"Tease" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Henry, sadly; "I have neither father, mother, sister, nor brother. I am alone in the world, and have no other friend but my comrade, Fritz Kober. Will you not give him to me, comrades? Will you tease him because he is the friend of a poor, young fellow, against whom you have nothing to say except that he is just seventeen years old and has no heard and his voice a little thin, not able to make ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... my books into this cupboard, and, of course, here's the chemistry, which I don't want, but never so much as a single leaf of the history. Don't grin! You aggravate me. I believe you've taken it away to tease me. Have you? Confess now! It's in your ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... it wasn't by my own CHOICE that that ruffian Waters took such liberties with me. Didn't I show how averse I was to all quarrels by refusing altogether his challenge?—But such is the world. And thus the people at Stiffelkind's used to tease me, until they drove me ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... these immature soldiers among the Insurrectos, and most of them were in some way distinguished for valor. War, it seems, fattens upon the tenderest of foods, and every army has its boys—its wondrous, well-beloved infants, whom their older comrades tease, torment, and idolize. Impetuous, drunk with youth, and keeping no company with care, they form the very aristocracy of fighting forces. They gaily undertake the maddest of adventures; and by their examples they fire the courage of their ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... from a mob, than in this,—that their feelings are constant and just, results of due contemplation, and of equal thought. You can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be—usually are—on the whole, generous and right; but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them; you may tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure; it thinks by infection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on;—nothing so great but it will forget in an hour, when the fit is past. But a ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the Fairy, "you have no choice now; it is too late; you must all start with us.... But you, Fire, don't come near anybody; you, Dog, don't tease the Cat; you, Water, try not to run all over the place; and you, Sugar, stop crying, unless you want to melt. Bread shall carry the cage in which to put the Blue Bird; and you shall all come to my house, where I will dress the Animals and the Things properly.... ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... Catos with their frowning brows Condemn a work of fresh simplicity'? A cheerful kindness my pure speech endows; What people do, I write, to my capacity. For who knows not the pleasures Venus gives? Who will not in a warm bed tease his members? Great Epicurus taught a truth that lives; Love and enjoy life! All ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... we got Miller's Dictionary on the floor, how he did tease me! For there was nothing about mills or millers in it. It was a Gardener's and Botanist's Dictionary, by Philip Miller; and the plates were plates of flowers, very truly drawn, like the pine tree in Uncle Charley's Jap. picture. There were some sections too, but they ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was announced; the first consul declared that he and his wife would attend, and he invited Mehul, whom he liked to tease and worry, because he loved him from his heart, to attend the performance ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... "We'll just tease him until he lets you go. He'll not object much, I'm sure. I should just cry my eyes out if you didn't go ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... continued. "I can see it. Do you know? I am very glad. It was foolish of me to tease you. You will forgive ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... ways and means! They did tease and plague so. I do believe Carry Price counts every grape that goes into this house— and they would know how I got my new music—and little Robina would tell—and then came something about Mr. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this makes my rivals mad, Don't true Gladdyites feel glad? What do you think? I'm a genuine Evergreen; It is that excites their spleen Who my lingering on the scene A great "do" think. I regret, so much, to tease them! My last exit would much ease them. But Retire!—and just to please them! What do ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... restless cuckoo, and would say to himself, "I must take to myself a wife. She would keep the house tidy, keep the plates hot for me, fold the clothes for me, sew my buttons on, sing merrily about the house, tease me to do everything according to her taste, would say to me as they all say to their husbands when they want a jewel, 'Oh, my own pet, look at this, is it not pretty?' And every one in the quarter will think of my wife and then of me, and say 'There's a happy man.' Then the getting ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... submission, that I do not think there is much amiss. As for Sophy she is merrier than she was yesterday; her eyes are sparkling and she looks very well pleased with herself; she is charming to Emile; she ventures to tease him a little and vexes ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... to-morrow," was Phebe's cool reply, rolling the whites of her eyes to hide a twinkle of fun. She knew Dotty expected her to say, "I am sorry;" but, though she really was sorry, she would not confess it just then, because she was an inveterate tease. ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... advancing beast. There was a look of stubborn determination on his little ebony face while his heart was beating with pride and exultation. Here was his great chance to turn the tables on his white companions. No longer would they dare tease him about running from the eel or about his adventure after the crane. He would be able now to twit them all, even the captain, with running away while he, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... still as much as ever, When the old gentleman began to tease him To marry, in the common cant of fathers; —"That he was now grown old; and Pamphilus His only child; and that he long'd for heirs, As props of his old age." At first my master Withstood his instances, but as his father Became more hot and urgent, Pamphilus Began to waver in his mind, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... licked her face and tried to tell her he was sorry, and she had flung her arms round him, and said: 'Never mind, dear good old Scamp! I love you more than all the dolls, and I know you didn't mean it.' How good she was always! He loved her better than Jack, though she did tease him. She had often dressed him up in her dolls' clothes and made him lie upside down in her arms in a very uncomfortable position, while she pretended he was ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Cow, "he'll grow tired of that lamb. The other boys will begin to tease him because the lamb follows him about. And that will be too much for Johnnie. . . . I know boys," the ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey
... anxious to preserve, are fast wearing out, which spoils some of the pleasure. The small stones of Desert soon cut and wear out a pair of soles, which are made of untanned camel's skin. Observed to the Shereef, to tease him, "Why, you Mussulmans don't know what is good. Your legs and feet are bare. You have nothing wrapt tight round your chest. Your woollens are pervious to the cold air. You're half naked; but for myself, I'm ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... their intercourse. Du Barry was most earnest in endeavouring, from first to last, to establish its impurity, because the Dauphine induced the gay young Prince to join in all her girlish schemes to tease and circumvent the favourite. But when this young Prince and his brother were married to the two Princesses of Piedmont, the intimacy between their brides and the Dauphine proved there could have been no doubt that Du ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... Lizaveta was left as she was. At last her father died, which made her even more acceptable in the eyes of the religious persons of the town, as an orphan. In fact, every one seemed to like her; even the boys did not tease her, and the boys of our town, especially the schoolboys, are a mischievous set. She would walk into strange houses, and no one drove her away. Every one was kind to her and gave her something. If she were given a copper, she would take it, and at once ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... only did it to tease you a little—not to hurt your feelings, believe me," replied Emma. "You shall not be a miller if you don't like it. Henry will do better, perhaps, than you; but as for our quitting this place, I have no idea of it's being ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... Mary Jane clapped her hands and wanted to insist on feeding them right that very minute; only, just in time, she remembered that she wasn't to tease. So she slipped her hand back into Grandfather's big one and they ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... was too proud and too grateful to claim any peculiar exemption from the Protestantism of her uncle. She had resolved during those early hours of the morning that 'it had better be so.' She thought that she could go through with it all, if only they would not tease her, and ask her to wear her Sunday frock, and force her to sit down with them at table. Let them settle the day—with a word or two thrown in by herself to increase the distance—and she would be absolutely ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... hot thing round your face must be very trying. Now if you were not so vain—what does a rash matter when only women are present? Well, well, I will not tease you. Do you know many of the Kunitzers? Do you ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... course, popular opinion says it is not "womanly." The "womanly way" is to nag and tease. Women have often been told that if they go about it right they can get anything. They are encouraged to plot and scheme, and deceive, and wheedle, and coax for things. This is womanly and sweet. Of course, if this fails, they still have tears—they ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... American Legation Nelly had a friend, Bessie Bates, who had a brother named Bob, a regular tease. Bessie was only eight, but Bob was eleven, and every one said that he ought to be at school in America. Then there were several children living in the mission compounds, but none of them were near ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... face grew a shade redder in its mortification even while she knew that the man was lying to tease her. Then she sat back with a little gasp and even slow moving Kootanie George turned quickly as a heavy ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... the united influence of authority, management, and persuasion, succeeded in effecting a rescue. The boy would probably have preferred to owe his safety to any one else than to the teacher whom he had so often tried to tease, but he was glad to escape in any way. The teacher said nothing about the subject, and the boy soon ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... passions, reveries, and hoydenish freaks continue. In her "Histoire de Ma Vie," it is plain that George Sand inherited at this age an unusual dower of gifts. She composed many and interminable stories, carried on day after day, so that her confidants tried to tease her by asking if the prince had got out of the forest yet, etc. She personated an echo and conversed with it. Her day-dreams and plays were so intense that she often came back from the world of imagination to reality with a shock. She spun a weird zoological romance out ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... although the greater part of the Irish Nationalist members are everywhere rejected beforehand by superior Home Rulers, as unfit for an Irish Parliament, they are apparently for that very reason sent to the House of Commons as the best sort to tease the brutal Saxon. The bulldog is not the noblest, nor the handsomest, nor the swiftest, nor the most faithful, nor the most sagacious, nor the most pleasant companion of the canine world, but he is a good 'un to hang on the nose of ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... as well as Miss Blackburne, "I didn't touch the pearls after I put them away, and brought them in here. Oh, please don't tease ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Horace, who was glad to have Grace say a foolish thing once in a while. It raised his self-esteem somehow; and, more than that, he liked to remember her little slips of the tongue, and tease her ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... future as any lying old gypsy woman; so she did not consider that there was any harm done, as she had also earned several dollars for the church. She had given a few of them bad fortunes, just to see if they would really believe such stuff, meaning to tease them over their credulity to-morrow, when she intended to declare ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... place ours was, it all went off by degrees; for three years I have never seen the smallest sign of temper, and if she is well treated there is not a better, more willing animal than she is. But she has naturally a more irritable constitution than the black horse; flies tease her more; anything wrong in her harness frets her more; and if she were ill-used or unfairly treated she would not be unlikely to give tit for tat. You know that many high-mettled ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... understood. It was so by me with Gray's 'Bard' and Collins' odes. 'The Bard' once intoxicated me, and now I read it without pleasure." [19] There is no danger that his own poem will ever lose its attractiveness in this way. Something inexplicable will remain to tease us, like the white Pater Noster and St. Peter's sister ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Brandley's house, I suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity without placing me on terms of favor, conduced to my distraction. She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she turned the very familiarity between herself and me to the account of putting a constant slight on my devotion to her. If I had been her secretary, steward, half-brother, poor relation,—if I had been a younger brother of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... these arrangements, he was released from the ties which hobbled him, and we commenced the arduous task of driving him towards the village, a distance of five miles. The only method of getting him along, was to keep two men to tease him in front, by shouting and waving cloths before his face; he immediately charged these fellows, who, of course, ran in the right direction for the village, and by this repeated manoeuvre we reached the borders ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... languished head. Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship. It is for homely features to keep home; They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool. What need of vermeil-tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? There was another meaning in these gifts; Think what, and be advised; you are but ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... a little white lily of the valley, all pure and sweet, but I was no more fit to be with her than a prickly thistle. I loved dearly to tease her. Once she had some bronze shoes, and I wanted some too, but there were none to be had in town, and to console myself, I said to dear little Fel, "I'd twice rather have black shoes, bronzes look so rusty; O, my! If I couldn't have black shoes ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose; Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance With timid eye to read the distant glance; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease To name the nameless, ever-new, disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain, and that alone, can cure; How would ye bear in real pain to lie, Despised, neglected, left alone to die? How would, ye bear to draw your latest breath Where ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... exquisite line does not constitute a poem. What Lowell says of Dr. Donne applies in a manner to Miss Dickinson: "Donne is full of salient verses that would take the rudest March winds of criticism with their beauty, of thoughts that first tease us like charades and then delight us with the felicity of their solution; but these have not saved him. He is exiled to the limbo of the ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... when he should have been grateful. We know that Stephen was not stuck up, and later Miss Russell learned that likewise. Very naturally she took preoccupation for indifference. It is a matter worth recording, however, that she did not tease him, because she did not dare. He did not ask her to dance, which was rude. So she passed him back to Mr. Carvel, who introduced him to Miss Renault and Miss Saint Cyr, and other young ladies of the best French families. And finally, drifting hither ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... known the governess as well as Nan did she would have known that it was worse than useless to "tease." As it was, she was aware of some force here that did not appear in her own easy-going mother, and unconsciously she bowed to it—but even as she did so she gave a last wail of entreaty ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... this by the area of canvas. Although Clayton had abandoned the Magdalen in utter disgust, Miss Marston persisted in the early morning sittings. She made herself useful in preparing his coffee and in getting his canvas ready. They rarely talked. Sometimes Clayton, in a spirit of deviltry, would tease his mentor about their peculiar relationship, about herself, or, worse than all, would run himself and say very true things about his own imperfections. Then, on detecting the tears that would rise in the tired, faded eyes of the woman he tortured, he ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... used to tease him an' say, 'Bud, why don't you go to de war?' Dey laughed an' teased 'im when he went. But twant no laughin' when he come home on a furlough an' went back. Dey was cryin' den. An' well dey mought[FN: might] cry, 'cause he never come back no more'. He was ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... father does, Charley, and they will. Love all things and be kind to them. Don't kick the dog, or speak roughly to him. Don't pull pussy's tail, nor chase the hens, nor try to frighten the cow. Never throw stones at the birds. Never hurt nor tease anything. Speak gently and lovingly to them and they will love you, and everybody that knows ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... want to wear just hand-me-down clothes of her sister's even if she is a twin," he explained, "and I always like to buy doll clothes for little girls who don't tease for new things. But there's one thing sure about this parasol," he added, "it's not to go over ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... bottle-shaped snout was as friendly and playful as most of its fellow dolphins. Too playful, Tom concluded, after vainly trying to tease it into chasing them. Instead of following, it would "tag" Tom or Mel quickly, then swim away, evidently expecting to ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... tease his sister-in-law, but the young girl was quite his equal when it came to a battle of wits and it was not often that she gave ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... girl!" he murmured simply. She protested, "Don't tease me. I have watched you and am learning some of your simple but complete methods of working. I understand you better ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... touched, and I begged of her to believe that my remark was only uttered in sport, to tease her. But it was a long time before I could get her to finish the sentence. "You have come a long ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... He would tease like a child to be allowed to go. He would listen with an unsatisfied and appealing look while Joe, with an exuberant but regretful air, explained to him in detail the reasons which made it impossible for ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... they came back from school he was much more comfortable than he had been since he had left the old woman's cottage. They were kind little children, and wanted to play with him; but, alas! the poor fellow had never played in his life, and thought they wanted to tease him, and flew straight into the milk-pan, and then into the butter-dish, and from that into the meal- barrel, and at last, terrified at the noise and confusion, right out of the door, and hid himself in the snow amongst the bushes at the back ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... perseverance or energy, and I must take the teaching of him into my own hands till his school-days begin, in hopes of instilling them. The girlishness and timidity will be knocked out of him by the boys, I suppose; Harry is too kind and generous to do more than tease him moderately, and Norman will see that it does not go too far. It is a common saying that Tom and Mary made a mistake, that he is the girl, and she the boy, for she is a rough, merry creature, the noisiest in the house, always skirmishing with Harry in defence of Tom, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... "I don't think the neglect is really blameworthy. For instance, I'm sure that my uncle knows nothing about what we have seen in the last few days. He is charitable on system, and he weighs and balances things so much that we tease him. He never gives a sixpence unless he knows all the facts of the case, and I'm sure when I tell him he'll be willing to assist Mr. Fullerton. Then I'm as ignorant as my uncle. I can guess a great deal, of course, but really I've only seen about half a ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... anemones and brown anemones that seemed nothing but shadows, and curtained with green of finest sea-silk. Siegmund loved to poke the white pebbles, and startle the little ghosts of crabs in a shadowy scuttle through the weed. He would tease the expectant anemones, causing them to close suddenly over his finger. But Helena liked to watch without touching things. Meanwhile the sun was slanting behind the cross far away to the west, and the light was swimming in ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... step towards this thing, or even speaking to any one about it; and, on the other hand, I would set to work tomorrow, were the Lord to bid me do so. This calmness of mind, this having no will of my own in the matter, this only wishing to tease my Heavenly Father in it, this only seeking His and not my honour in it; this state of heart, I say, is the fullest assurance to me that my heart is not under a fleshly excitement, and that, if I am helped thus to go on, I shall know the will of God to the full. But, while. I write thus, I cannot ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... fretted by his tone. "Don't tease me, dear boy! I've quite enough to worry over! I—I"—she pushed her hair childishly off her face—"I wish devoutly that your father was here. He always knows in a second what's to be done! But—but fly with this telegram, won't you?" she broke ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... yesterday, because I would not kiss you good-by in the presence of my mother, I am good-natured enough you see to write you a good-by letter after all. But I certainly will not promise to write you daily, so kindly do not tease me any more about it. In the first place, you understand that I greatly dislike letter-writing. In the second place you know Jacksonville quite as well as I do, so there is no use whatsoever in wasting either my time or yours in purely geographical descriptions. And in the third ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... more than I should make a mistake about you, father, when you begin to tease me with your horrid principles! Because, in spite of them, you are the chastest and ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... for he could not understand why they would not lift up. He chattered scoldingly at everybody; then tried again. Failing, he sprang down and went to a far corner, in a fine sulk. Evidently he thought Tom was playing a trick on him, and had glued the freckles down someway just to tease him; for Tom, it must be admitted, was greatly given to bothering Grandpa in some ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... tell you; you should not tease me so, Fay. I think you might have a little faith in ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... know what I mean," protested Jerry, looking somewhat sheepish. "You girls do like to tease me. All right, I'll do the forgiving act and order the refreshments. I'll pay for them, too. I've a whole dollar. I am supposed to buy some stationery with it, but I'll just let my correspondence languish and treat instead. Name your eat and you ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... now resume, thus imbibe with gusto; While charming the palate it burns yet enchants, In the hour of its triumph the virtue it grants Penetrates every tissue; its powers condense. Circulate cheering warmths, bring new life to each sense. From the cauldron profound spiced aromas unseen Mount to tease and delight your olfactories keen, The while you inhale with felicity fraught, The enchanting perfume that a zephyr ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... were to force your wife to do it?" The idea of a woman refusing him anything seemed to him preposterous. Mrs. Lyschinski says that Chopin was gallant to all ladies alike, but thinks that he had no heart. She used to tease him about women, saying, for instance, that Miss Stirling was a particular friend of his. He replied that he had no particular friends among the ladies, that he gave to all an equal share of his attention. "Not even ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... asked their parents' blessing. So the old mother smartened up their clothes, and gave them a store of provisions for their journey, not forgetting to add a bottle of brandy. When they had gone the poor Simpleton began to tease his mother to smarten him up and ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... himself assiduously at work to tease and torment the good man with every petty and malicious trick his malevolence could invent. He would shout opprobrious words after the other in the streets, to the entertainment of all who heard him; he would parade up and down before Colonel ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... eyes were bad. "Mihi molestior lippitudo erat etiam quam ante fuerat." And again, "Lippitudinis meae signum tibi sit librarii manus." But we may doubt whether any great men have lived so long with so little to tease them as to their health. And yet the amount of work he got through was great. He must have so arranged his affairs as to have made the most he could of his hours, and have carried in his memory information on all subjects. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... by and by, he said, and he pictured to himself how she must look by this time, hoping that he should not find her greatly changed, for Morris Grant's memories were very precious of the playful child who, in that very room where he was sitting, used to tease and worry him so much with her lessons poorly learned, and the never-ending jokes played off upon her teacher. He had thought of her so often when across the sea, and, knowing her love of the beautiful, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... children come from church and schoolroom, blind To suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind; He heard them taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered kin; And no voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin. He heard the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun's report; He saw the morbid craze to kill, which ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... were binding her, she cried out to her husband, "Ah! here are some bad boys trying to take me to the church." But her husband said that the crazy fellows were only trying to tease her. When they reached the church with this old woman, the priest, who was also crazy, performed the burial-ceremony over her. She cried out that she was alive; but the priest answered that since he had her burial-fee, he did not care whether ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... a specimen of Philip's wooing. Confound the girl, he would say to himself, why does she never tease Harry and that young Shepley ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... This is of course the extreme limit of worldliness, but in many cases it had a tame and semi-respectable beginning, originating from circumstances as seemingly safe as those which make up our own individual lives. Who can tell whether danger will allow us to tempt and tease her with impunity. The fortifications around our personal lots are not so stable as we imagine, and they require our constant and vigilant supervision. While we are feasting and rioting the scouts of the enemy are conspiring strongly ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"—that is all Ye ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... French almost like a Frenchman," said Grant. "We used to tease you about it in school. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... was about Patroclus marched on till they sprang high in hope upon the Trojans. They came swarming out like wasps whose nests are by the roadside, and whom silly children love to tease, whereon any one who happens to be passing may get stung—or again, if a wayfarer going along the road vexes them by accident, every wasp will come flying out in a fury to defend his little ones—even ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... saw so green a blade in all my born days. Can't you see, now, that it's all cram this, just to put you in spirits, old boy, in case of such things happening? It was wicked too of me to tease you so—but I'm so jolly, governor; such luck in Jermyn street—I knew you'd like a joke served up with such rich sauce as this is, ey? only look!" It was half a hatful of bank notes raked up ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... hadn't been so miserable, she would have laughed. Stannard had hit himself off very well, she thought. He had his good points, too. Not once had he reminded her that she hadn't intended to spend her summer on a farm. But she was too unhappy to tease him as she might have done at another time. She was still bewildered and inclined to resent the trick life had played her. The prospect didn't look any better on close inspection than it had at first; rather worse, if anything. Imagine ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... the birds, for instance. Frisky simply had to tease them. Perhaps it was just because he was so full of fun—or mischief, as it is sometimes called. Anyhow, he delighted in visiting their nests; and chasing them; and scolding at them. And it was not ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... lad," said the skipper, patting him on the back. "There, I will never tease you again. In all probability there won't be anything serious, but if there is, take care of yourself, my boy, for I shouldn't like ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... wish you wouldn't tease so. Can't you see I have a headache? I can't answer so many questions, and I won't! Once for all, everything is just what I like. Do you understand, or shall I tell you again?—just, just ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... sacredly, never, not even in mere jest, to wrangle with each other; never to bandy words or indulge in the least ill-humour. Never! I say; never. Wrangling, even in jest, and putting on an air of ill-humour merely to tease, becomes earnest by practice. Mark that! Next promise each other, sincerely and solemnly, never to have a secret from each other under whatever pretext, with whatever excuse it may be. You must, continually and every moment, see clearly into each other's ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... as she presented herself before her Scotch husband, who laughed heartily over her misadventure, and did not cease to tease her about her expedition to the mountain, as long as ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... preserve a great degree of dignity and decorum in our society. As he jogged along a little distance ahead of us, the young dogs would gambol about him, leap on his neck, worry at his ears, and endeavor to tease him into a frolic. The old dog would keep on for a long time with imperturbable solemnity, now and then seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his young companions. At length he would make a sudden turn, seize one of them, and tumble him in the dust; then ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... destroying it, she stuck the pieces in her hair. Not content with this, she also put bits behind Maurice's ears, and tried to twist one in the piece of hair that fell on his forehead. Having thus bedizened them, she leaned back, and, with her hands clasped behind her head, began to tease the young man. A little bird, it seemed, had whispered her any number of interesting things about Madeleine and Maurice, and she had stored them all up. Now, she repeated them, with a charming impertinence, and was so provoking ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... they went with drooping tails, And pace so lame and jerky, And said, "Next time we'll tease the hens, And ...
— Naughty Puppies • Anonymous
... Would wake you not; Not the sweetest fluting Tease you back to thought. Yet the scratching mouse Makes all my flesh ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at him in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging them as said to tease her. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Mr. Foster," she continued, almost sobbing; "he torments me so. He likes to make fun of me, and tease me, till I can't bear to go into his room. Father used to say it was wicked to hate anybody, and I didn't hate anybody then. I was so happy. But you'd hate Mr. Foster, and Mrs. Foster, if ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... difference between a single book, a shelf full of books and a library of books. Scale makes things different. Take the Web: none of us can hope to read even a fraction of all the pages on the Web, but by analyzing the link structures that bind all those pages together, Google is able to actually tease out machine-generated conclusions about the relative relevance of different pages to different queries. None of us will ever eat the whole corpus, but Google can digest it for us and excrete the steaming nuggets of goodness that ...
— Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books • Cory Doctorow
... go to a nice school. And we have so many funny plays and dancing once a week. I didn't tease about it, though I wanted to go, and Cousin Chilian said I might. It's queer, but in India they come and dance for you, and you pay them. But it is lovely to do it for yourself;" and she made some graceful motions with her hands, while her beautiful eyes were alight with emotion, as if ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... or how to comply. We had many books to teach us our more important duties, and to settle opinions in philosophy or politics; but an arbiter elegantiarum, (a judge of propriety) was yet wanting who should survey the track of daily conversation, and free it from thorns and prickles, which tease the passer, though they do not wound him. For this purpose nothing is so proper as the frequent publication of short papers, which we read, not as study, but amusement. If the subject be slight, the treatise is short. The busy may find time, and the idle may find ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... believe thou lovest me! Why not? Many pretty girls have done so before thee. Thou wishest only to tease me ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... in the same place "when boys are wont to tease," in order that he might heighten their passionate temper by being stirred up by children. Of a continuous sound, he ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... well that Nino had only asked for the extra lesson in order to get a chance of talking about the Contessina di Lira, and so, to tease him, as soon as he appeared, the maestro made a great bustle about singing scales, and insisted on beginning at once. Moreover, he pretended to be in a bad humour; and that is ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... violin sonatas, and the overtures forgotten. The "Dutchman," with his force and depth, his tenderness and sweetness, was the Cardinal's prime favourite. "We were at the concert," Mrs. Newman writes to him at school, "and fascinated with the Dutchman" (the name he had given to Beethoven to tease his music-master because of the van to his name), "and thought of you and your musical party frequently."[26] "They tell me," he said in May, 1876, on occasion of hearing at the Latin Play, the scherzo ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... shown him the way. Yet I offered myself for his examination. One day he led the way to my speaking out; but, rightly or wrongly, I could not respond. My reason was, "I have no certainty on the matter myself. To say 'I think' is to tease and to distress, not ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... her wide, candid gaze, with the unrancorous placidity of the young, who are still used to being snubbed. Nan, she knew, would tease and baffle, withhold and gibe, but would always say what she thought in the end, and what she thought was always worth knowing, even ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... playing; he had never seen so many boys before, and he was frightened, and he crept into a corner. They all got round him, and asked him a great many questions, which frightened him more; and he began to cry and call for Susan. This set the boys a-laughing, and they began to pull him about and tease him. ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... offer do you make for the letter? Well, we won't tease you," Annie went on as Vincent gave an impatient exclamation. "Another time we might do so, but as you have just come safely back to us I don't think it will be fair, especially as this is the very first letter. Here it is"—and she took out of the workbox before her ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the French ladies for affecting English fashions. He used often to joke about it, and particularly in the conversation which he addressed to me, expecting that I would take it up and tease the Princesses. To amuse him, I sometimes said whatever came into my head, without the least ceremony, and often made ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... he contradicted, "and don't you be getting cross at your Cousin Lorando Bean! You know I always loved to tease you; it made your eyes ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam
... unsoldierlike rush for him and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed his cheek. "You are a great big tease, and I choose to salute you this way." Then she kissed her mother, saying: "I've the loveliest plan, Captain. I'm sure that this dress will fit Constance. She says she won't go to the school dance because she has no pretty gown to wear. May ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... is, that at home, up-stairs or down-stairs, I couldn't read. I should have not only my own idleness, but the various idlenesses of the whole family combined, to fight against. My sisters would be knocking at the door every half hour, if only to ask how I was getting on: Bob would tease me to come out skating, and Charles would start me perpetually after wild-ducks or woodcocks. And you yourself, sir, if I am not much mistaken, would think it odd if I didn't take a ride with you as usual after breakfast. Then one can't be expected to crawl about one's books by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... as that "involving the rights and duties of sovereign and subject." He then declared that there was in England a strong desire for peace and for ending a contest in which the "two countries could only tease and weaken each other without any practical result," and at a time when England desired to carry her resources into the "more important field of European contest." He then gave Castlereagh's assurance, that the cartel-ship, the Neptune, should be respected, and expressed his own personal ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... advances, his honeyed words and oglings, the Stuart maid only laughed a merry childish laugh. She would romp with him, as she had done with the gallants at the French Court; to her he was only another "big playfellow" to tease and play with. She knew nothing of love, and did not wish to know more. He might kiss her—vraiment—why not? and that Charles made abundant use of this concession, we know, for we are told that "he would kiss her for half an hour at a ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... would the Indians!" said Ted. However he knew he was too small to have a firearm, so he did not tease ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... couldn't tease Chunky with a club. I just say those things to get him started. He ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... vagrant pass near by, she hurries from her watch-tower, lifts a limb and puts the intruder to flight. If I tease her with a straw, she parries with big gestures, like those of a prize-fighter. She uses her fists against my weapon. When I propose to dislodge her in view of certain experiments, I find some difficulty in doing so. She clings to the silken floor, she frustrates my attacks, ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... once a Dog which was so fierce and bad that his master had to tie a big clog round his neck lest he should bite and tease men and boys in the street. The Dog thought that this was a thing to be proud of, so ran through the best known streets, and grew so vain that he scorned the dogs he met, and would not be seen with them. But one of them said in his ear, "You are wrong, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... civilization then received a more cruel shock than that which had been dealt it by the storming columns of the conquistadors. The horse transformed the Utes, Apaches, Comanches, and Navajos from snapping-turtles into condors. Thenceforward, instead of crawling in slow and feeble bands to tease the dense populations of the pueblos, they could come like a tornado, and come in a swarm. At no time were the Moquis and their fellow agriculturists and herdsmen safe from robbery and slaughter. Such villages as did not stand upon buttes inaccessible to horsemen, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... an incorrigible little tease you are!" laughingly interposed Miss Minot, as she playfully tweaked the girl's ear. "I wonder how long the things would last you if you ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... dance somewhere, and his mother and Steve had answered and taken Mavis with them; so the boy sat down on the porch, alone with the night and the big still dark shapes around him. It would not be very pleasant for him to follow them—people would tease him and ask him troublesome questions. But where was the dance, and had they gone to it after all? He rose and went swiftly down the creek. At the mouth of it a light shone through the darkness, and from it a quavering hymn trembled on the still ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... "You are trying to tease me, now, but I will not be angry. You know, as well as I do, that from the first I took a liking to Mr. Holden. So far from being frightened at him, when I was a child, nothing pleased me better ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... mad and we are glad, And we know how to tease him! But some dark night he'll get a fright, For ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess
... into the flooded field to catch the fishes as they escape from the overflowing ponds; the rain water is running in rills through the narrow lanes like a laughing boy who has run away from his mother to tease her. ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... remember. You know I always tease her about Gilfil, who is over head and ears in love with her; and she is angry at that,—perhaps, because she likes him. They were old playfellows years before I came here, and Sir Christopher has set his ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and Lena, their pretty daughter, was not afraid of man nor devil. So it came about that Canute went over to take his alcohol with Ole oftener than he took it alone. After a while the report spread that he was going to marry Yensen's daughter, and the Norwegian girls began to tease Lena about the great bear she was going to keep house for. No one could quite see how the affair had come about, for Canute's tactics of courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently never spoke to her ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... bodies, both in my old days at Paris and more recently at Versailles, it seemed to me that their main defects are those of their qualities; that one of the most frequent occupations of their members is teasing one another, and that when they tease one another they are wonderfully witty; that in the American Congress and in the British Parliament members are more slow to catch a subtle comment or scathing witticism; that the members of American and British ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... secured a yacht to carry our friends out to see us this evening. My message said about the same thing, so now, you see, it was ridiculous in Eleanor to tease about it being a love-note. Had she been sensible I would have read it aloud to all, but because of her silliness, I made up my ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... moment ago you said what a much nicer boy Vic would have made. All boys aren't like Geoff. Of course, I don't mean that he is really a bad boy; but it just comes over me now and then that it is a shame he should be such a tease and worry, boy or not. When mamma is anxious, and with good reason, and we girls are doing all we can, why should Geoff be the one we have to keep away from her, and to smooth down, as it were? It's all for her sake, of course; but it makes me ashamed, all the same, to feel ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... kings? Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs, A surgeon's[263] statement, and an earl's[264] harangues! A bust delayed,[265]—a book[266] refused, can shake The sleep of Him who kept the world awake. Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,[dy] Now slave of all could tease or irritate— The paltry gaoler[267] and the prying spy, The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?[268] 70 Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great; How low, how little was this middle state, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Goodfellow by name, his powers and aptitudes for mischief are quite unchecked by any gentle relentings of fellow-feeling: in whatever distresses he finds or occasions he sees much to laugh at, nothing to pity: to tease and vex poor human sufferers, and then to think "what fools these mortals be," is pure fun to him. Yet, notwithstanding his mad pranks, we cannot choose but love the little sinner, and let our fancy frolic with him, his sense of the ludicrous is so exquisite, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... he raked in a few pots right on the start; then came odd losses and another succession of gains. His success seemed to please rather than tease the other boys, and, to repay them for their consideration, Evan decided it was up to him to make a few bets. He played rather recklessly after a couple of good winnings, saying to himself ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... came in, and joined our circle. His first aside was, "If you only knew how much I liked you last night, you would never be cruel to me again. Why, I thought you the greatest girl in the world! Please let's part friends to-night again!" I would not promise, for I knew I would tease him yet; and at supper, when I insisted on his taking a glass of milk, his face turned so red that Mrs. Carter pinched my arm blue, and refused to help me to preserves because I was making Will mad! But Waller helped me, and I drank my own milk to Mr. Carter's health with my sweetest ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... in front of our tent, I soon forgot my childish fears, in a sound sleep which remained unbroken till the morning sun was shining brightly above the trees. But it was long before I heard the last of the night I spent in the bush; and as often as my brothers wished to tease me, they would enquire if I had lately heard the cries of a catamount? Time passed on till I grew up, and leaving the paternal home went forth, to make my own way in the world. Old Rufus still resided in R. When a child I used to fancy that he would never seem older than he had appeared since my ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... like to have his word doubted, he was eager to prove his skill, which he conceived to be far greater than it was, and as his cousins continued to twit and tease him, daring him to show what he could do, he was ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... Israfil! forgive me!" She almost shook him in her vehemence, then flung him from her, and pressed her hands to her eyes for an instant. "Mocking you? Oh, no!" she protested. "Believe me—believe me if you can. I respected you almost from the first; I reverenced you at last. I used to tease you about myself to begin with, I repeat, because it did not occur to me that you could care seriously for a girl to whom you had never spoken. Then I began to perceive my mistake. Then I felt anxious to get ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Hubert, Miss Selwyn. He is a sad tease, as we all find to our sorrow. He has not had brothers or sisters since his childhood to ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... good-natured at the same time. So as most of the people of the Green Forest were hungry all the time, they were also short-tempered all the time. Mr. Otter knew this. When any of them came prowling around the spring-hole where he was fishing, he would tease them by letting them see how fat he was. Sometimes he would bring up a fine fish and eat it right before them without offering to share so much as a mouthful. He had done this several times to Mr. Lynx, and though Mr. Lynx had ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... condescended to encourage his first critical labour, grudgingly bestows a moderated praise on this exquisite satire, which he characterises for "its airy petulance, suitable enough to the levity of the controversy." He compared this attack "to a fly, which may sting and tease a horse, but yet the horse is the nobler animal."[176] Among the prejudices of criticism, is one which hinders us from relishing a masterly performance, when it ridicules a favourite author; but to us, mere historians, truth will always prevail over literary favouritism. The ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; but ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Wolverine, who is exceeding subtle above the beasts of the forest, and who is gifted with more evil mischief than all of them in one. And when the Weasels called to him for help he tarried, for it came into his heart that he might in some way torment and tease them. But verily he had to deal with those who were not much more virtuous than himself, and quite as cunning, for what with traveling from the earth to the heavens and changing husbands, these fair minevers were learning wisdom rapidly. So the elder sister, who had ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... nothing. I'll show you acting that will make your hair stand on end, and you shall act too. Bab will be capital for the naughty girls," began Thorny, excited by the prospect of producing a sensation on the boards, and always ready to tease the girls. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... put upon him, it was deliciously flattering thus to see her in her own way suing for his favour. This made him feel like a man again. He was disposed to tease her. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner |
