd number at a war feast, as we have of being one of thirteen at an ordinary dinner party. Under no circumstances would the Sauks have permitted such a defiance ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... was met. The other plan—even more difficult—was to continue down the river as far as its junction with the Tres Barras, from which place I would strike across the virgin forest as far as the Madeira River. I had not the faintest idea how I could realize either plan with the ridiculously meagre resources at my disposal. I had money enough, but unfortunately that was one of the few spots on earth where money was of little use. Again I trusted in Providence to come to our help. Both plans involved thousands of kilometres of navigation of a diabolical river, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... he came to the Thames Embankment, where he watched for a time the black, sluggish water being sucked out to sea by the outgoing tide. Then he walked on. St. Paul loomed high in the murky darkness. He got into the ridiculously narrow streets of Paternoster Row, where he had on his first visit bought a Bible. The evening was far spent and the crowds were thinning when he recognized ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... life-like scene of direct collision between the marshaled army of South Carolina under General Hayne on the one side, and the officers of the United States on the other, nettled his opponent even more than his severe satire, it seemed so ridiculously true. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... romped with him in a score of diverting ways. They embraced each other, fed each other, teased each other. The humanness of the creature was frightful. Perhaps our likeness to ourang-outangs (except for our ridiculously short arms, inadequate lower jaws and lack of ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas |
