"Teasing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that will be pleasant, with competitive examination going on over one's plate; the competition being among the examiners. Really, now that I know what teasing things girls are, I don't so much wonder that people used to put up patiently with the dragons who took them for supper. But I can't help myself, I suppose;—no thanks to St. George. Ask away, children, and I'll answer ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of an hour Joseph stood still and bore the brunt of much teasing in the atelier of the great sculptor, Chaudet. But after laughing at him for a time, the pupils were struck with his persistency and with the expression of his face. They asked him what he wanted. Joseph answered that he wished to know how to draw; thereupon they all encouraged ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... by the stick, Jerry remained Lamai's prisoner. It was not a happy time, for the house of Lumai was a house of perpetual bickering and quarrelling. Lamai fought pitched battles with his brothers and sisters for teasing Jerry, and these battles invariably culminated in Lenerengo taking a hand and impartially punishing ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... Now you'll begin teasing me with that all our life—the way I didn't slap your face that night when I should have. I just couldn't have, honey. Goes to show we were just cut and dried for each other, don't it? Me, a girl that never ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... know what to say to her. There was a species of abandon in her gaiety. Her exotic language embarrassed one who had been used to mariners' laconic directness of speech. She looked at him, teasing him with her eyes. He was a bit relieved when the pale-faced secretary came dragging himself up the ladder and broke ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... out, he tickled Tai-yue promiscuously under her armpits, and along both sides. Tai-yue had never been able to stand tickling, so that when Pao-yue put out his two hands and tickled her violently, she forthwith giggled to such an extent that she could scarcely gasp for breath. "If you still go on teasing me," she shouted, "I'll get angry ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... jogging her elbow until he ran the needles past each other, and finally unravelling her clew; all which she bore with great good-humor. Sometimes, indeed, she ventured to give him a thwack upon the shoulder, with a laughing frown upon her countenance, in order to correct him for teasing her. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... not the wretched Poet Doomed to pen these teasing strains, Wit so cramped, ah, who can show it, Are the trifles worth the pains. Rhyme compared with this were easy, Double Rhymes may not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... next ten minutes the determined girl plied her reluctant and perplexed companion, by all the means which her ingenuity could invent, to accomplish her object; teasing, coaxing and threatening by turns, till, being unable to ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... immemorial ornaments from her immemorial old "whatnot"; in the dining-room a squad of custard-colored waiters had opposed a firm front to the hungry hordes that assaulted the various viands on the table; and a thousand teasing points of form and usage had afflicted her with worry, uncertainty, and possible mortification and despair. She saw now that nothing like her imagined entertainment was desirable, or even tolerable, to-day, and she gave unconsciously ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... milk would not be allowed for those men who were so low with camp diarrhea, and whether I could not bring them quilts and pillows. "Madam, you can bring them milk, or any thing you've named; but I tell you, if you undertake to listen to all these soldiers' teasing, you'll have your hands full. As like as not, any way, they'll trade whatever you give them for whisky the first chance they have." I could not sleep until I secured the aid of two soldiers to go with me to carry milk, pillows, and quilts for those sick men. Their tears of gratitude, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... the privilege of voting. This attitude on the part of some of the suffrage Members of this House is on an exact equality with the acts of these women militants who have spent the last summer and fall, while they were not in the district jail or workhouse, in coaxing, teasing, and nagging the Presi dent of the United States for the purpose of inducing him, by coercion, to club Congress into adopting ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... those, of course, to whom this earthiness and wildness are repulsive, to whom old Martin Doul's love pleading to Molly Byrne is unendurable. A dirty "shabby stump of a man," a beggar, blind and middle-aged, is asking a fine white girl, young, and as teasing as an ox-eyed and ox-minded colleen may be, to go away with him. Not an exalting situation, exactly, as you read of it or see it on the stage, but once you see it on the stage, where its animality you would expect would be heightened, you realize—and it is strange to you that you ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... years it is friendship and not romantic love that will be most helpful in the later life. As one step in this direction, all sensible adults should show their disfavor to the abominable habit of teasing small children concerning their best friends of the other sex. Parents and teachers will do some of the best work in the larger sex-education if they begin in pre-adolescent years to develop ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... a grand Senor," answered Senora with enthusiasm. "A Caballero every inch, and rides a horse that's the devil himself. Why, only yesterday the brute kicked out the side of the corral, and after chasing the men off the place who had been teasing him, calmly walked into the garden and ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... and the worst about mother. She never says 'yes' when she means 'no,' and she never says either till it's all settled. I remember how, when I was little, I used to ask, 'Is it decided?' and when she answered, 'Yes, it's decided,' I gave up teasing. Mountains might ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... push open the door of the cabin, invariably I find the Spider lying motionless, as though in endless meditation. It needs the teasing of a straw to rouse her from her apathy. It needs the prick of hunger to bring her out of doors; and, as she is extremely temperate, her appearances outside are few and far between. During three years of assiduous observation, in the privacy of my study, I have not once seen her ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... house-tops, and the poor fellow's mind had reached the point where the slam of a window or the ripping creak of a floorboard would have shattered his brittle nerves into a thousand cursing tortures—then that teasing, tantalizing little friend of all rheumatic invalids—the Morning Nap—came swooping down upon him like a sponge and wiped out of his face every single bit of the sharp, precious evidence of pain which he had been accumulating so laboriously all night long to present to the Doctor ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Algernon Hurdlestone, who for eight long years had forgotten the solemn promise given to Elinor, that he would be a friend and guardian to her child. Nor would he now have remembered the circumstance, had not his own spoilt Godfrey been earnestly teasing him for a playmate. "Be a good boy, Godfrey, and I will bring you home a cousin to be a brother and playfellow," he said, as his conscience smote him for this long neglected duty; and ordering his groom to saddle his horse, he rode over ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Nicky to let him go back with him and stay the night. Then he could tell him. And he could get out of telling Jane. He liked teasing and tormenting her, but he did not want to stab her. Still less did he want to stand by with the steel in his hand ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... Anderson's father was rich. He had not thought of it before! But now he remembered how much woodland he owned and how he had two large farms. Jule Anderson would not marry a poor boy. And a Dutchman! She was not sincere. She was trifling with him and teasing her parents. Or, if she were sincere now, she would not be faithful to him against every tempting offer. And he would have to drive on the rocks, too, as Andrew had. At any rate, he would not marry her until he stood upon some sort of equality ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... only teasing you. Honest Injun. And if you don't laugh I'll suspect you of being in a temper with me. That's right, laugh. But don't—" she added in alarm, "don't if it hurts you. You look as though you had a toothache. There, there—don't ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... refusals did not check his teasing for a car of his own. However lax he might be about early rising and the prosody of Vergil, he was tireless in tinkering. With three other boys he bought a rheumatic Ford chassis, built an amazing racer-body out of tin ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... coming home the comtesse was teasing her mount, spurring it and then checking it abruptly. They heard Julien say several time: "Take care, take care; you will be thrown." "So much the worse," she replied; "it is none of your business," in a hard clear tone that resounded across ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Fanny never interferes with any one—she just goes her way and lets you go yours. And when Sophy interferes, it is only because something is left untidy, or you have not done something you promised to do. She does not tease for teasing's sake, like Hatty. ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... terrace the younger people had gathered in a circle and were discussing the polo match. Miss Hitchcock's clear, mocking voice could be heard teasing her cousin Caspar on his performance that afternoon. The heavy young man, whose florid face was flushed with the champagne he had taken, made ineffective attempts to ward off the banter. Parker ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... won't you walk with me to the party?" asked Susie, sort of teasing like. "I'm afraid to go through the woods alone, because Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, said you and he met ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... Smith, with whom I had become well acquainted when I wrote the letter to Lady Dacre in which I mention him, used to amuse himself, and occasionally some of my other friends, by teasing me on the subject of what he called my hallucination with regard to my having married in America. He never allowed any allusion to the circumstance without the most comical expressions of regret for this, as he called ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... at the beginning of the story, as Miss Morgan has pointed out,[13]is more elaborate than usual in Haywoodian romance. To show a young girl's vanity teasing her into an intrigue required a more delicate appreciation of the passions than the stock situations in love stories afforded. Obliged to draw upon her own resources, Mrs. Haywood handled the incidents with a niceness that could hardly have been expected from the author of "Love in Excess." ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... for example, are in our human life but not of it. They witness hourly the outward body of events whose inner meaning cannot, by any possible operation, be revealed to their intelligence,—events in which they themselves often play the cardinal part. My terrier bites a teasing boy, for example, and the father demands damages. The dog {58} may be present at every step of the negotiations, and see the money paid, without an inkling of what it all means, without a suspicion that it has anything to do with him; and he ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... in the way, Nais could have got rid of him, sent him out of the house, or given him something to do; but he was not the only one; visitors flocked in upon her, and so much the more as curiosity increased, for your provincial has a natural bent for teasing, and delights to thwart a growing passion. The servants came and went about the house promiscuously and without a summons; they had formed the habits with a mistress who had nothing to conceal; any change now made in her household ways was tantamount to a confession, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... teasing you, ma, dear," cried Gwyn, laughing. "But I say, father, what were you going to say about my being a ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... on their homeward path now seemed the teasing voices of men and girls as, in a group, they waited for the elevator at five-thirty-five. The cheerful, "Good-night, Mrs. Schwirtz!" was a vesper benediction, altogether sweet with its earnest of rest ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... herself; "it is quite impossible." She looked away and tried to get to where she had been before Mr. Smith came up—to that fairyland which the musician summons up with a wave of his magic wand, especially perhaps for those who love music mostly with their hearts, but the teasing little impression disturbed her like an imp. Until the notes of Schubert's "Adieu" came floating out into the night and carried them all on its wings up to the ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... candle would not keep alight, so that he had to take his coat and beat the air about before going into the level, and, after a time, went in when the candles could be got to burn by holding them on one side, and teasing out the wick very much. This used to create a great deal of smoke, which tended still further to vitiate the air. When he returned "to grass" his saliva used to be as black as ink. About five years before ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... but she made a brave effort. "Did you ask Lucy?" she said, her voice almost refusing the teasing laugh she tried to make it utter. "Did you ask her when ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... ha! Some week or ten days ago, as I were a-coming across the field leading into the lane behind the church, I see'd these same two chaps, and on coming nearer, (they not seeing me for the hedge,) Lord bless me! would you believe it?—if they wasn't a-teasing my daughter Jenny, that were coming along wi' some physic from the doctor for my old woman! One of 'em seemed a-going to put his arm round her neck and t' other came close to her on t' other side, a-talking to her and pushing her about." Here a young farmer, who had but seldom spoken, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... I to come humbugging and letting on as I did, teasing and tormenting her, and not coming as a King should that is come to ask for a Queen! Oh, come back for one minute only till I will ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... ghastly business in its true aspect. Look at the lighter side of Viviette's character. She is gay, fond of admiration, childishly fond of teasing, a bright creature of bewildering moods. Would she be safe in your hands? Might you not one day again see things red before your eyes ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... passing hint,—one phrase, one epithet." Now observe; can there be a plainer testimony borne to the practical character of my Sermons at St. Mary's than this gratuitous insinuation? Many a preacher of Tractarian doctrine has been accused of not letting his parishioners alone, and of teasing them with his private theological notions. The same report was spread about me twenty years ago as this writer spreads now, and the world believed that my Sermons at St. Mary's were full of red-hot Tractarianism. Then strangers ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... tells us that the Emperor, who desired to rule in important matters, endured, and even liked to be contradicted on minor matters. "When he was with Marie Louise, he used to be forever teasing her ladies about a thousand things; it often happened that they stood up against him, and he would carry on the discussion and laugh heartily when he had succeeded in vexing the young girls, who, in their frankness and ignorance of the ways of ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... no!" and Jarvis' voice again had that provokingly teasing tone in it. "I'll just stay right in the game and play my hand ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... go more quickly, father; I can hear the drums," the young girl said, and in a half-teasing, half-coaxing manner she ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... married him!" cried the latter, jumping up with pleasure after a glance at Lucetta's fingers. "When did you do it? Why did you not tell me, instead of teasing me like this? How very honourable of you! He did treat my mother badly once, it seems, in a moment of intoxication. And it is true that he is stern sometimes. But you will rule him entirely, I am sure, with your beauty and wealth and accomplishments. You are the woman he will ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... pride and sorrow, Nan would have called up a laugh at this. But Tom, who was drinking at the water bucket, wheeled with the full dipper and threw the contents into Rafe's face. That broke off the teasing cousin's voice for a moment; but Rafe ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... perfectly absurd friends to each other, instead of utterly ridiculous engaged people. It's exquisitely awful, you know, to have a husband picked out for you by dead folks, and I'm so sick about it sometimes that I hardly have the heart to fix my back-hair. Let each of us forbear, and stop teasing the other." ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... obstinacies, one of which was a way of teasing Dearie by making him wait when he wanted to know a thing. It was no ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... indeed?" put in Nina Alexandrovna. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, teasing an old man like that—and in ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... mischief, and sentiment ensues between Marian and Robin. That scene Tennyson wrote and inserted for Ada Rehan, to whose vivacious temperament it is fitted, and whose action in it expressed with equal felicity the teasing temper of the coquette and the propitious fondness of the lover. Robin discovers Marian's identity by means of the ring that he gave her, and, after due explanation, it is agreed that she and her father will remain under his ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... out of the way, as you may suppose, and watched them, wondering what idea they had. As they passed I heard the younger one—the child-angel, you know, my girl—teasing the other to make the ascent of the cone, and the other seemed to be quite ready to ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... Mrs. Palmer's threshold, or bowed his neck under that splendid fury's yoke. My admirer thinks no more of smoking these grave nobles, men of a former generation, who learnt their manners at the court of a serious and august King, than I do of teasing my falcon. He laughs at them, jokes with them in Greek or in Latin, has a ready answer and a witty quip for every turn of the discourse; will even interrupt his Majesty in one of those anecdotes of his Scottish martyrdom which he tells so well and tells so often. Lucifer himself could not be ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... with brown eyes, dark hair and mustache now half white, and nose aquiline by the least turn, he impressed me as have few men that ever crossed my path. A young man sat lounging easily in a big chair beside him, his legs crossed, his delicate fingers teasing a thin mustache. I noticed that his hands were slim and hairy. He glanced up at me as soon as I could bear the light. Then he sat looking idly ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... syllables, involuntary and surely contrary to the will of the child, stands in remarkable contrast with the indolence he commonly shows in reproducing anything said, even when the fault is not to be charged to teasing, stubbornness, or inability. The child then finds more gratification in other movements than those of the muscles of speech. The babbling only, abounding in consonants, yields him great pleasure, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... dinner on it. They kept saying, 'Mack, shake hands with your papa.' He was standing off to one side. It was sorter shame. They kept on. I was little. I went over there. He shook hands with me. I said, 'Hi, papa! Give me a nickel.' He reached in his pocket and give me a nickel. Then they stopped teasing me. He went off on Alabama River eighteen miles from us to Caholba, Alabama. I never seen him much more. Ma had been ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... limbs are numbed; or when they bear the penalty of blows incurred in certain games, with more or less firmness; when, in wrestling or scuffling, they do not let themselves be perplexed by the pinches of a half-conquered opponent; or, finally, when they suppress the pain inflicted for the sake of teasing, and even treat with indifference the nips and ticklings with which young persons are so active toward each other. Thus we gain a great advantage, of which others ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... about the trunk and was diverting attention from her surrender. He hardly spoke a word and disappeared with a look of yearning when we left the table. The rest of us went out on the porch. Lydia was teasing the ukulele when Oswald appeared a few minutes later, with great excitement showing in ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Mr. Oliver, "that a belated apology like this can not make up to you for the humiliation you suffered on the night of the dinner, but at least the cooking class will know that you were not at fault. I'm afraid you've had to endure a good deal of teasing on the score ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... and I but twelve he lost two years out of his school-life, and this brought us closer together ultimately, as will be seen. In some more than usually violent game of his favourite baseball at this time he managed to fall so heavily on his chest as slightly to bruise the lung, and a teasing cough that resulted from this terrified his mother, over whom, like so many of her pure-blooded countrywomen, the White Scourge hung threateningly, never very far away. Good luck sent them just then an invitation from a distant cousin, skipper of a large schooner that plied in Southern ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... you don't tell. You can't get out of it, because it's known that you were teasing him; and it wouldn't be fair for you to be punished and for ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... Rossitur had kept up indefatigably the game of teasing Fleda about her "English admirer," as they sometimes styled him. Poor Fleda grew more and more sore on the subject. She thought it was very strange that two grown men could not find enough to do to amuse ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Upon this charge he got him laid by the heels; so he was sent to the Conciergerie—that is to say, to Bridewell—and the merchant cleared. He got out of jail in a little while, though not without the help of money, and continued teasing the merchant a long while, and at last threatening to assassinate and murder him. So the merchant, who, having buried his wife about two months before, was now a single man, and not knowing what such a villain might do, thought fit to quit Paris, and came away ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been—I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... a tenth row seat to hear you sing Tristan in the Metropolitan any day if I had to go hungry for a week to pay for it," I added, as I laughed as softly as he had pleaded. All the sorrow and strain of the last hours had vanished at the touch of his hand, and I felt like an impish, teasing child. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... loiter'd at the master's gate; There he pronounced adieu! and yet would stay, Till chidden—soothed—entreated—forced away; He would of coldness, though indulged, complain, And oft retire, and oft return again; When, if his teasing vex'd her gentle mind, The grief assumed compell'd her to be kind! For he would proof of plighted kindness crave, That she resented first, and then forgave; And to his grief and penance yielded more Than his presumption had required ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... his sunken eyes and his "fidgets," that she hid him away from people. All the dainties she brought down from the "Big House" were for the blind child, and she beat and cuffed her other children whenever she found them teasing him or trying to get his chicken-bone away from him. He began to talk early, remembered everything he heard, and his mammy said he "was n't all wrong." She named him Samson, because he was blind, but on the plantation he was known as ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... she said, "I wonder you can talk such nonsense; you are as bad as poor Eric used to be, teasing me about that little fat man! Poor Burgher Jans means no harm in coming to inquire after my health while ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... him with her little brown fist while tears of mortification filled her eyes. "Now, you stop that! You're teasing me. Why, I've ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... teasing her, and chuckled with delight when his indulgent mother would tell her visiting friends that he ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... poesy may charm for a while the importunate, teasing cares of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... good and fair light, can stand any attacks; but those of Ridicule are so teasing and so fallacious that I have seen them put her ladyship very much ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... my teasing is out of taste, learn to distinguish it from what I say in earnest. My dear, my dear, why should you have to listen to the matter of my philosophy and my experience which tells me all creatures forget and are forgotten! No! I wipe ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... relegate her to a more modest position? To achieve which laudable result—he acted, of course, for her good exclusively—he prepared to broach the subject of the unaccountable noises which disturbed his rest last night. He would cross-examine her as to their origin, thereby teasing and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... board who is certainly possessed, not by a witty malicious demon, a diable boiteux, but by a teasing, stupid, wicked imp, which inspires him with the desire of tormenting everything human that comes within his reach. Should he escape being thrown overboard, it will show a wonderful degree of forbearance on the part of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Nuttie was still angry. 'Gerard had been so ridiculous,' she said, 'teasing her to take the pledge, and quite incapable of understanding her reasons. I can't think why Gerard ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... kill you," repeated the brown man calmly. "I will send death to you—death in a horrible shape. I will send a devil, a little artful, teasing devil, to worry you and kill you. In the darkness he will come and spring out on you. You had better give back the diamond, and live. If you give it back I ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... value less than I could wish, is all the return I can make you. Will you give me leave to say how I would desire to stand in your memory? As one, who was truly sensible of the honour you did him, though he was too proud to be vain upon it; as one, who was neither assuming, officious, nor teasing; who never wilfully misrepresented persons or facts to you, nor consulted his passions when he gave a character; and lastly, as one, whose indiscretions proceeded altogether from a weak head, and not an ill heart. I will add one thing ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Joan was teasing Nancy about her dolls—Joan detested dolls, she declared that it was their stupid stare that made her dislike them. She only wanted live things: dogs and cats, not even birds—she was sorry for birds. Nancy's dolls were to her "children," ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... called The Shield of Minerva was one of their greatest delights; this being an Irish stew compounded of lamprey-milt, pike-livers, flamingo-tongues, and the tiny, tasty brains of pheasants and peacocks; eaten while viewing the floor-show of strip-teasing Circassian girls or—Galba's invention, this—elephants walking tight-rope. Grand, Wes. No meals like that at the supermarket; no shows like that ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... hold—more than any two theatres, I'm thinking. And they didna come to hear me sing or crack a joke. They came to hear me talk—to hear me preach, if you'll be using that same word that my wife is sae fond of teasing me with. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... say, "of course it is. It couldn't be otherwise. If it were otherwise it would be ridiculous. A man who made love as though he were preaching a sermon, or a man who preached a sermon as though he were teasing schoolboys, or a man who described a death as though he were describing a practical joke, must necessarily be either an ass or a lunatic." Just so. You have put it in a nutshell. You have disposed of the problem of style so far as it can be ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... if he saw our balance-sheet,' said Sir Henry, who loved nothing so much as teasing his loyal subordinates. 'We've nothing but this melodrama of Halford Bunn's in which I should have to ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... he sped after her. When he reached her side the tender words were chilled on his lips, for Olympia had in her laughing eye the, to him, odious expression he saw there when she made the irritating speech about himself and Jack a few minutes before. Fearing a teasing retort, he bridled the tender outburst and rode along pensively, revolving pretexts for another day's stay in Acredale. But when they reached home he found an imperative mandate to set out at once, as his lingering in the North was subjecting himself and kinsmen to doubt among the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... all her father's passion for Poe's tales. My dear friend, she is jealous—that's the only solution of this shocking act. She disliked the idea of my portrait from the start. You remember on this spot hardly a month ago she challenged you to paint her as the drowned Ophelia!—and all her teasing about Monsieur Mineur ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... tell the folks at the house, Bob, that I had the buck fever—they'd never get through teasing me if they knew I'd let such a ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... away, or melts down hours to minutes in pleasing thought. All this while he is taken up with other things, forgetting himself. He relishes an author's style without thinking of turning author. He is fond of looking at a print from an old picture in the room, without teasing himself to copy it. He does not fret himself to death with trying to be what he is not, or to do what he cannot. He hardly knows what he is capable of, and is not in the least concerned whether he shall ever make a figure in the world. He feels ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... all my mad efforts; and at each pause, when I would stand exhausted, gasping for breath, my throbbing heart almost suffocating me, a dull, continuous, teasing pain in my bitten leg served to remind me that I had but a little time left to exist—that by delaying at first I had allowed my only chance of salvation to ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... up any longer!" she exclaimed. "Take off your hat and mantilla. We are only teasing one another, Marfa Egorovna. I shall have a grandson, you a daughter. Kiss me, dear! I wanted to keep up the old customs, but there are cases which they don't fit. We knew what must be the upshot of this. If we hadn't wished it we ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... fronted her as she ascended, in the gallery at the top of the staircase, all the more that she had been supposed from her childhood to be like the portrait. Brought up as she had been in the belief that family and heredity are the master forces of life, she resented this teasing association with the weak, silly fellow on the ill-balanced rocking-horse whose double chin, button nose, and receding forehead not even the evident flattery of the artist had been able to disguise. Her hatred of the picture often led her to make a half-protesting pause in front of the long ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to submit to some teasing on account of her valiant resolution of the previous night that she "wouldn't wink a wink," but Mrs. Trent was delighted that the faithful woman had, at last, enjoyed a needed rest. Besides, everything was ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... endowments—as organizers and enterprisers, as spokesmen, as singers, as seers and prophets. These gifted ones the old order sets out to win—lavishing upon them gratitudes, favors, rewards; filling their lives out of the horn of economic and social plenty; teasing their vanities and gratifying their ambitions; soothing, cajoling, flattering. By these means the rulers succeed in bringing under their control the strong thinkers, the capable executives, the sensitive, the talented—all ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... are the real sweet thing—and now notice me a bit, will you?" said my fine Mr. Buzz Clendenning with both emotion and a teasing in his voice. "I know I haven't got French manners and don't look like L'Aiglon, but I'm an ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... your aunt is of you!" she said to him one wet morning, as he was sauntering through the house; now laughing, and almost romping with her—then teasing his sister about Mr Moffat—and then bothering his lady-cousins out of all ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... say it so badly; and I know it, because, as I tell you, Peter and I are just the same sort at heart. I've been teasing him, pretending to be a worldling, but foreign travel and entertaining in London are just about as unsuited to me as to Peter. I—I'm glad"—she uttered a quick, little sob—"that I—I played my part well while it all lasted; but you know it wasn't so much me as ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... answer; I could not affirm, and I would not deny:-for I hoped to be relieved from his teasing by his mistake. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... stranger company. Elsie was half pleased and half sorry to have him go; the children had a kind of mingled liking and hate for each other, just such as is very common among relations. Whether the girl had most satisfaction in the plays they shared, or in teasing him, or taking her small revenge upon him for teasing her, it would have been hard to say. At any rate, she was lonely without him. She had more fondness for the old black woman than anybody; but Sophy could not follow her far beyond her own old rocking-chair. As for her father, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... misconstrued by his diffident temper, and the jealousy which they excited was fermented by the occasional observations of Jenny Dennison. This true-bred serving-damsel was, in her own person, a complete country coquette, and when she had no opportunity of teasing her own lovers, used to take some occasional opportunity to torment her young lady's. This arose from no ill-will to Henry Morton, who, both on her mistress's account and his own handsome form and countenance, stood high in her esteem. But then Lord Evandale was also handsome; ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... am sorry to part with her; it grieves me sadly, but we cannot starve." For a few minutes Jack felt remorse, but it was soon over; and he began asking his mother to let him sell the cow at the next village; teasing her so much, that she at last consented. As he was going along he met a butcher, who inquired why he was driving the cow from home? Jack replied, he was going to sell it. The butcher held some curious beans in his hat; they were of various colors, and attracted Jack's attention; this did not ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... the expression of this love. As she grows older she obtains wrong ideas of love and she too often obtains these wrong ideas in her own home and from her own parents who instill false ideas of love when indulging their habit of "teasing." Frequently we hear parents talking about the small daughter's "beau." The child feels pent-up emotions of love and, as there is no outlet at home in a natural way, she acquires the idea that these emotions should be spent in ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... by the swinging seas, A jewel glittered at her ear, And, teasing her along, the breeze Brought many ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... miraculous, but at the same time clumsy and superfluous movement, which upsets all that we believed we knew, without teaching us anything. Is it making fun of us, is it jesting, is it amusing itself, is it facetious, teasing, arch, or simply sleepy, bewildered, inconsistent, absent-minded? In any case, it is rather remarkable that it evidently dislikes to make itself useful. It readily performs the most glamorous feats of sleight-of-hand, provided that we can derive no profit from them. It lifts up tables, moves ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... nothing of our engagement—well, provisional engagement, if you will—and you insist on sticking to the operatic stage. I loathe it, and I confess to you that I am sick with jealousy when I see you near that lanky, ill-favored German tenor Burgmann." "What, poor, big me!" she interjected, in teasing accents. "Yes, you, Fridolina. I can quite sympathize with what you tell me of your mother's dislike for the role of Isolde. You are not temperamentally suited to it; it is horrible to think of you in that second act." "How horrible? My figure, you mean?" ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... his triumphs, nor known his past radiant beauty, they were far from professing that respect that the last generation had had for him. They never lost an opportunity of worrying and teasing him cruelly. When he appeared in the Calle de Altavilla, or entered the Cafe de Maranon, he was surrounded by a crowd of gamins. Cristo! the remarks that were made; and, sad to say, they passed from using their tongues to ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... ever, but her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes as bright as stars. As for Will Dudley, he stared at the pattern of the carpet, and his eyebrows twitched in the impatient way I know so well. I think he saw that I was really in trouble, and was vexed with the girls for teasing me. ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... hair, the same—you know, I never expected to see a princess in Maam. A princess, mind you, and she looked all the more that because her uncle met me at the stair-foot as I was going in. A sour old scamp yon! He was teasing out his beard, and, 'A nice piece there,' said he, nodding at the door, 'and I'm sure her father would be glad to have her off his hands.' I ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... it than if he had tried to swallow himself. So he desisted suddenly, rather scared, whilst the three bunched and official heads in the doorway laughed and jested at him, showing their teeth and teasing him. But on our gypsy party they turned their eyes with admiration. They loved the novelty and the fun. And on the thin, elegant Angus in his new London clothes, they looked really puzzled, as he sat there immobile, gleaming through ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... great care. She then took up her slate and patiently went over and over every figure of the troublesome example, trying to discover where her mistake had been. But much time had been lost through Arthur's teasing, and her mind was so disturbed by the accident to her writing that she tried in vain to fix it upon the business in hand; and before the two troublesome figures had been made right, the hour was past ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... high ideals is everywhere. Every school can claim her. Despite teasing, sneers and laughter, she remains true to her ideals. She is not a book-worm but she studies, she is not prudish but she is high minded and pure, she has fun but it is wholesome and clean ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... neither eating nor making a sound,—a very unusual proceeding for the lively chattering little fellow. This proved to be a declaration of open war, and was so vigorously followed up that before many days the larger bird's door was not opened until his victim had had his outing and returned to his home. Teasing never lost its attraction for him, however. He delighted to alight on the cage and worry his little foe, or to stand near his door and stare at him. On one such occasion a curious scene occurred. They stood three inches apart, with the wires between ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... the toil was lightened by the joyous contact of community activity. Every one worked with a will. There appeared to be a keen desire among the workers to keep up with the procession. Those who fell behind were subjected to good-natured teasing. Community work is sometimes pleasant, even though it appears to require a strong directing hand. The "boss" was right there. Such practices would never suit ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... Silver—is about as little puerile as anything that can be imagined. From that time Stevenson's reputation was assured. Ill health, a somewhat restless disposition, and an early death prevented him from accomplishing any great bulk of work: and the merit of what he did varied. Latterly he took to a teasing process of collaboration, which his sincerest admirers could have willingly spared. But his last completed book, Catriona (1893), seemed to some judges of at least considerable experience the best thing he had yet done, especially in one all-important ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Abe need not have worried himself. It could not be said that Nan was helping John Osborne on in his wooing at all. Instead, she was teasing and snubbing ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the spring—a teasing smile on her face. Before he could command himself, she danced a step or two, with an elfish air, and slipped away through the green willow wall. Another merry laugh came back to him and then—the silence of the little glade, and the ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... bull-dog of a smith! Put him under arrest!" exclaimed Veyergang furiously, when he felt himself in safety. "You may meditate there in the meantime. You are not at all indispensable, my friend!" he went on in a coolly teasing tone. "The black-eyed lassie shall enjoy herself at the ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... very likely they will require some fresh signature. Whenever a French railroad company advertises the departure of a train at a particular hour, comes an order from the Prussians to alter that hour. Every Frenchman who quits Paris is subjected to a hundred small, teasing vexations from these military bureaucrats, and made to feel at every step he takes that he is a prisoner on leave of absence, and only breathes the air of his native land by the goodwill of his conquerors. The English public must not forget that direct postal ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... see Thaine Aydelot looking down at her as he leaned over the high back of the rustic seat. He was in his working clothes with his straw hat set back, showing his brown face. His luminous dark eyes were shining and a half-teasing, half-sympathetic smile was on his lips. But whatever the clothes, there was always something of the Southern gentleman about every man of the Thaine blood. Something of the soldierly bearing of his father ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... that he has behind his books a character of his own, which belongs to his books as much as to himself; something which bears you up and along as does the mystery of the salt sea the swimmer. And this something lives and stirs in almost every page of Borrow, whose restless, puzzling, teasing personality pervades and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... rang with a teasing mockery, but, had he known it, she had caught and been startled by that absorption which had not been wholly banished from his eyes. It was not yet quite a discovery, but still it was something more than ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... Grand Old Name Called Mary?'" mischievously inquired Fritz Schmidt, who could not refrain from teasing Ralph, which caused a laugh at his expense, as all present were aware of his love for Mary. Elizabeth, to cover Ralph's confusion, quickly replied: "I'll play my favorite, 'The End ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... overwhelmed by the Cooneys' teasing, nor perhaps was she seriously displeased by it. Even less did the detail of her eccentric cousins' knowledge surprise her. If there was a fight or a fire, a bon mot launched or a heart broken, money made or a death died, it invariably happened that one of the Cooneys ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... But presently he forgot everything in his amazement, for Mona the dignified, Mona of the scornful eyes and the chilly smile, actually giggled—giggled like any ordinary girl, and shot him a glance that had in it pure mirth and roguish teasing, and a dash of coquetry. He sat down and giggled with her, feeling idiotically happy and for no reason under the sun ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... The conversation seemed to her useless. She saw no reason for arguing the matter, and she half suspected that he was simply teasing her. Besides, she could not but feel that to sit here in his coat and discuss egotism was a trifle ridiculous. He was merely trying to establish a friendship in talk which she did not care to encourage. That was ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... mood for teasing, gave his spectacles a push, settling the arch above his nose, and rubbing his ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans |
