"Amusement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at some street corner, or in the market-place, and began to beat his rattling drum, the bear lifted himself with heavy groans on his hind legs, and then the great play began, the cruel amusement, the uncanny, fearful embracings which one could never be sure would not end fatally. For Joco is not satisfied to let Ibrahim jump and dance, but, whistling and singing, grasps the wild beast's skin, and squeezes his paws; ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... been definitely brought into vogue by recent psychological investigations. Certain acts of crowds are assuredly criminal, if considered merely in themselves, but criminal in that case in the same way as the act of a tiger devouring a Hindoo, after allowing its young to maul him for their amusement. ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... moment he surveyed it with a drunken leer, then went lurching across the hall towards the door that led to the servants' quarters. The three men sat on, watching his antics in contempt, curiosity, and amusement. They saw him gain the heavy oaken door and close it. They heard the bolts rasp as he shot them home, and the lock click; and they saw him withdraw the key and slip it ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... the improper indulgences they meet with, they learn to tremble at every trifling change of the seasons. With such dispositions, it is no wonder they dislike the country, where they find neither employment nor amusement. They wish to go to London, because there they meet with infinite numbers as idle and frivolous as themselves; and these people mutually assist each other to talk about trifles, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... not matter of wonder, that only once a month, during the winter, any congregation of part of the inhabitants of Wandsworth takes place for purposes of amusement? Yet, is not this the general characteristic of English society, from the Orkneys to the Land's-End? The inhabitants of populous districts or towns in Britain might as well, in regard to their intercourse with the community, live ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... to be at all disturbed over her manner. On the contrary, looking at him and trying her best to be scornful, he seemed to be laboring heroically to stifle some emotion—amusement, she decided—and she tried to freeze him with ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... youth, hope, health, occupation, and amusement, and when you have added "meat, clothes, and fire," what ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... etc. To-morrow I am to dine at Monsieur Grand's; but I have really felt so happy within doors, and am so pleasingly situated, that I have had little inclination to change the scene. I have not been to one public amusement as yet, not even the opera, though we have one very ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... not exhibit himself in any dime museum, circus theater, opera house, or any other place of public amusement or assembly where a charge is ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... uncomfortably short for fly time. After this tonsorial artist had finished his work then came the command once more, "Git in." I got in. It now came Mr. Horserider's turn to bid a long farewell to his auburn locks. He took his place in the chair, and the little darkey, possibly for his own amusement, cut off the hair on one side of the head and left the other untouched. He then shaved one side of his face without disturbing the other. At this moment the bell for dinner rang, and the little colored fellow broke away ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... setting out for his estate of Grand Fonds, which lay in the same direction. The reason for the offer was that Canaye and his friends, having heard that the last words of Grandier had affected Pere Lactance's mind, expected to find a great deal of amusement in exciting the terrors of their travelling-companion. And in truth, for a day or two, the boon companions sharpened their wits at the expense of the worthy monk, when all at once, on a good road and without ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and northward the toboggan is in very extensive use, both for purposes of traffic and amusement. It is quite commonly met with in the streets of various Canadian cities, and is especially appreciated by the youthful population, who are fond of coasting over the crust of snow. For this purpose there is no other sled like it, and a toboggan of the size we shall describe ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... Prue Weston and Hi Babson furnished amusement for the older classes, Prue with her unique answers, and Hi ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... English writers, whether in prose or verse. Rich records that the king, queen, and {179} princesses were present on the 21st repetition, but that was by no means one of the fullest houses. The very bill sold at the doors on the occasion has been preserved, and hereafter may be furnished for the amusement of your readers. It appears, that when the run of the Beggar's Opera was somewhat abruptly terminated by the advance of the season and the benefits of the actors, the "takings," as they were and still are called, were larger than ever. The performances ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... Mr. J. E. Chamberlain. The use of the camera as a detective agency had been suggested to me by a brief newspaper paragraph glanced at casually several years before. And I confess that it was with not a little amusement that I employed this device, since I had then recently seen my 'Vignettes of Manhattan' criticized as being "photographic in method." Here again I had no reason to doubt the originality of my plot; and here once more was my confidence shattered, and ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... Ingmar in honour of the master's family. One Saturday evening, at midsummer, when the nights are almost as light as the days, Big Ingmar and his friend, Strong Ingmar, after finishing their work, put on their Sunday clothes and went down to the village in quest of amusement." ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... the principal events of ours; and, as he was nothing if not expressive, whatever happened to him for inward intensity happened abundantly to us for pity and terror, as it were, as well as for an ease and a quality of amusement among ourselves that was really always to fail us among others. Comparatively late in life, after his death, I had occasion to visit, in lieu of my brother, then in Europe, an American city in which he had had, since his own father's death, interests that were of importance ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... improve the atmosphere for foreign investment. Overgrazing, soil depletion, drought, and sometimes floods persist as problems for the future. Prospects for 2001 are strengthened by government millennium projects for a new convention center, additional hotels, an amusement park, a new airport, and stepped-up ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... little Julian was so much delighted with the idea of going to this exhibition. It was something entirely new to him; and to children, especially, such singular feats as these animals were to perform, are always entertaining. It may, however, admit of a question, whether it is right, just for our amusement, to inflict so much pain upon these poor creatures as is necessary to teach them their several parts. It seems rather cruel. You know what the frogs once said to the boys, according to the fable, in the matter of stoning: "Young ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... little way, then got into a taxi and drove to see Edith. When he was in this peculiar condition of mind—the odd mixture of self-reproach, satisfaction, amusement and boredom that he felt now —he always went to see Edith, throwing himself into the little affairs of her life as if he had nothing else on his mind. He was a little anxious about Edith. It seemed to him that since ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... the personal friends the saint had left behind him—to try to live as he had lived, to do good as he had done good, and to die as he had died. Thus arose religious fraternities—companies of men who desired to devote themselves to goodness—to give up pleasure, and amusement, and self-indulgence, and to spend their lives in prayer and works ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... interesting. The inevitable consequence of this tendency is that the great mass of English daily newspapers have lost their former high place in the estimation of the public as serious and necessary institutions, and have descended to the level of an amusement. The only exceptions that can be made from this sweeping condemnation are the Daily Telegraph, the Morning Post, the Manchester Guardian, and the Westminster Gazette. Of the rest, some are of a higher, some ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... amusement might have been first aroused by the figure that Terry cut on the back of the terrified bull were lost in the dreadful fear of Fred that it would prove a fatal ride for ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... been skipping?" I said. "It is a very nice amusement, but one that you must not exert yourself too much at; for any excessive exercise of that kind might seriously injure your health, and I should be very much grieved about it Jeanne—I should be ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... it began, with songs and dances; in the latter amusement, however, few were now able to join; afterwards ensued a rude attempt at dramatic representation. Old Quaw, the chief of Nekaslay, first appeared on the stage, in the character of a bear—an animal he ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... but what relates to the act is notorious to every inhabitant; as the Director has by his servants openly carried on the trade with the Indians, and has taken guns from free men who had brought with them one or two for their own use and amusement, paying for them according to his own pleasure, and selling them to the Indians. But this way of proceeding could amount to nothing, and made little progress. Another plan was necessary, and therefore a merchant, Gerrit Vastrick, received orders to bring with him one ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... but few sources of amusement for the female mind. Mr. Harris had acquired a considerable fortune in trade, and, however the art of accumulating wealth had been successfully practised, the finer pursuits of mental powers had been totally neglected. Books were unknown at Tregunter, excepting a few magazines or periodical ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... of science seems comparatively dry and laborious, except where at moments the vista opens through to the ultimate or leads back to the immediate. Then, perhaps, we recognise that in science we are surveying all it concerns us to know, and in so doing are becoming all that it profits us to be. Mere amusement in thought as in sportive action is tedious and illiberal: it marks a temperament so imperfectly educated that it prefers idle to significant play and a ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... How many weary days and weeks had I passed, upheld only by the fond hope of bringing home many new and beautiful forms from these wild regions ... which would prove that I had not wasted the advantage I had enjoyed, and would give me occupation and amusement for many years to come! And now ... I had not one specimen to illustrate the unknown lands I had trod, or to call back the recollection of the wild scenes I had beheld! But such regrets were vain ... and I tried to occupy myself with the state of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Clerkenwell.—Will any of your correspondents learned in old London topography inform me when the "Prospect House, or Dobney's Bowling Green," Clerkenwell, ceased to be a place of amusement; and where any account is to be found of one Wildman, who is said to have exhibited his bees there in 1772. (Vide Mirror, vol. xxxiv. p. 107.) And in what consisted this exhibition? Also, if any other plate of the Three Hats public-house, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... too little about yours," Festing rejoined. "Anyhow, what amusement do you think I'd get from lounging round Long Lake ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... India interest by allowing sugar to be refined in bond. The opinions stated by the right honourable gentleman were so at variance with his former violent orations in favour of the shipping interest, and that of the sugar-growing countries, as to excite astonishment and amusement in the house. Observing this feeling, he exclaimed, "I may be called a renegade, I may be called a traitor—" but the sentence remained unfinished amidst shouts of laughter from all sides of the house, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... like to go?" she said to her young friend. "There are ever so many places where you can have amusement—you ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... read out the entries from the notebook while Thorndyke laid off the lines of direction with the protractor, taking out the distances with the dividers from a scale of equal parts on the back of the instrument. As the work proceeded, I noticed, from time to time, a smile of quiet amusement spread over my colleague's keen, attentive face, and at each new reference to a railway bridge he ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... lovely, the air balmy, and for amusement—well, there was sailing in the Annie Laurie, lounging with a pipe on the jetty, listening, and sometimes talking, to the fishermen and sailors, and teaching Miss Nell ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... me, Miss Tacchi, what a pretty world you would live in. There would be no fun in it. Half the amusement of life consists in trying to find out what we really think of one another underneath ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... conversant in the lower Stations of Nature, might have his Mind cheared and delighted with agreeable Sensations? In short, the whole Universe is a kind of Theatre filled with Objects that either raise in us Pleasure, Amusement, or Admiration. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... up noiselessly, anxious to see all that was happening. But the rat heard him. The rat had no use for the Boy whatever. He knew that the whole human race was his enemy. He dropped from the scarecrow's trouser leg and scurried off to his hole beneath the toolhouse. The Boy, his face a mixture of amusement and concern, picked up the captive without noticing her feeble pecks, undid the noose from her leg, and carried her over the hedge to ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... nature, if executed with care and ability, cannot fail of administring a most useful and rational entertainment to students of all ranks and professions; and yet it must be confessed that the study of the laws is not merely a matter of amusement: for as a very judicious writer[t] has observed upon a similar occasion, the learner "will be considerably disappointed if he looks for entertainment without the expence of attention." An attention, however, not greater than is usually bestowed in ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... the sailors is an every-day occurrence; the diggings themselves, or the large amount they could obtain for the run home from another master, offer too many temptations. Consequently, our passengers had the amusement of hauling up from the hold their different goods and chattels; and so great was the confusion, that fully a week elapsed before they were all got to shore. Meanwhile, we were getting initiated into colonial prices—money did, indeed, take to itself wings and fly away. Fire-arms ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... husband and wife the one beaten is apt to take revenge by killing their child; and that, on various occasions, parents smother their children, cast them away in the desert, or bury them alive without remorse. Murder is an amusement, and is considered a praiseworthy act. Livingstone (M.T., 159) tells of a Bushman who thought his god would consider him a "clever fellow" because he had murdered a man, two women, and two children. When fathers and mothers become too old to be of any use, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... her death-bed, was anxious to see him, but he had strolled away after some boyish amusement, with companions as thoughtless as himself. The news of her death scarcely produced an hour's seriousness. He made my affliction a ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... pair of Phoebe's large white cotton gloves with open-work wrists (than which I always fancy there is no one article that so disguises the perfect lydy), I set out upon my travels, upborne by a lively sense of amusement that was at least equal to my feeling that I was doing Phoebe Heaven a ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... fear, but those who stood near his person could not always accept without question the talisman of his limitless self-faith. Malone's might was theoretically invincible. Hamilton recognized the undernote of apprehension with a laugh of frank amusement; a laugh which brought to his eyes their most ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... of the mighty past! Why, Miss Betty," Brown's tone is sad and severe, "in my young days young people never thought of amusement. We had ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... there were changes in the modes of amusement. Picnics began, Vaudreuil and his wife being often of the party, as too was Levis. The Governor also made visits of compliment at the houses of the seigniorial proprietors along the river; "very much," says Montcalm, as "Henri IV. did to the bourgeois notables of Paris. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... of the army on the one hand and the impregnable influence of the Church on the other. Small heed was to be given to the pamphleteers, whose brilliant satire, biting sarcasm, and pointed logic afforded amusement at the Louvre, rather than struck dismay to the hearts of those who fondly believed that the Church still held in thrall the brain of the masses, and that as for centuries the people had been content with slavery ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... our commuter's simplicity! A cage of white mice, or a crated goat (such are to be seen now and then on the Jamaica platform) will engage his eye and give him keen amusement. Then there is that game always known (in the smoking car) as "pea-knuckle." The sight of four men playing will afford contemplative and apparently intense satisfaction to all near. They will lean diligently over ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... city during the prevalence of the Asiatic Cholera. At the present time he is one of the city district surgeons. A man of the most retiring dispositions, he has hitherto avoided public reputation, and has written verses, as he has studied botany, solely for his amusement. He will, however, be remembered as the writer of some exquisitely ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... you. Even when I was a child he called me his colonel, and flew anywhere at a wink from me; and he does so still, though his movements have been rendered more tardy by his stiff legs and rheumatism. Fishing is his favourite amusement since he has been obliged to give up shooting. I employ him as my gamekeeper; and when the cook is ill, he prefers frying a beefsteak and making the soup himself, to going on short commons. In fact, he is a gastronome, and since he obtained his pension his whole time seems to be occupied with the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that "the man who is fond of amusement is effeminate." Now immoderate fondness of amusement is opposed to eutrapelia, which is the virtue about pleasures of play, as stated in Ethic. iv, 8. Therefore effeminacy is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... what their opinion was of her and her complaints as compared to that good husband of hers, who was always so bright and cheery. All their concern was for the worthy man who had done so much for Beth. They had no patience with her, could scarcely conceal their amusement with this last absurdity, but thought she should be laughed out of her fads and fancies. That was the only time Beth sought sympathy from any of her relations. Afterwards she took to writing them bitter letters in which she told them what she thought of them as freely as they told her. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... nature had manifestly been growing day after day, watched our inspection of his book with evidences of great interest, not unmingled with amusement. Finally he beckoned the holder of the book to his side, and placing his broad finger upon one of the huge letters—if letters they were, for they more nearly resembled the characters employed by the Chinese printer—he uttered ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... they will have to keep a sharp look-out for footmarks in the sand above water-mark, as we might at any time come up from the water and take to the forest. Anyhow, we must keep it up as long as we can go. We ain't running for amusement, it is for a big prize, for our lives ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... services of another in the early stages of the colouring process. Whoever has been the votary of a meerschaum will understand the pride with which I frequently displayed my pipe and its deepening colour to Bailey, often to his great amusement I must admit. In a hotel in the city of Antwerp, where we stayed for several days, we occupied adjoining bedrooms having a communicating door. One night, towards early morn, but before daylight had dawned, I ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... danger, served him faithfully in poverty and distress, and if deprived of sight has gently led him about. When spoken to, he tries to hold conversation with him by the movement of his tail or the expression of his eyes. If his master wants amusement in the field or wood, he is delighted to have an opportunity of procuring it for him; if he finds himself in solitude, his dog will be a cheerful and agreeable companion, and maybe, when death comes, the last to forsake the grave of ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... riding clothes, jouncing solemnly up and down on his flat saddle, and followed by a couple of carefully-laundered white poodles. On these expeditions he was a source of great edification and some amusement ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... of my waistcoat wet with tears without my having had an idea that I had shed any." Whether it were by natural intuition or the advice of Diderot, Jean Jacques had found his weapons; poor and obscure as he was, he attacked openly the brilliant and corrupt society which had welcomed him for its amusement. Spiritualistic at heart and nurtured upon Holy Scripture in his pious childhood, he felt a sincere repugnance for the elegant or cynical materialism which was every day more and more creeping over the eighteenth century. "Sciences and arts ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... that its courtyard is open to Chapel Street, but that an iron grill stretches from wing to wing and keeps out the town. This grill is high enough for Hagenbeck, and it used to be a favorite game with us to play animal behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... poor, and in the most cruel manner. As he got it so easily he did not mind wasting it, and he kept 'open house' as they call it,—that is, he always had a houseful of visitors, men and women who were nearly as bad as he was, and he provided them with every kind of luxury, and pleasure, and amusement that he could think of. They rode pell-mell over the country on fiery, unmanageable horses, breaking down the farmers' hedges, trampling down the land, hunting, shooting, dancing and gambling! They did anything and everything that ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... to take an airing, and after tea a game of whist affords an evening amusement. The Commodore is simple in his manners and habits. He is a representative of a former age, when men lived less artificially than at the present time, and when there was more happiness and less show. As for business, it is his nature. He can not help being king. ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... comparison. Many of the situations he describes are situations doubtless in which he himself "had a hand." Others are situations which he came across, in his enterprising debouchings here and there, in curious by-alleys, and which he observed with a morose scowl of amusement, from outside. A few—very few—are situations which he evoked from the more recondite places of ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... (Bordeaux, 1580) has very few quotations. These became more numerous in the edition of 1588; but the multitude of classical texts which at times encumber Montaigne's text, only dates from the posthumous edition of 1595, he had made these collections in the four last years of his life, as an amusement of his "idleness."—Le Clerc. They grow, however, more sparing in the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... who read only for amusement are, in my opinion, more worthy of attention than those who open a book merely to find fault, to the former I address myself, and for their entertainment commit the following pages to press, without being in the least concerned about ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... all duties,—makes business often impossible, and always more difficult; produces irritability fatal to the right management of children, puts the functions of citizenship out of the question, and makes amusement a bore. Is it not clear that the physical sins—partly our ancestors' and partly our own—which produce this ill health deduct more from complete living than anything else, and to a great extent make life a failure and a burden, instead ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... ordinary circumstances I should not have enjoyed myself in a place like that. Mine is not the temperament—I shouldn't know how. I must have appeared the most solemn ass in creation, and if I had come there with the idea of amusement, I should have felt like one. As it was, my feeling was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment. Certainly I did not wish—now that I had seen L'Abbaye—to find Frances Morley there; but just ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... see in his attempts to change the place of his abode no serious design, but only the wayward conduct of a child, he sent him a present of some golden dice, implying thereby that it was only for lack of amusement he had grown discontented ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... but they suit her figure and face admirably. I must get her and her friend to sit on a rock and let me put them into the foreground of one of my sketches; funny meeting her here, however, it will be an amusement." ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... and prevents it from acting as a warning. I very much doubt the quickening or brightening of the wits which bacchanalian poets have conventionally attributed to alcohol. An abstainer in a party of even moderate topers finds their jokes dull and their anecdotes pointless, and his principal amusement consists in his observation of their curious bluntness to the groundlessness of their merriment. There is no more fatal habit to a literary man than that of using alcohol as a stimulant between meals. The vital powers go on getting worn out more and more without their cry for help being perceived, ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... resemblance, but still with differences; they are alike in that they all have for their object-matter intercourse of words and deeds, and they differ in that one has respect to truth herein, the other two to what is pleasant; and this in two ways, the one in relaxation and amusement, the other in all things which occur in daily life. We must say a word or two about these also, that we may the better see that in all matters the mean is praiseworthy, while the extremes are neither right nor worthy ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... man broke out in a harsh laugh that was partly amusement, but mostly hysterical. Both he and the captain regarded McCoy with incredulity and amazement. That this barefooted beachcomber should possess such high-sounding dignity was inconceivable. His cotton shirt, unbuttoned, exposed a grizzled chest and the fact ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... will go to her mat even when I whisper the word, though generally I think she is guided by the tone of the voice. Often she tries to imitate the sliding inflection and long-drawn-out voice to the amusement of our guests, but her articulation is quite beyond my ear. In both my hands I hold her shaggy head and gaze into her large brown eyes. At once the dilated pupils contract into tiny black dots, as if the roguish spirit within ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... take notes of what has passed, for the amusement of a distant friend, who is learning, amidst the western prairies, patience, and an appreciation of the poor benefits of our imperfectly civilized state. And those I took this day, seemed not unworthy of a more general circulation. The sparkle of talk, the free breeze that swelled its current, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... by a registry office, among many others. We examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as though they had been fashion plates from Paris. To my silent amusement, I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she thought smells could ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... period;(12) and just as the reform of the constitution then took place under Greek influence,(13) the city-festival may have been at the same time so far transformed as to combine Greek races with, and eventually to a certain extent to substitute them for, an older mode of amusement—the "leap" (-triumpus-,(14)), and possibly swinging, which was a primitive Italian custom and long continued in use at the festival on the Alban mount. Moreover, while there is some trace of the use of the war-chariot in actual warfare ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... seen the ways of many peoples. I have learned to look on the castes of our Canada with the same eyes as I look on those of India, the eyes of amusement, for I find in mankind everywhere the same ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... was in prison." He had a triumph, on the contrary, with Britannicus, after which the, king gave up dancing in the court ballets, for fear of resembling Nero. Berenice was a duel between Corneille and Racine for the amusement of Madame Henriette. Racine bore away the bell from his illustrious rival, without much glory. Bajazet soon followed. "Here is Racine's piece," wrote Madame de Sevigne to her daughter in January, 1672; if ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... is of the highest quality. If only her opponents could have seen her amusement at their hysteria. At the very moment they were denouncing some plan of action and calling her "fanatical" and "hysterical" she would fairly beam with delight to see how well her plan had worked. Her intention ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... the Care of the Person, Eating, Drinking, Exercise, Habits, Dress, Self-Culture, and Behavior at Home; the Etiquette of Salutations, Introductions, Receptions, Visits, Dinners, Evening Parties, Conversation, Letters, Presents, Weddings, Funerals, the Street, the Church, Places of Amusement, Traveling, &c; with Illustrative Anecdotes, a Chapter on Love and Courtship, and Rules of Order for Debating Societies. Paper, 30 cents; muslin, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... necessary, there were really established conditions highly favourable to certain forms of culture, in despite of sumptuary [356] regulations. The national mind was obliged to seek solace for the monotony of existence, either in amusement or study. Tokugawa policy had left imagination partly free in the directions of literature and art—the cheaper art; and within those two directions repressed personality found means to utter itself, and fancy ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... characteristics to which, after all, they partly owe their success. Indeed, had it been a question of introducing any one but Madame de Corantin to Ramsey, he would have ignored the latter's insolence and ingratitude alike and conformed to his habitual role as purveyor of amusement to all and sundry. For Bobby's dignity was not great, and the secret of the kind of popularity he enjoyed was in no small measure attributable to his own lack of self-respect. But for the first time in his life Bobby's ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... one hand under her short coat-tails, while she gulped her own tea, and ate two pieces of bread and butter put together. Milly ate hers and drank her tea daintily, looking meanwhile at her companion with wonder which gradually gave way to amusement. At length leaning forward with a dimpling smile, she interrogated very politely ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... doubtless he could not understand how heavy the time hung upon his wife's hands. They went often to the theatre, and every evening they went to the Piazza, and ate an ice at Florian's. This was certainly amusement; and routine was so pleasant to his scholarly temperament that he enjoyed merely that. He made a point of admitting his wife as much as possible into his intellectual life; he read her his notes as fast as he made them, and he consulted her upon the management of ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... discovered; and, while the synthesis of conceptions has been fully exhausted in the Critique, it is necessary that, in the proposed work, the same should be the case with their analysis. But this will be rather an amusement than a labour. ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... women are admitted; of the truth of this statement I have not the least doubt. These exclusive meetings occur frequently, and often last to a late hour; on these occasions, I believe, they generally dance. At regular balls, married ladies are admitted, but seldom take much part in the amusement. The refreshments are always profuse and costly, but taken in a most uncomfortable manner. I have known many private balls, where every thing was on the most liberal scale of expense, where the gentlemen sat down to supper in one room, while the ladies took theirs, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... am sure you are a good and cheerful friend to say so. Nevertheless, I have been worried and restless and this afternoon I long for amusement. Can't we do something queer ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... conviction, it is proposed to notice them in the present pages; and we have little doubt of being able to substantiate their claims to consideration. To readers who require of a book something more than mere amusement, or a passing satisfaction to their curiosity; who have any regard or relish for independent thinking—for an enlarged observation of human life—for the results of study and experience—for practical sense and wisdom, and a general understanding and appreciation ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... economy is well exemplified. It is scarcely imagined by the thousands who read that paper in various quarters of the globe, what a scene of organized activity the factory presents during the whole night, or what a quantity of talent and mechanical skill is put in action for their amusement and information. (1*) Nearly a hundred persons are employed in this establishment; and, during the session of Parliament, at least twelve reporters are constantly attending the Houses of Commons and Lords; each in his turn retiring, after about an hour's work, to translate into ordinary writing, ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... jerky voice. A glimmer of amusement lit up his eyes. He looked on the floor, to the right, to the left, and turned about as though he had been strolling in the Bois de ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... morning, so they went on till their noon-day's rest, and so again they made their evening march. In that journey there was no idea of variety, no searching after the pleasures of scenery, no attempts at conversation with any object of interest or amusement. What words were spoken were those simply needful, or produced by sympathy for suffering. So they journeyed, always in the same places, with one exception. They began their work with two guides leading them, but before the first day was over one of them had fallen back to the ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... tell mine, with pleasure, little maid," said Mr. Cardew, who felt wonderfully cheered and entertained at this al fresco amusement. ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... but a quarter of a mile's walk to Aldersgate, and as they reached East Chepe, the young people found infinite amusement in gazing at the goods in the traders' booths, and in watching the throng in the street. It was late in the afternoon now, and many of the citizens' wives and daughters were abroad. These were dressed ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... well know that women do not easily bind themselves in the chains of real love. They know that nothing is less common than sacrifice among them. And consider how much a worldly woman must sacrifice when she is in love—liberty, quietness, the charming play of a free mind, coquetry, amusement, ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... Monsieur, may I ask in what manner the position I stand in at this moment affords you so much amusement? Is there any thing so particularly droll—any thing so excessively ludicrous in my situation —or what particular gift do you possess that shall prevent me throwing you ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the Baronne de Kruedener (Barbe Julie de Wietenhoff), beauty, novelist, illuminee, was the source of amusement rather than scandal. The Baronne, then in her fiftieth year, was the channel through which Franz Bader's theory or doctrine of the "Holy Alliance" was conveyed to the enthusiastic and receptive Czar. It was only a passing whim. Alexander's mysticism was for ornament, not for use, and, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... "I come from my grotto to look upon the greatest king in the world. Shall the land or the water furnish a new spectacle for his amusement? He has only to speak,—to wish; nothing is impossible to him. Is he not himself a miracle? And has he not the right to demand miracles of Nature? He is young, victorious, wise, valiant, and dignified,—as benevolent and just ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... they should war with Rome seemed natural to every fugitive in the hills, and they regarded their leader's action in purchasing what he could have taken by force simply as an act of policy. Their own people had been slain by the Romans, they themselves doomed to risk their lives for the amusement of the Roman mob. If recaptured they would, like the followers of Spartacus, be doubtless put to death by crucifixion. That, under these circumstances, they should be in the slightest degree influenced by any feeling of pity or humanity ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... vaccinator!) my love of orchids is again aroused to fever-heat, and I have made some alterations in the greenhouse which will better adapt it for orchid growing, and have bought a few handsome kinds very cheap, and these give me a lot of extra work and amusement.... ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... not of a highly educated class, were engaged in a lively conversation with two dashing English officers, who, for their own amusement, were practising upon their credulity, and flattering their national prejudices with the most depreciating remarks on ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... remain, although but twenty hours of fair wind would lead us round the Tortugas, within the influence of the gulf-stream. Employed all my morning shooting at bottles as empty as myself; this, with eating, drinking, and ecarte, forms the amusement and occupation of the day. I have heard of people who could read and write on ship-board; but, for myself, protest I never could do either ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... McFetteridge, with his rigid military discipline and his strict insistence upon etiquette, McCuaig passed into a new atmosphere. To the freeborn and freebred recruit from the Athabasca plains, the stiff and somewhat exaggerated military bearing of the sergeant major was at first a source of quiet amusement, later of perplexity, and finally of annoyance. For McFetteridge and his minutiae of military discipline McCuaig held only contempt. To him, the whole business was a piece of silly nonsense unworthy ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... the Colorado; I had little to do, for the surrounding country was a swamp, which in summer (December), when the snow melts on the Cordillera, is over- flowed by the river. My chief amusement was watching the Indian families as they came to buy little articles at the rancho where we stayed. It was supposed that General Rosas had about six hundred Indian allies. The men were a tall, fine race, yet it was afterwards ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... monsieur," cried Annette, pausing by the bed in the darkness. "You have tied him up well, hein? He is like a trussed chicken!" The frank amusement in her tone jarred on the boy; but at that moment, to his amazement, he felt her hand running lightly over his bonds, and something small and cold was pressed into the ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... been calmly inspecting his new Correspondence Course in the Art of Flying, the first lessons of which had arrived at Johnny's mail box a few days before. She seemed much amused, and she registered her amusement in certain marginal notes as she read. At the top of the first lesson she drew a fairly clever cartoon of Johnny in an airplane, ascending to the star Venus. She made it appear that Johnny's hair stood straight on end and his eyes goggled with fear, ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... mild a misanthropy, probably, as ever caressed the objects of its malediction. But I believe it was about the year 1900 that his sense of our perdition became insupportable and broke out in a mixed abhorrence and amusement which spared no occasion, so that I could quite understand why Mrs. Clemens should have found some compensation, when kept to her room by sickness, in the reflection that now she should not hear ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a rapid summary of his flight across the world. The sudden change in their fortunes induced a readiness to find amusement in the most trifling incident, and they laughed loud and long as he retailed the little mishaps and the comic episodes of his journey. Then Underhill in his turn related all that had happened since the wreck, and all became ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... why I wanted you to meet Bergen," Cargill went on, "is because he is a sincerer lover of literature than myself, and like yourself, I imagine, believes thoroughly in the classics. He's translating Ibsen for the Square Table Club. His idea of amusement ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland |
