"The absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... take the thing back. Herbert, of course, was going to translate it for him. Now if the patient old Frenchman had stormed Herbert instead—that surely would have been something like a coup! Those frenzied books. The absurd talk of the man. Herbert was perfectly right—he could have entertained fifty old Huguenots without turning a hair. 'I'm such ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... because his name, like that of Finn and the Goban, is much in the mouths of the people, there is something of the absurd already coming into his legend. The stories of him show more than any others how swiftly myths and traditions already in the air may gather around a memory much loved and much spoken of. He died only sixty ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... in what character? On that last subject, be sure, no mercy was shown to her by many a Bideford dame, who had hated the poor girl simply for her beauty; and by many a country lady, who had "always expected that the girl would be brought to ruin by the absurd notice, beyond what her station had a right to, which was taken of her," while every young maiden aspired to fill the throne which Rose had abdicated. So that, on the whole, Bideford considered itself as ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... clients, he paid too little regard to what was decent. We are told that Cicero, being consul, undertook the defence of Murena against Cato's prosecution; and, by way of bantering Cato, made a long series of jokes upon the absurd paradoxes, as they are called, of the Stoic sect. When loud laughter passed from the crowd to the judges, Cato, with a quiet smile, said to those that sat next to him, "My friends, what an ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... duty to issue this necessary warning; namely, that the public should safeguard itself against the absurd, but possible mistakes of confusing the Legitimate Scientific School of the Hygienic Dietetic Method of Biological Healing with the nebulous cults aforesaid. There is no vestige of resemblance between them, either in thought or principle, ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... doing it; and in a natural history book of my childhood there is a picture of a beaver with the end of a three-foot stick in his mouth, sucking the air out. Just as if the beavers didn't know better, even if the absurd thing were possible! The simplest way is to cut the wood early and leave it in the water a while, when it sinks of itself; for green birch and poplar are almost as heavy as water. They soon get waterlogged and go to the bottom. ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... We did so in a very amicable spirit, and I think they rendered justice to my wish to explain to them without exaggeration the state of feeling amongst their enemies. Although these Northerners belonged to quite the upper classes, and were not likely to be led blindly by the absurd nonsense of the sensation press at New York, yet their ignorance of the state of the case in the South was ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... he was buried and rose again; it is certain because it is impossible!" and his sublime credo quia absurdum!—the scandal of the rationalists. How far from the il faut s'abetir of Pascal and from the "human reason loves the absurd" of our Donoso Cortes, which he must have learned from the great Joseph ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... fresh track of wood and waste. The rosy visions of the past night, and those fancies in particular which had made the dawn memorable, recurred to me, as his deeds in the body (so men say) to a hopeless drowning wretch. I grew to think of nothing but Bruhl and revenge. Even the absurd care with which Simon avoided the neighbourhood of Fanchette, riding anywhere so long as he might ride at a distance from the angry woman's tongue and hand—which provoked many a laugh from the men, and came to be the joke of the company—failed to ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the palmetto scrub so thick that one could not see where to tread. The trio ahead were close upon their boat, and it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I should be too late. But a fresh crashing amongst the spiky shrubs behind made me turn my head, and I saw the absurd figure of the old man charging down on a mule that he had cut adrift. He passed me like a flash, his face glowering like a fiend's, and he reached the shingle just as the dinghy had got two ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... he went back to his desk with a new anxiety. His talisman, the half-sovereign which was to have been treasured to his dying day, had shared the fate of the commonplace coins which were destined for Mrs. Bryant and his bootmaker. It was a cruel blow, but Percival saw the absurd side of his misfortune, and laughed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... President Cleveland issued a proclamation announcing the admission of Utah as a state. The inauguration of the new state officers took place at Salt Lake City two days later. The first governor, Heber M. Wells,* in his inaugural address made this declaration: "Let us learn to resent the absurd attacks that are made from time to time upon our sincerity by ignorant and prejudiced persons outside of Utah, and let us learn to know and respect each other more, and thus cement and intensify the fraternal ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... Divine Emblems, it has passed through a multitude of editions, and many thousand copies have been circulated. It was patronized in those early efforts of the Religious Tract Society, which have been so abundantly blessed in introducing wholesome food to the young, instead of the absurd romances which formerly poisoned the infant and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... declaration, which I am authorised to make, in order to prevent any mistake as to the intentions of the burgomasters of the city of Amsterdam; since it will be made evident by the above mentioned declaration, that they have not the absurd design of concluding a convention independently of their High Mightinesses, but only to make such preparations as are possible to accelerate the conclusion of a treaty of commerce, when the opportunity shall present. It is plain, that a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... fervor and generosity of his sentiments stood out in such striking contrast with the deed I had last night recklessly imputed to him that I felt deeply ashamed, and was nearly carried away by mingled admiration and self-reproach to confess the absurd vagrancy of my thoughts and humbly ask his pardon. But you can understand the reluctance at a confession so insulting to him, so degrading to me. It is at all times difficult to tell a man, face to face, eye to eye, the evil you have thought of him, unless the recklessness of anger seizes ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... heads—if at all. A child asked, "Can God do everything?" On receiving an affirmative reply, she at once said: "Then can He make a stone so heavy that He can't lift it?" Many wide-awake grown-up people do not at once see a satisfactory answer. Yet the difficulty lies merely in the absurd, though cunning, form of the question, which really amounts to asking, "Can the Almighty destroy His own omnipotence?" It is somewhat similar to the other question, "What would happen if an irresistible moving body ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... on the right track. I am glad that he neither endorses lynching nor takes stock in the absurd report from certain sections of the South that all Negroes are ravishers of white women. I think his suggested remedy against rape a good one for white ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... reproach is it to human reason, that so luminous a principle should have given birth to the absurd reasonings, and wretched notions, in favour of the science of augurs and soothsayers, and been the occasion of espousing, with blind devotion, the most ridiculous puerilities: should have made the most important affairs of state depend upon a bird's happening to ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... colonized the whole earth, leaving, however, neither white nor black in America[TN-8] The glaring incongruity, of these bold assertions, or of the indefinite origin of Galindo are equally palpable; but nevertheless it is not improbable that they will find now and hereafter other advocates, since the absurd Jewish origin of all the Americans has still many believers, and even ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque
... pages. But that word was not spoken. Scorn and sarcasm usurped the throne of gentle cherishing, and the golden moment passed away forever. It is as well. Perhaps it is better; for on second thought, I recollect that the absurd prejudice I have mentioned has extended itself to the editor of this Magazine,[*] who jerks me down with a pitiless pull whenever I would soar into the empyrean,—ruling out with a rod of iron every shred of poetry from my pages, till I am reduced ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... cases, and often he inaugurated strife where he purported to be establishing law. Each town thought itself the garden spot and center of the universe—one knows not how many Kansas towns, for instance, contended over the absurd honor of being exactly at the center of the United States!—and local pride was such that each citizen must unite with others even in arms, if need be, to uphold the merits of ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... London we have intelligence of the stabbing to death of a man by mistake. His assassin mistook him for a person related to himself, whose loss would be his own financial gain. Fancy the utter dejection of this stabber when he discovered the absurd blunder he had committed! We believe a slip like that would justify a man in throwing down the knife and discarding murder for ever; while two such errors would be ample excuse for him to go into some kind ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... points which I propose to take up is the absurd conception Lord Salisbury sets forth of the process of Natural Selection. When you wrote you said you had dealt with it yourself in your volume on Darwinism. I have no doubt that it is also in some measure dealt with by Darwin himself, by implication ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... composed the overture to "The Midsummer Night's Dream," one of the most remarkable pieces of the early romantic school. In this the fairy-like music of Titania and her elves is charmingly contrasted with the folk songs and the absurd bray of the transformed Bottom. He had already written an opera "Camacho," which had been submitted to Spontini, the musical director of Berlin, but it was never performed. He entered at the University and attended ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... said, as she put sugar into my glass. She cited the cases of former Talmudists, poor and friendless like myself, who had studied at the universities, fighting every inch of their way, till they had achieved success as physicians, lawyers, writers. She spoke passionately, often with the absurd acerbity of her mother. "It's a crime for a young man like you to throw himself away on that idiotic Talmud of yours," she said, pacing up ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... change, which now seemed to have settled into permanency. Of course it was only the ridiculous fashion of the world he once knew, but he could not free himself of the fancy that Priscilla was more her real self in the shabby trappings than she had ever been in the absurd costumes of the In-Place. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... have forgotten that he had only a little before mentioned this very woman as the wife of a caceque. The absurd notion of these women being Amazons probably proceeded from the Spaniards not understanding the language of these islanders, who appear to have been Caribs. The truth seems to have been that during the long absences of their husbands in piratical and plundering excursions to the other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... in your second folly,—the absurd ambition of daubing canvas. Heaven forbid I should say anything against the laudable industry of one who follows such a profession for the sake of subsistence; but with means and connections that will raise you in life, why voluntarily sink into a mere artist? As an accomplishment ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... necessitated by the state of his health. The disgusting color of his hair was a result of his excesses and of the drugs which he had taken that he might continue his career. The poor old man's mental and physical condition afforded some grounds for the absurd rubbish talked about him. When his outfit was worn out, he replaced the fine linen by calico at fourteen sous the ell. His diamonds, his gold snuff-box, watch-chain and trinkets, disappeared one by one. He had left off wearing the corn-flower blue coat, and was sumptuously arrayed, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... what is nearest to us, without any connection with its causes and final operation. That is why it seems to me better to do what one sees as one's duty at the moment, rather than to give ourselves the absurd appearance of being free in our movements, and certain as to our goal." Paul pressed his hand at parting, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... sympathies by patient and loving observation while he grows in mental power. It is in the impartial practice of life, if anywhere, that the promise of perfection for his art can be found, rather than in the absurd formulas trying to prescribe this or that particular method of technique or conception. Let him mature the strength of his imagination amongst the things of this earth, which it is his business to cherish and know, and refrain from calling down ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... real hero, inarticulate and unintelligible to himself except in flashes of inspiration, from the performer who has to talk at any cost through five acts; and if you also do what you must always do in Shakespear's tragedies: that is, dissect out the absurd sensational incidents and physical violences of the borrowed story from the genuine Shakespearian tissue, you will get a true Promethean foe of the gods, whose instinctive attitude towards women much resembles that to which Don Juan is now driven. From this point of view ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... will not be surprised at this superstitious turn in the conversation of such intelligent men, when he recollects that, but a few years before this time, all London had been agitated by the absurd story of the Cock Lane ghost; a matter which Dr. Johnson had deemed worthy of his serious investigation, and about which Goldsmith ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... sow by the wrong ear; a mythical sow, a sow that is not there at all. If Britain is unreal, the British Empire must be a thousand times more unreal. It is as if one said, "I do not believe that Michael Scott ever had any existence; but I am convinced, in spite of the absurd legend, that ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Alice is in the same sense a work of art. Is there not throughout those two most charming of children's books an entirely consistent spirit of bonhomie and exquisite rationality—rationality of an order high enough to produce those delightful expositions of the irrational and the absurd? That the author of Alice in Wonderland was a mathematician is exactly what we might have expected—though he was, what mathematicians rarely are, the artist-mathematician, who understood the world intuitively as well as logically, and thus manifested his spirit of ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... recommend it, is here defended on a priori principles without much real reflection, and was quite outgrown by him when taught by the experience of riper years. In the Constantio Sapientis he praises and holds up to imitation the absurd apathy recommended by Stilpo. In the De Animi Tranquillitate, addressed to Annaeus Serenus, the captain of Nero's body- guard, [1] he adopts the same line of thought, but shows signs of limiting its application by the necessities of circumstances. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... revelation and a wonder; to the great princess in her perpetual sorrow the greatest of creative minds was a solace and a constant intellectual delight. Their friendship was mutual, fitting and beautiful, which last is more than can be said for the absurd stories about their intercourse which are extant in print and have been made the subject of imaginary pictures by more than one painter. The tradition that they used to meet often in the little Church of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... things which they portrayed. So Hal came face to face with one of the difficulties of mine-operators. They gathered a population of humble serfs, selected from twenty or thirty races of hereditary bondsmen; but owing to the absurd American custom of having public-schools, the children of this population learned to speak English, and even to read it. So they became too good for their lot in life; and then a wandering agitator would get in, and all of a sudden there would be hell. Therefore in every coal-camp ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... steady nerve for that which affected himself, a nerve which would keep him quiet and motionless in a dentist's chair, but what philosophy or hardihood can steel one against the pain which those whom we love have to endure. He fretted and chafed, and always with the absurd delusion that his fretting and chafing were successfully concealed. A hundred failures never convince a man how impossible it is to deceive a woman who loves him. Maude watched him ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... could be handed over the booksellers counter. As poor Erasmus had no pecuniary benefit {51} from the edition, he ought to have the credit which arises from this proof of his extraordinary popularity. The public, no doubt, enjoyed greatly his calm but pungent exposure of the absurd practices which were rife around them. That his humorous satire was felt by its objects, is obvious from this epigram, as well as ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... The absurd and damaging comparison between Scott and Stevenson has been gravely offered by the latter's friends. They are doing a beautiful artist a serious injustice, You could place Stevenson's ravishing assortment of cameos in any chamber of Scott's feudal castle. It is an intaglio beside ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... porters anxious to get off with early supplies. The Stationers' Company's almanacks are now by no means the best of the day. Mr. Charles Knight, who worked so strenuously and so successfully for the spread of popular education, first struck a blow at the absurd monopoly of almanack printing. So much behind the age is this privileged Company, that it actually still continues to publish Moore's quack almanack, with the nonsensical old astrological tables, describing the moon's influence on various parts of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... themselves for an account of their state, it will appear very little to deserve envy; for they have in all ages been addicted to complaint. The neglect of learning, the ingratitude of the present age, and the absurd preference by which ignorance and dulness often obtain favour and rewards, have been from age to age topicks of invective; and few have left their names to posterity, without some appeal to future candour from the perverseness and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... exercises and ejaculations on his behalf. When all was over, the Prior entered into a serious conversation with Monsieur St. Gille; and, on the strength of what had just passed, sagaciously inveighed against the absurd incredulity of our modern sceptics, and pretended philosophers, as to the existence of ghosts or apparitions. Monsieur St. Gille thought it now high time to undeceive the good fathers. This purpose, however, he found extremely ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... he had intended to dismiss her died. He stared at her curiously. He noted the traveling bag at her feet, the absurd old coat and bonnet, the dark circles ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... dubbed La Romantica, was the special victim of his wrath and ridicule. Where had she picked up so many tastes which he and his good China never had had? Music books were piled on the piano. In a corner of the absurd parlor were some wooden boxes that had held preserves, which the ranch carpenter had been made to press into ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... chiefly trivial and ignorant; his private inclination appears to have been toward such romantic sentimentality as entrances school-boys; the thing that interested him in Shakespeare was not the man's colossal genius, but the absurd theory that Bacon wrote his plays. Had he been born in France (the country of his chief abomination!) instead of in a Puritan village of the American hinterland, I venture that he would have conquered the world. But try as he would, being what he was, he could not get rid of the Puritan ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... corresponding withdrawal of the absurd opposition to Prince Albert's taking his place by the Queen's side on all State occasions. "Let the Queen put the Prince where she likes and settle it herself, that is the best way," said the Duke of Wellington cordially. A lively ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... waned and morning began to dawn in the east, the chief grew seriously uneasy at the prolonged absence of his agents—a circumstance that he could only account for upon the absurd hypothesis that those stupid brutes had suffered themselves to be overtaken by ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... possibility of the so-called "miracles" of Christianity and other great religions, and therewith invalidate one of the most important factors of religious thought and history. That the present attitude of denial is owing to the absurd explanation of the phenomena given by the majority of the ancient worthies, is easily admissible, but this is no reason why the denial of the possibilities of the existence of such things should ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... Highness must remain in Brazil, whatever may be the projects of the constituent Cortes, not only for the sake of our general good, but even for the sake of the future prosperity and independence of Portugal itself. If Your Royal Highness, which is not to be believed, were to obey the absurd and indecent decree of the 29th of September, besides losing, in the world, the dignity of a man and of a prince, by becoming the slave of a small number of factious men, you would also have to answer before heaven for the rivers of blood which would assuredly inundate Brazil ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... the poetic culmination of modern times. Shakespeare is the drama; and the drama, which with the same breath moulds the grotesque and the sublime, the terrible and the absurd, tragedy and comedy—the drama is the distinguishing characteristic of the third epoch of poetry, of the literature of the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... niece of Colonel Hetherton's, and a great heiress, I believe, though I never paid much attention to the absurd stories told ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... turned home, hot and uneasy. On the hall table were her riding-whip and gloves. His heart cleared, and he ran upstairs. She was doing her hair and turned her head sharply as he entered. Hurrying across the room he had the absurd feeling that she was standing at bay. She drew back, bent her face away from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... could not make them forget that they were Englishmen. So he found it necessary to deceive them with a pretence of loyalty. He himself took the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and he imposed it upon all his followers. His commands were issued in the King's name. He even went to the absurd extremity of declaring it for the service of the Crown to disobey the King's commands, to arrest the King's Governor, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... the utter falsity of the absurd proverb that asserts "there is honor among thieves." There can be no honor and no confidence in any league wherein ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... covered me from head to foot at the absurd and ludicrous blunder I had been guilty of, the sense of the ridiculous was so strong in me, that I fell upon a sofa and laughed on with the others for ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... buying of legislatures and courts, of the rule of "machines" of graft in city and state and nation. There would be tales of the manners and morals of the idle rich, set against others of the sufferings of the poor. And week by week, as he read and pondered, Thyrsis began to realize the absurd inadequacy of the placid statement which he had made to his first Socialist acquaintance—that the solution of such problems was to be left to "evolution". It became only too clear to him that here was another war—the class-war; and that it was being ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... description which Mrs. Carlyle has painted in such an entertaining manner, it is well to observe that she does not blame her husband. She seems to be writing the account while she is silently laughing at the absurd preparation her life had had for the duties of the wife of a poor man. But Mr. T.P. O'Connor, who writes in 1895, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... parish priest of Four Mile Water by his ecclesiastical superior. It is less gratifying to have to record that it has been found possible to obtain two hundred signatures to a memorial embodying the absurd defence offered to the committee, and expressing unabated confidence in the ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... eyebrows and opened her mouth—stared at him in speechless confusion—and disappeared in the kitchen regions. This strange reception of his inquiry irritated him unreasonably. He knocked with the absurd violence of a man who vents his anger on the first convenient thing that he can find. The landlady opened the door, and looked at him in ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... persons, not to be taken into my confidence, and that the principal line of transatlantic telegraph was under the supervision of a confederate of the association. The latter betrayed himself at once by the absurd difficulties he made about my registering a London telegraphic address, which I at the instant saw to be assumed for the purpose of delay and imposing on me a prearranged address, which, however, I accepted with apparent ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... o'clock. She knew the time by the sun's rays upon the window curtains. In that strong, cheerful light, the phantom faces had shrunk back to great red bunches of flowers again. She thought of the absurd dream, or vision, as of something that had happened ages ago, and wondered that she had been foolish enough ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... must now be made to Southampton, and the Christchurch road taken through Totton to Lyndhurst. The station for the latter town is over two miles away on the Southampton road, where the railway makes a wide detour to Beaulieu Road and Brockenhurst. The absurd title given to Lyndhurst by local guide-books, "Capital of the New Forest," is uncalled for. Certainly it is nearly the centre of the district and is within convenient distance of some of the most beautiful woodlands, but nothing could be a greater ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... greatly lacking in power to discriminate between the possible and the absurd, and so old wives' tales, acute speculations, and truthful observations are strangely jumbled together. With rare exceptions they did not contrive new conditions to bring about phenomena which Nature ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... educated women, and a male parliament gives us no redress, and a male press laughs at us for our feeble attempts to claim common rights with men. Instead of proceeding to such violence I am merely resorting to a very harmless guile in getting round the absurd restrictions imposed by the benchers of the Inns of Court, namely that all who claim a call to the Bar should not be accountants, actuaries, clergymen or women. I am going to give up the accountancy business—or rather, the law has never allowed either Honoria or me ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... is all this preaching," resumes Bottinius, "but a way of courting fame? The inflation of it! and the spite! and the Molinism! As its first pleasant consequence, Gomez, who had intended to appeal from the absurd decision of the Court, declines to ask the lawyers for farther help.[29] There is an end of that job and its fee. Nevertheless, his 'blatant brother' shall soon see if law is as inadequate, and advocacy as impotent, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... cannot stand the absurd things people say about our King simply because he is not ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... the intrinsic reward of virtue—she had been obliged to give up the National Gallery to make this visit—Elfrida remembered that the American mail went out next day, and spent a longer time than usual over her weekly letter. In its course she mentioned with some amusement the absurd idea Miss Kimpsey had managed to absorb of their coming to London to live, and touched in the lightest possible way upon the considerations that made such a project impossible. But the greater part of the letter was taken up with a pleased forecast of the time—could it possibly be next summer?—when ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... had not finished telling his amusing story. The humours of railway building in South America appealed to his keen appreciation of the absurd, and he told his instances of ignorant prejudice and as ignorant cunning very well. Now, Mrs. Gould gave him all her attention as he walked by her side escorting the ladies out of the room. Finally all three passed unnoticed through the glass doors in the gallery. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... said that Talma was the first to discard the absurd costumes of the theatre, but this credit really belongs to Mme. Saint Huberty. She studied the Greek and Roman statues, and wore robes in keeping with the antique characters, especially suppressing hoops and powder. This singer remained queen of the French stage until 1790, when she ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... reign of Henry VIII. when the rays of the gospel began to dispel the darkness, and afford that light which till then had been unknown in that island. The abject ignorance in which the people were held, with the absurd and superstitious notions they entertained, were sufficiently evident to many; and the artifices of their priests were so conspicuous, that several persons of distinction, who had hitherto been strenuous papists, would willingly have endeavoured to shake off the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... would have seemed like evidence of childishness, and any one who indulged in it, a baby. Not having yet passed through those bitter experiences which enforce upon older years circumspection and coldness, I deprived myself of the pure delight of a fresh, childish instinct for the absurd purpose of trying ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... inveterate perseverance. I know not whether he did more service to mankind in general, by reviving the practice of treating his prisoners with generosity, than he prejudiced his own country by patronizing the absurd and pernicious custom of duelling, and establishing a punto, founded in diametrical opposition to common ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... interest in men and things and books, which gave strange vigor to her whole range of intellectual activities. But above all she possessed that happiest of gifts, the keen, undying sense of the humorous, the absurd, the witty. As she once said, "All life laughs for me." It followed her to death, as it has certain others as noble. When dying, she said some gay thing which disturbed a dear friend. The sufferer, well knowing her own state, looked up. ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... this by way of simple condemnation; for we have daily more reason to acknowledge the immense value of calm, clear common-sense, which sees the absurd side of even the best impulses. But it is necessary to bear the fact in mind when estimating such claims as those put forward by Sydney Smith. The truth seems to be that the 'Edinburgh Review' ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... the neighbours know it. She shrieks, yells, sings, chivies the servant, and skims plates out of the window at the passers-by. Of course, it is really not funny, but pathetic and deplorable—all the same, it is hard to keep from laughing at the absurd contrast between her actions and her appearance. I was called in by accident in the first instance; but I speedily acquired some control over her, so that now the neighbours send for me the moment the crockery begins to come through the window. She has a ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... business to transact with her master—she supposed by appointment—shewed him into M. Derville's private business-rooms, and left him there. Bertrand seated himself, fell asleep after awhile, woke up about ten o'clock considerably sobered, and quite alive to the absurd impropriety of the application he had tipsily determined on, and was about to leave the place, when M. Derville arrived. The ship-broker's surprise and anger at finding Hector Bertrand in his house were extreme, and his only reply to the intruder's stammering explanation, was a contemptuous ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... delighted, my dear madam,' rejoined the old gentleman, with vivacity, 'to find in you a person superior to the absurd terrors of weak-minded people. If you will do me the honor to accompany me to Reade street, I will go over the house with you, and if you are pleased with it, the bargain shall be completed upon ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the unfulfilled ambitions of the soul, even when these in full measure are not possible. Sometimes these ambitions are so unrelated to the possible that the romantic has in certain usage become synonymous with the impractical or the absurd; but this is not its meaning in literature. The romantic may not always be "of imagination all compact," but it has a tendency in that direction. To the romanticists a reality of the imagination is as satisfying as a reality of the prosaic reason; hence, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Michael de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, paid L20,000. sterling, when only a simple knight. Duc d'Alencon gave for his freedom 200,000 crowns, and actually sold part of his estate to the Duc de Bretagne to pay it. Caprice often caused the detention of men in captivity, from their inability to comply with the absurd demands of their captors. Louis XI. refused to part with Wolfang Poulain, a Burgundian officer, unless he would purchase his redemption with some favourite hounds belonging to the Seigneur de Bossu. As Bossu did ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... to be able to record, that the absurd and barbarous custom of hazing, which has long prevailed in College, is, to a great degree, discontinued.—Harv. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... however. When he went for his constitutional that day he was still chuckling at the absurd story his paper would have had him believe. Wasps indeed—killing a dog! Incidentally as he passed by the site of that first crop of puff-balls he remarked that the grass was growing very rank there, ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... tradesmen's weekly books are to be abolished. We have long felt that the absurd practice of paying the fellows is a relic of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... threat caused an universal laugh, and the enraged and mortified judge proceeded to sum up, as he called it, in a fruitless and weak, though laboured attempt, to refute what I had said in my address In fact, he acted as a zealous advocate for the plaintiff, or rather as a stickler for the absurd rule of court, to make the jury give a verdict of damages, notwithstanding the only witness produced, swore, that there was not the thousandth part ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... that, at the same instant, the doors had been burst open, and some robber or assassin had stabbed her husband as he was lying in her arms. The philosophy of those days found in these dreams mysterious and preternatural warnings of impending danger; that of ours, however, sees nothing either in the absurd sacrilegiousness of Caesar's thoughts, or his wife's incoherent and inconsistent images of terror—nothing more than the natural and proper effects, on the one hand, of the insatiable ambition of man, and, on the other, of the conjugal affection and solicitude of woman. The ancient sculptors ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... this man's conduct, because he acted under the full impression that they were Indians. As soon, however, as the absurd mistake was found out, he gave me a hundred reasons why they could not have been Indians; but all these were forgotten at the time. We then rode on in peace and quietness to a low point called Punta ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... can't want to see me," said the absurd young man, "though I do think you liked me pretty well before, didn't you? when Maisie Tarver tied my tongue; or ought to have, I'm afraid I should say. But she had enough sense to drop me when I was arrested. She couldn't stand a man arrested for murder any more than you ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... opportunity last spring of preaching in my parish pulpit, gets up and preaches against doctrine with which I am in good measure identified. No plainer proof can be given of the feeling in these quarters, than the absurd myth, now a second time put forward, that 'Vice-Chancellors cannot be got to take the office on account ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... their bridal compact came back to Nick: the absurd agreement on which he and Susy had solemnly pledged their faith. But was it so absurd, after all? It had been Susy's suggestion (not his, thank God!); and perhaps in making it she had been more serious than he imagined. Perhaps, even ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... never seeing Phil when they met, in school or out, though, of course, Phil minded this not at all. When the Carthusians were played, Acton spent the afternoon reading with Raven, whose exam, was now very near; and, whilst the two were grinding out all the absurd details of Horace and his patron, "and the poet's little farm, and the other rot which gains Perry Exhibitions," the shouts and cheers of the school down at the Acres came floating up the hill ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... of cushions in an arm-chair and placed it near the window. Angela half-reluctantly seated herself, watching the Abbe under the shadow of her long lashes as he sat down opposite to her. "Yes,—the emmets, the flies, the worms and the men, are all of one equality in the absurd belief that they can do things—things that will last. Their persistent self-credulity is astonishing,—considering the advance the world has made in science, and the overwhelming proofs we are always getting ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... and over again, tapping my foot to keep time as I did so. Then Mac would join in, and perhaps another of our company. And before long everyone at the table would catch the infection, and either be humming the absurd words or keeping time with his feet, while the others did so. Sometimes people didn't care for my song; I remember one old Englishman, with a white moustache and a very red face, who looked as if he might be a retired ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... larger originality of genius and while realizing that 'there is nothing new under the sun[130]' he could transform all his borrowings into definite images or lyrical magic. (There are flashes of poetry even in the absurd ensalada of III. 323-4.) He was the greatest lyrical poet of his day and, in a strictly limited sense, the greatest dramatist. He is Portugal's only dramatist, without forerunners or successors, for the playwrights of the ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... Mrs. Archdale actually included the sweetmeat stranger in their conversation, and Coxeter at last found himself at her request most unwillingly taking the absurd model out of his bag. "Of course you've got to imagine this in a rough sea," he said sulkily, playing the devil's advocate, "and not in a fresh water ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... me, and said, "Pray forgive me, but I do not see that the examples you have adduced bear any relation to the question." "Very likely," I answered; "for I have often been told that my style of illustration borders a little on the absurd. But let us see if we cannot place the matter in another point of view, by inquiring what can be a man's state of mind who resolves to free himself from the burden of life,—a burden often so pleasant to bear,—for we cannot otherwise reason ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... conversation. Those whose education debars them from deriving instruction from things, have in general the power to extract amusement from persons:—they can talk of the ridiculous Mrs. So-and-so, or the absurd Mr. Blank. But our lovers saw no society: and thus their commune was thrown ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a glance, to compare one creed or system with another, and each with the holy Scriptures;—to settle the minds of those who have formed no definite opinions on religious subjects;—and to lead us all, by contrasting the sacred truths and sublime beauties of Christianity with the absurd notions of pagan idolaters, of skeptics, and of infidels, to set a just value on the doctrines of HIM WHO SPAKE ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... attitude of Albuquerque, his desire to earn the friendship of Hindu rulers and his unrelenting enmity to all Muhammadans. He had not the absurd notion which Almeida attributed to him of desiring to establish a direct Portuguese rule all over India. He wished rather to pose as the destroyer of Muhammadanism and the liberator of the natives. In return for this service Portugal was to control the commerce ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... he feared that such extreme measures toward the brother of the First Consul might compromise, if not ruin, his bank. He therefore advised her neither to encourage nor repulse him. Lucien continued his attentions for a year,—the absurd emphasis of his manners at times amusing Madame Recamier, while at others his violence excited her fears. At last, becoming conscious that he was making himself ridiculous, he gave up the pursuit in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... effort, as in every other case, but meantime the strong arm of the law should be put forth for the protection of female children from the degradation and hurt entailed by premature sexual intercourse. This can easily be done by raising the age of punishable intercourse, which is now fixed at the absurd limit of ten years. Menstruation very seldom appears in native girls before the completed age of twelve years, and if the 'age of consent' were raised to that limit, it would not interfere with the prejudices and customs which insist on marriage ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... for my soul is wearied, through them that kill;" xxx. 6, xlix. 24; Hos. xiii. 13. To consider the pain alone, however, as the tertium comparationis, is inadmissible, because, in that case, we would obtain the absurd meaning: the suffering shall continue until the suffering cometh. It is likewise impossible to understand the bringing forth as the highest degree of affliction,—so that the sense would be: the Lord will give them up until the distress reaches its highest point,—because ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... complaint of the present time is that the present time doesn't see it. Popular opinion in England seems to me to be, not only getting to consider the cultivation of the muscles as of equal importance with the cultivation of the mind, but to be actually extending—in practice, if not in theory—to the absurd and dangerous length of putting bodily training in the first place of importance, and mental training in the second. To take a case in point: I can discover no enthusiasm in the nation any thing like so genuine and any thing like so general ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... met her the second time—which was after church on his first Sunday—his manner was even more loftily reserved than usual. He had distinct recollections of their first conversation. His own part in it had not been brilliant, and in it he had made the absurd statement—absurd in the light of what came after—that he was certainly NOT employed by ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... even that no bishop was sent to superintend the exertions, or sustain the efficacy, or cement the connexion of the Church in America with the Church in England. The whole of the united provinces were, by the absurd fiction of a sinecure law, "in the diocese of London!" Of course, in the first collision, the Church was swept away like chaff before the wind. An Episcopal Church has since risen in its room; but it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... dealer in old metal; but ambition is a chimney-sweep of a passion: a mere climbing-boy, who will go through any dirty hole in all Christendom only to get out at the top of the chimney. But you have not guessed, Wilton—you have not guessed. To it; and tell me, what is the absurd thing my father proposes ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... no doubt,' he added aloud, feeling at the same time that this was a clumsy expression of what he meant. Though he had unbuttoned his overcoat, and seated himself as easily as he could, the absurd tall hat which he held embarrassed him; to deposit it on the floor demanded an effort of which he was ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... number of intermediate ideas. Life, if this were not practised, would be too short for those who think, and much too short for those who speak. When somebody asked Pyrrhus which of two musicians he liked the best, he answered, "Polysperchon is the best general." This would appear to be the absurd answer of an absent person, or of a fool, if we did not consider the ideas that are implied, as well as those ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... continued stroking the cat as he spoke, which process he performed by passing his hand deliberately from her head, along her back, to the very tip of her tail, which he retained each time in his grasp for a moment, ere he recommenced operations), "I highly disapprove of the absurd practice, so common with young men of the present day, of expressing their ideas in that low and incomprehensible dialect, termed 'slang,' which, in my opinion, has neither wit nor refinement to redeem its vulgarity, and which effectually prevents their acquiring that easy ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the Reformation the English nation had been distracted with religious disputes, and divided into contending parties. One part of the people adhered to the old superstitious system of the Romish church, and strictly observed all the absurd tenets and practices of that establishment. Another party, of which the church of England was composed, seceded several steps from popery, but maintained the hierarchy in its full power and authority. The third sect were Puritans, who had imbibed such high notions of civil and religious ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... nominally free should toil to satisfy the exacting needs of the State, and to support the brilliant bevy of nobles who flitted gaily round the monarch at Versailles. The young King Louis XVI., it is true, carried through several reforms, but he had not enough strength of will to abolish the absurd immunities from taxation which freed the nobles and titled clergy from the burdens of the State. Thus, down to 1789, the middle classes and peasants bore nearly all the weight of taxation, while the peasants were also encumbered by feudal dues and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? Again, dismiss from your mind the absurd thought that I hate you. True, you snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still, there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and so unpleasant, as this sight—ridiculous in the absurd incidents inseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless and unmeaning degradation. There are two steps to begin with, and then a rather broad landing. The more rigid climbers went along this landing ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... smoking-room you are to conceive David vanishing into nothingness, and that it is any day six years ago at two in the afternoon. I ring for coffee, cigarette, and cherry brandy, and take my chair by the window, just as the absurd little nursery governess comes tripping into the street. I always feel that I ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... diversion of small ones. Every person in the crowd, she discovered, excited his interest, and his humour bubbled over at the most insignificant things—at the grimace of a newsboy who offered him a paper, at the absurd hat worn by a woman in a motor car, at the expression of disgusted solemnity on the face of a servant in livery, at the giggles of an over-dressed girl who hung on the arm of an anemic and exhausted admirer. Never before had she encountered such vitality, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... affair of the lost package of money—for as she utterly disbelieved the tale, (imputing it to the effects of an excited imagination,) she had no desire to wound the feelings of her lover by acquainting him with the absurd charge (as she thought) which had been brought against him. How blind is love to the imperfections, the faults, and even the crimes of the object of its adoration! We believe it is Shakespeare ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... you are. He clings to me. He seems to have formed the absurd idea that I am fond of him. A few months after that evening at the Savoy he was married. I was invited to the wedding—confound him. Of course I had to live up to my birthday present; the least I could do was an enormous ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... marksmanship destroyed the last remnant of his temper. He swore for half an hour in Hindustani, and for another half-hour in English. After that he felt better. And when, at the end of dinner, Sylvia came to him with the absurd request that she might marry Mr. Reginald Dallas he did not have a fit, but merely signified in fairly moderate terms his entire and absolute refusal to think of such ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... candor and completely good understanding which existed a short time ago seems to have become clouded. Carraby is trying to suggest in English circles that I have been using my influence over here against the present government. The absurd part of it is that although I have been in France for a month, I arrived in Paris ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the absurd disposition of some anglers. They never see a fish without believing that they can catch him; but if they see no fish, they are inclined to think that the river is empty and the ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... a second, did not know what to say. He thought of the absurd story which he had told, or rather suggested, at the store, and realized that such a fabrication would ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... the comic in its extreme form was the logic of the absurd. More than one philosophy of laughter revolves round a like idea. Every comic effect, it is said, implies contradiction in some of its aspects. What makes us laugh is alleged to be the absurd realised in concrete shape, a "palpable absurdity";—or, again, an apparent absurdity, which we swallow ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... And accordingly the absurd experiment was made. Afterwards, John asked himself a thousand times why he had not foreseen the inevitable result. But the explanation is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to convince a friend that he would attempt ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... pages of human life are worth reading; the wise instruct; the gay divert us; the imprudent teach us what to shun; the absurd ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Justin Martyr to Lactantius. But when it had served its purpose it was allowed to drop. As Gibbon says, "it was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism." The Millennium is stigmatised, in what once stood as the forty-first Article of the English Church, as "a fable of Jewish dotage." We wonder whether the plain-spoken divines who drew up that article included Jesus ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Just think of the absurd little town, knowing nothing of the only memorable incident which ever happened within its boundaries since the old Britons built it, this sad and lovely story, which consecrates the spot (for I found it holy to my contemplation, again, as soon as ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Tideswell," writes the author, "the villages of Wardlow and Litton lay on our left.... Here, at a little distance on the left of the road, we observed a man suspended on a gibbet, which was but newly erected. The vanity of the absurd idea of our forefathers, in thinking that a repulsive object of this kind would act as a deterrent of crime, was strikingly shown in the case of this Wardlow gibbet." It is related of Hannah Pecking, of Litton, who was hung on March 22nd, 1819, at the early age of sixteen, for ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... to Lottie, who had the keenest sense of the absurd, and with a sign to Hemstead she drew him away, saying, "This exceeds any play I ever saw. I didn't know people who were not acting could be ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... advanced, some of them bordering on the absurd and others really plausible. The unlimited resources of a boy's fertile mind in conjuring up remarkable explanations in a mysterious case like the one now engaging their attention had not yet been reached at the time Hugh suddenly announced they ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... These are facts so simple and so obvious that it seems to me every intelligent and enlightened statesman ought to be an advocate of the theory of descent and the general doctrine of evolution, as the best antidote for the absurd equalitarian, utopian notions ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... little discussion at the time. The next presidential election which resulted in a change of party was that of Jackson in 1828, and then the methods of New York and Pennsylvania were applied on a national scale. Jackson cherished the absurd belief that the administration of his predecessor Adams had been corrupt, and he turned men out of office with a keen zest. During the forty years between Washington's first inauguration and Jackson's the total number of removals from office was 74, and out of this number 5 were defaulters. During ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... was this joyful feeling. The only water-route to the East then in use was that around the Cape of Good Hope, and it belonged, according to the absurd grant of Pope Alexander the Sixth, to Portugal alone. Spain had opened another around the Horn, but kept the fact carefully concealed. In short, the selfish policy of Spain and Portugal was to shut all other ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... designate the "Greeks." This, apart "from an internal chronology based on the character of the works themselves, and on the quotations, &c., therein contained, is the only one possible," we are told. As a result the absurd statement that "the Indian astronomers regularly speak of the Yavanas as their teachers" (p. 252). Ergo, their teachers were Greeks. For with Weber and others "Yavana" and ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... waking, though the absurd masquerading of words and thoughts had ceased, she was still weighed down with the horror of the dream, which she knew had a corresponding reality still more awful. And there was no adversary to all this anguish; everybody acquiesced, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... he went off, with lagging steps, to work. It was a beautiful spring morning, and the idea of a man with two hundred a year and a headache going off to a warehouse instead of a day's outing seemed to border upon the absurd. What use was money without freedom? His toil was sweetened that day by the knowledge that he could drop it any time he liked and walk out, a free man, into ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... the dreadful crushes, what can one say? The absurd rooms where six hundred people try to move about in a space meant for three hundred; the staircase a Black-Hole tempered by flowers; the tired smile of the hostess; the set simper of long-recked shaven young men; the patient, tortured hypocrisy ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the day fixed for the Belfast demonstration, a meeting of the Ulster Unionist leaders was held in London. Moyne was at it. Lady Moyne, although the absurd conventions of our political life prevented her being present in person, was certainly an influence in the deliberations. She gave a dinner-party the night before in Moyne's town house. Babberly, of course, was ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... artist never sinks self: he is always supreme, and towers above every subject, every object, that he portrays. The riotous health and good-cheer of Rubens marked the man's limitations. He was not great enough to comprehend the small, the delicate, the insignificant and the absurd. Only a very great man can paint dwarfs, idiots, topers and kings. And so the many- sidedness of the great man continually deceives the world into thinking that he is the thing with which he associates; or, on the other hand, we say he "sinks self" for the time, whereas the truth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... at these places. Many interesting topics are touched upon—among which we point to his remarks on the difficulties experienced by him in meeting the literary requirements of the day, and the peculiar demands of editors; his opinion of Mr. Carlyle; the present condition of the stage, the absurd pretensions of actors, and the delusions attempted respecting the "legitimate" drama; the question of the laureateship, and his own qualifications for holding that office; his habits of reading; and finally an avowal of his religious opinions. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... keenness of perception, and fine education, can allow yourself to be so completely carried away by a mawkish sentiment. What is the use of all these memories and fancies and hysterical emotions that you talk about? In one place you call yourself by the absurd name of 'A Pensive Traveller.' Why not be honest? Be a sensible American, exhibiting in your thoughts and in all your actions the effect of democratic principles and stiff republican institutions. Now I'll read you what I have written. I think the ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... elimination brought me to the absurd conclusion that the fault must lie in me. Not in my appearance, I reasoned, for I was a personable young man, a little over thirty at the time, with no obvious defects a few visits to the dentist wouldnt have removed. Of course I do have an ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... allegorizing of the Jews, and yet traditionally accept, on their authority, doctrines which can be deduced from their Scriptures in no other way than by the absurd hypothesis of a double or mystic sense. For example, scores of Christian authors have taught the dogma of a general resurrection of the dead, deducing it from such passages as God's sentence upon Adam: "From the dust wast thou taken, and unto the dust shalt thou return;" as Joel's patriotic ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... much inward resentment of the folly of the thing, Salisbury told his tale, and repeated reluctantly the absurd intelligence and the absurder doggerel of the scrap of paper, expecting to hear Dyson burst out into a roar ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... on, until the absurd tempest that has passed over these two allows them to speak. Then they do so on an absolutely new footing, and the man calls the girl his dearest and his own, and Heaven knows what else. There one sees the difference between the B.C. and A.D. of the Nativity ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and company, did not dispel these impressions. And I thought Chateaubriand (far too French for my taste also,) belonged to l'ancien regime, and that Beranger and Courier stood apart. Nodier, Paul de Kock, Sue, Jules Janin, I did not know, except through the absurd reports of English reviewers; Le ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... by the smiles of venal beauty—and had just completed a careful toilette. He was above the small peculations of his order; indeed, had he been inclined to plunder his late masters wardrobe, the absurd disproportion in their size would have saved him from that vulgar temptation. He was somewhat choice in his tailors, and his clothes fitted him and suited him well. He was reviewing the general effect in the glass with a complacent and rather egrillarde expression in his little eyes, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... could hardly help laughing at the absurd reply of their lively companion, but their hilarity was soon stopped by the expression his face assumed as he bent over Satellite's body, where it lay stretched ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... barter of their various commodities, their dealings with us were fair and upright, though latterly they were by no means backward nor inexpert in driving a bargain. The absurd and childish exchanges which they at first made with our people induced them subsequently to complain that the Kabloonas had stolen their things, though the profit had eventually been a hundred-fold in their ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... experience of British and American warriors in France sometimes happened to be so unfortunate that many of them gave credence to the absurd and mischievous legend that their governments were made to pay rent for the trenches in which their troops fought and died, and even for the graves in which the slain ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... or four inches in diameter. It is difficult to admit that the crocodiles swallow these stony masses accidentally, for they do not catch fish with their lower jaw resting on the ground at the bottom of the river. The Indians have framed the absurd hypothesis that these indolent animals like to augment their weight, that they may have less trouble in diving. I rather think that they load their stomach with large pebbles to excite an abundant secretion of the gastric juice. The experiments of Majendie render this explanation extremely probable. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Today we face the absurd situation of a Federal budget with three-quarters of its expenditures routinely referred to as "uncontrollable." And a large part of this goes to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... possession of fiefs, of ecclesiastical dignitaries, and of a small number of municipal officers. It claimed to elect the deputies to the States-general according to the ancient usages. Mirabeau's common sense, as well as his great and puissant genius, revolted against the absurd theories of the privileged: he overwhelmed them with his terrible eloquence, whilst adjuring them to renounce their abuseful and obsolete rights; he scared them by his forceful and striking hideousness. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... complete the article but a summary of the story and quotations from it, for which he had left plenty of space. He condemned the book utterly from the point of view of art, and for the silly ignorance of life displayed in it, and the absurd caricatures which were supposed to be people; he ridiculed the writer for taking herself seriously (but without showing why exactly she should not take herself seriously if she chose); he pitied her for her disappointment when she should realise where in literature her place would be; ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Scotch traditional conservatism, that he will not spare even Charles Edward—of whom he draws so graceful a picture—the humiliation of submitting to old Bradwardine's "solemn act of homage," but makes him go through the absurd ceremony of placing his foot on a cushion to have its brogue unlatched by the dry old enthusiast of heraldic lore. Indeed it was because Scott so much enjoyed the contrast between the high sentiment of life and its dry and often absurd detail, that his imagination found so much ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... course of that night and lay awake. The absurd incident came immediately into his mind and remained in his mind. High Jinks and Low Jinks was comic. No getting over it. Incontestably comic. Stupid, of course, but just the kind of stupid thing that tickled him irresistibly. And she couldn't see ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... remain longer silent. Evidently Judith had been educated in the absurd proceedings before they came. Janet was now in from the telephone booth and stood beside her companions, while ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... course! But all that's done with. I can't understand how the absurd notion came into ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... to College Rhymes: When ices were in much request Beside the April fire, When men were very strangely dressed By Standen or by Prior. Return, ye Freshman's Terms! They DO Return, and much the same, To boys, who, just like me and you, Play the absurd old game! ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... remarkably well. Almost he persuaded me to respect him with that hearty response to the call of duty, that humble and high gift of graciousness. One remembers him as his dolly face lighted at John's order to go and clean trout or carry in logs, and one does not forget the absurd, queer little fast trot at which his powerful young legs would instantaneously swing off to obey the behest. Such was the Tin Lizzie, the guide who paddled bow in my canvas canoe on the day ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a little annoyed at the absurd speeches of the old lady, and determined to put a ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... obvious difficulties surrounding this theory; as, for example (i.) the absurd waste of power in setting supernatural machinery at work 4000 years ago with cumbrous devices to record its object, when the same machinery, much more simply employed now, would effect the alleged purpose far more thoroughly; (ii.) the enormous amount of human misery ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor |
