"Whimsically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for were he able to revisit this earth no one would touch more whimsically than he upon the fads and the foibles of contemporary life; but it's a great pity that in the popular craze about the new writers, all redolent with the varnish of novelty, we should consign to the dust ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... bare, fairly sagged and steamed with offerings of Thanksgiving. Somehow the steam got into Eph's eyes and made them wet, till all he could do was to say whimsically: ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... He very seldom had a good night's sleep, and habitual bad luck or the effort to conceal his constitutional delicacy had given him a curious gravity of manner, combined with a certain gentleness, which contrasted oddly with his whimsically absurd utterances. No one ever looked more wise than this young man, no one ever acted with more conspicuous foolishness, and no one ever received a larger measure of ill-luck than he. If Toffy hunted, his horse fell or went ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... reddish brown merino, holding in her left hand a green cord, which was tied to the collar of an English terrier, and with her right arm linked with that of a man in knee-breeches and silk stockings, whose hat had its brim whimsically turned up, while snow-white tufts of hair like pigeon plumes rose at its sides. A slender queue, thin as a quill, tossed about on the back of his sallow neck, which was thick, as far as it could be seen above the turned down collar of a threadbare ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... this picnic, the Finley annual, that he asked Hester, then seventeen, to marry him. She was darkly, wildly pretty, as a rambler rose tugging at its stem is restlessly pretty, as a pointed little gazelle smelling up at the moon is whimsically pretty, as a runaway stream from off the flank of a river is naughtily pretty, and she wore a crisp percale shirt waist with a saucy bow at the collar, fifty-cent silk stockings, and already she had almond incarnadine nails with points ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... in wonder, so numerous and so whimsically contrasted were these various objects. But amongst this motley assemblage there were some who appeared more capable of interesting her heart and her fancy. She espied those who were no sincere partakers of the general joy, and whose sad eye and clouded ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Henry's sincere admirers in the old Lyceum days, and now if you want to hear any one talk of those days brilliantly, delightfully, and whimsically, if you want to live first nights and Beefsteak Room suppers over again—if you want to have Henry Irving at the Garrick Club recreated before your eyes, it is only Alfred Gilbert who can do it ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... very nice, I think,' said Gladys whimsically. 'Did I tell you that Mrs. Macintyre, who used to live in the Wynd, is at the lodge at Bourhill? But perhaps you did not ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... never do it, though," he meditated whimsically. "It would be a mean, low trick to make it think so. This yere job rightly belongs to a water-tank. Oh, gosh! And ten miles yet, across that darned dry lake, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... room for a closer inspection of the safe, and, as his flashlight played over the single dial, he shook his head whimsically. No, it would be hardly true to call that modern; it was only an ancient monstrosity, a helpless thing at the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... another Christmas alone, and the shadowy hope for April lent a new tone even to their gayety, and deepened the exquisite happiness of the dark, snowbound day. The tiny house was full of laughter, for Bert had given his wife all the little things she had from time to time whimsically desired. The fancy cheeses, and the perfumes and soaps, made her laugh and laugh as she unwrapped them. There were fuzzy wash-cloths—a particular fancy of hers—and new library paste and new hair-pins, and a can-opener that made her exclaim: "Bert, that was ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... Bill grinned whimsically and assented. He could keep quiet when he had to; but the day following found him again restlessly investigating anything that seemed worth the trouble and the afternoon saw him standing looking upward toward the same ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... he said half whimsically, "do you smile? Even so I think God should smile that He had let such a thing be made. And if, as I believe, you know the truth at last, that is why you also smile. But shut your eyes, my brother," he added, stooping to do the office, "shut your eyes, for you ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... suit of the Mayor's clothes—into which he gets in time to interview that worthy when he returns with his grim lady. "You'll get a month," says she with damnable iteration; and the resourceful Felix, with an eye to the whimsical will, whimsically suggests that justice would be better fulfilled by his putting in the month at the Mayor's house as odd-job man than by his being conveyed to the county jail. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... Peacock, partly from conviction and partly from affectation, seems to have been pretty consistent in performing the office of a wet blanket. Testing his intellect on other people's enthusiasms, falling sedately and whimsically in love with various ladies, amongst them his future wife, but keeping such feelings as he had for the most part to himself, Peacock slipped through all the critical stages of youth till in 1816 he published "Headlong Hall." ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... the boneset but to please her mother she promised to swallow faithfully the doses of bitter tea. She thought whimsically as she drank it, "First time I knew that boneset tea is good for an aching heart. Boneset tea—it isn't that I want! I'm afraid I'm losing hold of my old faith in the ultimate triumph of sincerity and truth. Seems that men, even men like Martin Landis, don't want the old-fashioned ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... after a pause of reproach which I enjoyed—"your Uncle Lan's toned down a lot since then ... married ... has four children ... one every year." And Alice laughed whimsically. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Jackson was shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually named. Miss Longnecker must be right; it was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she could not ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Katherine smiled whimsically as she looked after him. "My first 'romance,'" she thought. "With a baby elephant! Slim is a dear boy and I hate myself now because I used to make such fun of him." And where the passionate laments of the girls had failed to move her, the thought of Slim's offered sacrifice brought ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... "let me recommend to you this admirable poem; you will find in it sources of intellectual enjoyment far superior to those songs which have delighted you." Julia looked at the book, and then at me, with a whimsically dubious air. "Milton's Paradise Lost?" said she; "oh, I know the greater ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... you, South Wind," he said whimsically. "Go find my Dream Girl. Go carry her this message from me. Freight your breath with spicy pollen, sun warmth, and flower nectar. Fill all her senses with delight, and then, close to her ear, whisper it ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... skill in bakery and the handling of half-broken teams; but she had once or twice given him what he recognised as excellent advice. There was something incongruous in the situation, but, as usual, he preferred to regard it whimsically. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... about that. But if we challenge him, the chances are—he'll revoke that benediction!" Cadman speculated whimsically. "Then we'll have all the people against us—which is to say, every prospect of success would go glimmering. No, there's nothing for it but to go ahead, as ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... ear Miss Pratt's voice came clearly as the chiming of tiny bells, for she spoke whimsically to her little dog in that tinkling childlike fashion which was part of the ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... Biddy! When I have lingered in the prison-house so long!" Slowly Isabel rose to her feet. She looked at Biddy almost whimsically. "I think He will take that into the reckoning," she said. "Do you know, Biddy, this is the second summons that has come to me? And I think—I think," her face was glorified again as the face of one who sees a vision—"I think the third will be ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the colour of pale dust, and of that same colour was all that pertained to him, hat and clothes. His boots were dusty of course, for it was midsummer, and his very horse was of a dusty dun. His features were whimsically ugly, most of his teeth were gone, and as to his age, he might be thirty or sixty. He was somewhat lame and halt, but an unequalled rider when once upon his steed, which he was naturally not very solicitous to quit. I subsequently discovered ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... to think that you're right," Vetch responded whimsically, "but you'll have to convince a few others of that, I reckon, before we begin to plan for the White House. First of all, you'll have to convince the folks that started the boom to make me Governor. It looks as if some of them were already thinking ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... these historic shelves many troubled spirits have come as near happiness as they are like to get . . . for after all, happiness (as the mathematicians might say) lies on a curve, and we approach it only by asymptote. . . . The frequenters of this alley call themselves whimsically The Ludlow Street Business Men's Association, and Charles Lamb or Eugene Field would have been proud to preside at their annual dinners, at which the members recount their happiest book-finds of ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... up and inserted in the frame, driving it home with a few sharp blows. Then, he bent the iron bars back down until each fitted nicely over its stump. Whimsically, he imagined old Michael's amazement and superstitious fear when he should find the animal gone, but ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... understanding. He had never before seen a household that really enjoyed little jokes shared in common, whose members were full of kind consideration the one for the other. The Roubideaus had more than a touch of the French temperament. They took life gayly and whimsically, and though they poked all kinds of fun at each other there was never any sting ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... distinguished by his genius, misfortunes, and misconduct, published this year a poem, called The Race, by 'Mercurius Spur, Esq.[88],' in which he whimsically made the living poets of England contend for pre-eminence of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to," he said quickly. Then he gripped the other's muscular arm affectionately. "See you later," he added, smiling whimsically up into the troubled blue eyes as ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Annapolis is whimsically laid out, the streets verging from each other, like rays from a centre. It is still the seat of government; and it's state-house is by much the best building I have seen in America. This little city is now the retreat of some of the best families in the state. ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... like it was waiting for something, too," she thought. "But it ought to know it won't get it," she added whimsically. ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... who was counsel for the defendant, told him, that several parts of his accusation were absolutely spitatical. [Footnote: In the original sputatilica, worthy to be spit upon. It appears, from the connection, to have been a very unclassical word, whimsically derived by the author of it from sputa, spittle.] My Lords, cried Rufius to the judges, I shall be cruelly over-reached, unless you give me your assistance. His charge overpowers my comprehension; and I am afraid he has some unfair design upon me. What, in the name of Heaven, can ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... face," said Crockett whimsically, "that it is Urrea. But remember, Ned, that you can still be hated and ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as if to say something and Cuthbert expected that he meant to include Owen in his invitation, but he simply nodded his head, smiled whimsically, and bent over ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... Dare sighed whimsically. 'Badly in the morning, when I have been tempted to indulge overnight, and worse in the afternoon, when I have been tempted in ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... can't blame 'em," Allen retorted whimsically. "They're not used to seeing two such good-looking people together," ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... with anything more than a temporary home, and the aspect of every one seemed somewhat changed. In fact, his career at college had disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt his being the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsically alludes to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, "The Man in Black," in the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... cuckoldry, Mrs. Ford in mockery, Ford, Evans and Caius in jealousy and rivalry, Bardolph is going to be a tapster, the others are plying their suits. Even in this his most trivial play, Shakespeare's idea that punishment follows oath-breaking is expressed (whimsically enough) by Falstaff— ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... the bath-house, though, Ted laughed at himself rather whimsically. That extraordinary day-dream of the slave and the Elinor Princess! It helped sometimes, to make pictures of the very impossible—even of things as impossible as that. If Elinor had only been older before the war came along and changed ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... at her whimsically. "Perhaps not, princess; but I am going to take you back to her all the same. Say good-night to Aunt Stella! She looks as if a good dose of bed would ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... greet us a coldness not of the weather crept into Mary Virginia's eyes. She did not speak, but bowed formally. Mr. Hunter, holding her gaze for a moment, lifted his brows whimsically and smiled; then, bowing, he passed on. She stood looking after him, her lips closed ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... his face rigidly set, inscrutable to my glance. Then he relaxed into one of those whimsically appealing smiles that somehow are acutely eloquent of pathos. 'Serious parts—with this low-comedy face of mine!' he responded. And my query had been answered. Yet he went on, 'No, I shall never play Hamlet. I can give a good imitation of a bad actor but, doubtless, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... on the opposite bank, resided the witty but profligate Sir Richard Steele, in a house which he whimsically denominated "the hovel;" and "from the Hovel at Hampton Wick, April 7, 1711," he dedicated the fourth volume of the Tatler to Charles, Lord Halifax. This was probably about the time he became surveyor of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... bright whiteness of house and householder, the trim array of flower-beds and kitchen-garden, struck her as strange and artificial. She felt as if Don Annunzio ought to be wound up from behind, and was whimsically surprised to see him rise and ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... restrain ourselves in some things; and there are people who really want someone else to take the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all right, the world seems to be getting on." She gazed whimsically upon her great-nephew and added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think about him, it doesn't seem to be getting on ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... extended her hand, a grave inquiry in her slumbrous eyes. With equal gravity he clasped the hand, but held back the impulse to kiss it. He was not quite sure of himself just then. He sat down opposite her and, smiling, whimsically inquired: ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... in his chair and smiled whimsically. "I've done some studying along those lines, too, and I reckon I know myself pretty well. I've ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... a word in his ear. He looked at her, incredulously at first, then whimsically, with a sham dismay; and then, as if Maurice had only just taken shape for him, he turned and looked at him also, and from him to Madeleine, and back to him, finally bursting afresh into a roar of laughter. Madeleine laid ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... vehicle used for cross-country passenger travel. Following the Civil War, the brother of Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) was appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Samuel accompanied his brother as private secretary. The journey was made largely in a stagecoach, the inconveniences of which are whimsically set forth in the following extract from ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Precious was over that stoopy little figure. Miss Theodosia looked with softened eyes. Then a smile grew in them, wrinkling their corners whimsically. She was noticing something else besides the little old-lady back. Evangeline's braids toed in! Tight and flaxen, they stood out in rounded curves, converging suddenly to the bit of faded ribbon that tied them together. There was something suspicious ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Baccho was completely successful. An argument founded on the similarity between the conduct of the Syndic and the accused, could not but triumph, otherwise the little debauch of the former would have been condemned in the person of the latter. This trial, which terminated so whimsically, nevertheless proves that the best and the gravest institutions may become objects of ridicule when suddenly introduced into a country whose habits are ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... tell—their day," retorted Genevieve, whimsically. "You know what most of them are. Alma Lane would be all right, and would give a true description of everything; only she would go into particulars so, that she would tell everything she saw ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... eyed the friar whimsically; then, seeing no sign of relenting in him, shrugged his shoulders. He put off his helm again, and both going out to the little glade by the ruined shrine of St. Dunstan, they prepared for a ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... on my Frankfort story," said M'Iver, whimsically. "I only hope we may win out of Dalness as snugly as we won out of the castle ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... said whimsically. "Faith, it's no place at all for cynics. Shall we go hand in hand to find it then—in case you ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... heartily sorry for and ashamed of the experiment before the dinner was half over, and many times since the accident which interrupted the evening I had wondered, half-whimsically, whether my dress catching fire was not a "judgment on me." I had deeply dreaded seeing Mr. Underwood again, but as I looked into his eyes I saw nothing but friendly cheeriness ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... back again now, will you?" he asked whimsically, after learning whence I came. "I must," said I, sadly. "Oh don't," said he; "tell them you can't, and just wander about the East." He transshipped shortly and disappeared, one of many passing travellers with ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... clear as to the course he meant to take. He was so eloquent in his discourse and so full of that divine spark of enthusiasm, that he was always listened to, no matter how unpalatably Tory the basic principles of his utterances were. He never posed as anything but an aristocrat, and while he whimsically admitted that in the present day to be one was an enormous disadvantage for a man who wished to get on, he endeavored to palliate the misfortune by lucid explanation of what the duties of such a status were, and of the logical advantages ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... that the Premier took part in most of the sports on board ship, and of course lost most of the events. Well, there is no harm in a Premier beginning to be whimsically athletic near fifty. But, unless now and then he could manage to win something it was obviously only an attempt to make him interesting to the cables, on the principle that a polar bear is prodded in a cage to make ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... playing; at least he could detect no sign of it, though he kept a sharp lookout as he always did when sitting in with strangers. But he was rather uncomfortably in a hole and was just beginning to realize rather whimsically that for a while at least he had only a cow-man's pay to depend on for spending-money, when the door was suddenly jerked open and a tall, broad-shouldered figure loomed ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... out the light and crept into bed with a sigh. "Such a wonderful time," she breathed, "and he is good looking. Jack——" Then she smiled whimsically into the dark. "It must run in the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Pard with a rein end and went on slowly. "Robbing a bank would be the quickest and easiest," she decided whimsically, as she neared the place where she always sheltered Pard. "But not so ladylike. I guess I'll write a book. It should be something real thrilly, so the people will rush madly to all the bookstores to buy it. It should ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... such a place. That we knew would be the road for us. From their point of view, the road we were on was as bad as could be; but, as I said, the undertaker evidently understood us, and had sent us into a region of whimsically sudden hills and rock and wooded wilderness, a swart country of lonely, rugged uplands, with but a solitary house here and there for miles. It was resting at the top of one of these hard-won acclivities that ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... He had always had a strong curiosity in regard to those papers, but his curiosity so far had been an inactive one; he had never before been alone at the Hall since his grandmother's death. He wheeled about on his chair and looked whimsically at the divan. "Have I your permission, O most fascinating of grandmothers?" he demanded aloud. "No answer. That means I have. So ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... willing, against my will," returned Mrs. Fayre, whimsically. "I confess I just hate to have you go, but I can't bear to deprive you of the pleasure trip. And, as you say, it would also keep Dotty at home, and so, altogether, I think I shall have to ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... soon have thought of following her into police headquarters as there. Ever after she stayed. She took possession of the alley and of headquarters, where the reporters had their daily walk, as if they were hers by right of conquest, which in fact they were. With her whimsically grave countenance, in which all the cares of the vast domain she made it her daily duty to oversee were visibly reflected, she made herself a favorite with every one except the "beanery-man" on the corner, who denounced her angrily, when none ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... herself into an easy chair, and covering her face with her hands. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" She opened her fingers and looked whimsically at her cousin, who, despising this stage ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... first customer of the morning, who should come tripping along the street but consequential Charles Doty, the boy who ran messages for the bank, and made himself generally useful between times, looking toward the time when he was to be elevated to the president's chair, as he often whimsically declared. ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... took a holt on me first," Zeke protested wrathfully, forgetful of his reconciliation with the dog. Then, a plaintive whine recalled him. He smiled whimsically, as he patted the bull-terrier's head, which was lifted toward him fondly. The anger died out of his face, and he smiled. "I've hearn these-hyar dumb critters git things 'bout right by instinct, somehow. Yer dawg's done ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... to exaggerate, to joke. Mary is a woman. Any woman is a Mary. All women are Marys. Doubtlessly the first dim white adventurer whimsically called a native woman Mary, and of similar birth must have been many other words in beche de mer. The white men were all seamen, and so capsize and sing out were introduced into the lingo. One would not tell a Melanesian cook to ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... in the De Chenier quartering," thought the Count whimsically. "It is obviously the weapon of the family." And ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... called Ralph, whimsically, knowing well that his voice would not carry above the roar of the brook, "I wish you'd tell me where you get all your gold! I believe I'd go digging with my finger-nails this morning if I only ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... and statesmen in an ancient thatched chapel. To make it presentable and worthy of the nobles, it was covered with tapestries which entirely hid the ruined walls. The subject of the superb pieces was a series of battles, which made the Duke of Lancaster whimsically critical of a subject ill-chosen for a peace conference, he suggesting that it were better to have represented "la ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... words for what she had to say? Walking to the great gate by the highway she looked wistfully between its iron rods, for one last glimpse of him. A sudden realization came to her that she knew nothing about him, not even an address, "except Delphi," she said whimsically to herself. Only a minute ago he had been there; and now she had wantonly let him go out of ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... outlined his plan. "Now, go to bed and sleep, for you and I shall need some to draw upon during the next three or four days. Hunting for buried treasures was never a junketing. The admiral will tell you that. At dawn!" Then he added whimsically: "I trust we haven't ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... of loving me, you know,' he went on half whimsically. 'No one would know anything about it. It would be our secret, our little experiment. If only you'd try it. Dearest, I do love ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... shot at," replied Robert, whimsically, "though I don't believe the marksman could come so close to me again without finishing me. I think it was Peter's spy because I saw him come out of the house, and cried to him to halt, but he fired first. My own bullet, I'm sure, touched ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... out in delight at the prospect of a ride. David lifted her up, and Joe settled her comfortably in the saddle, encircling her with his arm. Then he looked down whimsically into David's ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... bedrooms was utilized as a closet, and garments for every imaginable occasion were brought forth. There were stout English tweeds for the heaviest weather, two dress suits, and Norfolk jackets in corduroy. The owner's taste ran to grays and browns, it seemed, and he whimsically ordered his raiment grouped by colors as he lounged about with a ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... to mark her first appearance in her cousins' circle came at last, and she smiled whimsically at herself in the mirror as her new maid added the finishing touches to her toilette. She still clung stubbornly to black, but Mrs. Halstead had seen to it that no awkward suggestion of mourning marred the effect of her shimmering sable gown. It ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... it may be observed, that the principle applies only to regular versification, which is the common form, if not the distinguishing mark, of poetical composition. And, in this, the practice of beginning every line with a capital is almost universal; but I have seen some books in which it was whimsically disregarded. Such poetry as that of Macpherson's Ossian, or such as the common translation of the Psalms, is subjected neither to this rule, nor to the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... marriage with the Shirleys of Wiston). The house can never have been so fine as Slaugham Place, but it is evident that abundance also reigned here, as there. Over the main door was the motto "Non minor est virtus quam querere parta tueri," which Horsfield whimsically translates "Catch is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better." In the Shurley chapel, one of the sweetest spots in Sussex, are brasses and monuments to the family, notably the canopied altar tomb to Sir John Shurley, who died in 1631, his two wives (Jane Shirley ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... is," he eagerly affirmed. "Only," he added, with a vaguely rueful modulation, and always with that amiable abruptness, as a man very much at his ease, while his blue eyes whimsically brightened, "only the blessed public never comes—we're so off the beaten path. And I suppose one mustn't expect a Scioccone"—his voice swelled on the word, and he cast sidelong a scathing glance at his summoner—"to ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... of make-believe even yet, sweetheart," she smiled at him whimsically, "that we have a real, live ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... and then, half unconsciously and quite in spite of herself, the ghost of a sigh escaped her. She could not help wishing things were a trifle more real sometimes, bright and whimsically unworldly as ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... would make a lot of trouble for everybody if you did—especially for the Alton police courts, I am afraid! But you can act as trustees for Clark's Field—" He turned to Adelle and continued whimsically,—"That's what the old Field did for you, my dear, with my assistance. Its wealth was tied up for fifty years to be let loose in your lap! You found it not such a great gift, after all, so why not pour it back upon the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... having our joint debate," she replied whimsically, her voice betraying nothing of the tumult within. "But we are having it in an unlocked for place and fashion. And you have the worst of it. Be careful, please. Don't try to get up. The men have gone back for help. Our affairs seem to be decidedly mixed; but never mind; we shall ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... different ways, saw the joke of the thing. At any rate, I found that in their charm for each other they had somehow not ceased to be amusing for me, and I waited confidently for the answer she would make to his whimsically abrupt bidding. But she did not answer very promptly, even when he had added, "Wanhope, here, is scenting something psychological in the reason of my laughing at you, instead of accepting the plain ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... blame you for not believing me. It is against your whole theory of life. Not to believe in yourself were a great calamity. My grandfather was so unfortunately accurate that with advancing years he came whimsically to consider himself infallible. And when, urged by the clamoring of his equally accurate family, he sometimes consented to consult the dictionary, and he found that he differed from it, it never disturbed his belief in himself. He closed the book, ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... doing. I'm hired to do certain work—for trapeze performing is work, though it may look like fun to the public. Well, I'm on my way, as the fellow said when the powder mill blew up," and Joe smiled whimsically. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... you are! Here comes emotion—in the shape of my aunt Ellen. Isn't Mr. Linden a careful man?" he asked whimsically in a low voice, returning to his place by Faith. The question touched Faith's feeling of the ludicrous, and she only laughed at the doctor. Which he ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Basil, who have been almost everywhere, agreed that they had seldom seen such marvellous detail of carving, so many whimsically planned and exquisitely carried out irregularities, or such lovely, well-preserved sandstone. That quarry which gave the material for Melrose and Dryburgh was a treasure-mine, and even the Romans knew and valued it. I was quite glad to find those two-agreeing about something, because ever ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... is completed, Donald," he suggested presently, "you might take old Brent and his girl over to our old house in town and let them have what furniture they require. See if you cannot manage to saw off some of your mother's antiques on them," added whimsically. "By the way, what kind of shanty is old Brent going ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... we may class the term grotesque. The term grotesque was first applied as a generic appellation in the latter part of the fifteenth century, when the "grottoes," or baths of ancient Rome, and the lowermost apartments of houses then exhumed, exhibited whimsically designed wall-decorations, which attracted the attention of Raffaelle and other artists, who resuscitated and modified the style; adopting it for the famous Loggie of the Vatican and for garden pavilions ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... that he made the eyes that watched him wink as at a play of sparks in a furnace, and his arms and hands were never still, yet never, even for a second, fell into a curve that was ungraceful. Sometimes his head was bent whimsically forward as if in invitation. Sometimes he threw his whole body backward, exposing his brown throat, and staring up at the sun like a sun worshipper dancing to his divinity. Sometimes he crouched on his haunches, clapping his hands together ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Jimmie, "or I might feed up Stamp until he is strong enough to pull me out. Only that would take too long, I'm afraid. He's been kept on a diet of carpet tacks, lately, to judge by the many fine points about him," he added, whimsically. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... up yourselves to business—particularly sorry about Gray, for that is my fault. For the good of our State I wish you both were going to sit side by side at Frankfort, in Congress, and the Senate, and fight it out"—he smiled whimsically—"some day for the nomination for the Presidency. The poor old commonwealth is in a bad way, and it needs just such boys as you two are. The war started us downhill, but we might have done better—I know I might. The earth was too rich—it ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... they seem to have been in real peril. Next the ship struck on a mud-bank. But dangers and discomforts must have been forgotten, at any rate to begin with, in the glories of the reception that awaited the "inimitable,"—as Dickens whimsically called himself in those days,—when he landed in the New World. If he had been received with princely honours in Edinburgh, he was treated now as an emperor in some triumphant progress. Halifax sounded the first note of welcome, gave, as it were, the preliminary trumpet flourish. From that town ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... delights of beggary! It has all the humor of Rabelais with no touch of the Touraine grossness. It has something of the wisdom of Aurelius, only clad in homespun instead of the purple. The philosophy of contentment was never more merrily nor more whimsically expressed. A synod of sages could not formulate a scheme in praise of poverty more impressive than the contagious humor of his light-hearted merriment. The strolling player has the best of the argument, but he has it because he is speaking with the persuasive ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... remembered that she was very much in earnest in her love affair, that she was jealous of Sylla Chipchase, and that though she believed Lionel Beauchamp loved her, he had not as yet declared himself. She had foolishly, and perhaps whimsically, regarded this as a test question, and she had been answered in the negative. I do not know that she was out-of-the-way foolish. Maidens like Marguerite have played "He loves me, he loves me not," many a time with a flower; and Blanche's appeal ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... breast, a gleam of blue somewhere on its wings. When I came to the edge of the sand basin where perhaps Khufu saw it lying nearly four thousand years before the birth of Christ, the Sphinx and the bird were quite alone. The bird flew near the Sphinx, whimsically turning this way and that, flying now low, now high, but ever returning to the magnet which drew it, which held it, from which it surely longed to extract some sign of recognition. It twittered, it posed itself in the golden air, with its bright eyes fixed upon those eyes of stone which gazed ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... Is affection as whimsically, as blindly distributed as wealth? It is the experience of life that it is rare to keep either to the end, but as a man is judged not so much by his ability to make money as to keep it, so it is fair to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... doubtless aware that in the successful musical comedy, The Girl of Forty-Seven, there is a scene in which Miss Verbena Vaine, as Clementina, the horse-dealer's beautiful daughter, denounces the disreputable old veterinary surgeon, Binnett, so whimsically played by that ripe comedian, Mr. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... the weak spot of the old doctor, you 'rastical'," whimsically. Then, more seriously: "I, too, wish we were there. Like you, I am sick of Helena. We were all happier, better off, in the little old trading-post—before—the railroads came." He ascribed all evils to the course of empire as exemplified in the steel rails of commerce. "The Latimers, the Burroughs, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... turn to hide the triumph which the willing acceptance aroused. Nevertheless, his next words were whimsically regretful. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... ate the meat of animals slaughtered by their hands, or drank a certain beverage held in much estimation by them; if he washed a corpse in warm water, or when dying turned his face to the wall; or, finally, if he gave Hebrew names to his children; a provision most whimsically cruel, since, by a law of Henry the Second, he was prohibited under severe penalties from giving them Christian names. He must have found it difficult to extricate himself from the horns of this ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... professional ambition. For a minute or two, he lay quite silent, while two scarlet patches glowed upon his cheeks, and while the eyes above them seemed to fix themselves on distant vistas far beyond the limits of Dolph's sight. Then at last, he spoke, whimsically as far as his mere wording went, but in a voice ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... you reduced me to the ranks already? I was looking to be a general by the time I got back," he complained whimsically. ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... Versailles with their pettiest squabbles, while Marlborough and Eugene were threatening his throne with destruction.[108] The same system prevailed in Canada; but as there the field was broader and the men often larger, the effects are less whimsically vivid than they appear under the Acadian microscope. The two provinces, however, were ruled alike; and about this time the Canadian Intendant Raudot was writing to Ponchartrain in a strain worthy of ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... windows." Covent Garden, as Charles said, "dearer to me than any garden of Alcinous, where we are morally sure of the earliest peas and 'sparagus." One of the first letters from the new lodgings Lamb whimsically addressed as from "The Garden of England." The half dozen years during which he lived here forms from a literary point of view the most memorable period of Lamb's life. Here he arranged for the publication of the two precious little ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... Jimmy whimsically homilized that it wasn't how a shaft looked or felt that counted, but whether it did its work. "Why, if everybody in this world who is cracked was chucked aside as useless, I reckon there'd be mighty few folks left to do things," he insisted. ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... you go, do you, Dot?" asked her father whimsically. "The main idea with you seems to be to keep moving. How about it, Mother—want to take a little drive?" Mrs. Blossom glanced ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... uncared-for and clumsy arrangement of the poem is matter which disturbs a reader's satisfaction, till he gets accustomed to the poet's way, and resigns himself to it. It is a heroic poem, in which the heroine, who gives her name to it, never appears: a story, of which the basis and starting-point is whimsically withheld for disclosure in the last book, which was never written. If Ariosto's jumps and transitions are more audacious, Spenser's intricacy is more puzzling. Adventures begin which have no finish. Actors in them drop from the clouds, claim an interest, and we ask in ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country,—measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are forever incurable. He made an administration so checkered and speckled, he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement,—here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white, patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies,—that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and most men, alas! more valuable than aught in any other world,—LIFE itself,—is at stake; it is subjected to a science, or rather an art, proverbially difficult in theory and uncertain in practice, about which there have been ten thousand varieties of opinion, —whimsically corresponding to the diversity of sect, creed, and priesthood, on which sceptics like you lay so much stress; in which even the wisest and most cautious practitioners confess that their art is at best only a species of guessing; ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... myself," replied Jim whimsically, "but I would have been tempted to give them a jolt just to make them sit up for ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... his credit. Every general fights with two heads—his own and his adversary's; and, for the rest, we have to do what we can do with our material." The Commandant halted and gazed down whimsically upon the courtyard, in the middle of which his twenty-five militiamen were being drilled by M. Etienne and Sergeant Bedard. "My whole garrison, sir! Eh? you seem incredulous. My whole garrison, I give you my word! Five-and-twenty militiamen to defend a post of this ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "—a damned ign'rant cow-puncher dreamin' dreams about an angel!" he finished with a harsh laugh. For a while he sat silent, gazing down at the table. Then he got up, went over and lifted the garter from where it had fallen and replaced it in his pocket. "Oh, well," he chuckled less bitterly and whimsically added, "—any idiot can smile at th' mornin' star even if th' darned thing is beyond his reach! Besides, she don't need to ever know—" Leaving the bunk-house he went toward the ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... I'm good," he remarked whimsically, "but I sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest of it into looks. But I reckon He knew what He was about, as a good Captain should. Some of us have to be homely or the purty ones—like Miss Mary there—wouldn't show up ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... beyond, the Atlantic twinkled with its innumerable smile. The hour was come. As he stepped out upon the road he cast a glance to right and left along his deserted batteries, and answered the smile of Ocean whimsically, ruefully. If only, as an artilleryman, he could have summoned Mr. Fossell's Bank by a dropping shot! This business of hand-to-hand assault belonged by rights to another branch ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... finished supper Transley summoned her. On the way to the chuck-wagon she passed close to George Drazk. It was evident that he had chosen a station with that result in view. She had passed by when she turned, whimsically. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... noticed that it is often the most whimsically inconsequent, the most utterly ordinary, the most intrinsically prosaic of inanimate things that, with a sudden and overwhelming rush, will call into being memories the tenderest, the deepest, the saddest? ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... Gray's brows lifted whimsically. "Of course. How should you know? There was a clumsy attempt to do me bodily harm, to—assassinate me. Funny, isn't it? So ill considered and so impracticable.—But about this Avenger matter, if you find it inconvenient ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... through a crowd of Sezanne del Montes and Gays and Trudys, all bent on playing parlour steeplechase, and you can't find a plain chair to sit down or eat a plain meal or read a newspaper. It's more than a blamed nuisance—it's cause for a trial by jury," he added, whimsically. "Now what's ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature's carriers to disperse and ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving |
