"Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It was highly amusing to observe the peculiarity which the consciousness of superior knowledge impressed upon the conversation and personal appearance of this decaying race. Whatever might have been the original conformation of their physical structure, it was sure, by the force of acquired ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... wife, whose companionship, and needs, and admiration for himself filled up all the vacant spaces in his life. He would, however, have been genuinely surprised if he had realised that it was by a constant, deliberate intention that she succeeded in entertaining him, in amusing him, as much as she did her friends and acquaintances; if he had thought that she had made up her mind that never, while she had power to prevent it, should he come into his own house and find it dull. And he ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... its rocky throne, high above the river bed, and its background of glistening white mountains. The huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its hundreds of window-eyes close-lidded, and I could not imagine it an amusing place for a house party. I was glad that the Boy was not animated with that wild mania for squeezing the last drop from the orange of sightseeing which makes some travelling companions so depressing. The castle was closed to visitors, yet many people would have ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... as she served her friends with her own hands they both abandoned themselves to the pleasure of the moment and talked of cheerful and amusing things. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... pig-feeding, sheep-feeding, and cow-feeding, poultry-feeding, and horse-feeding, he gives an account of his own experiments and observations. Of the thriving condition of the American horses Cobbett gives an example in his amusing vein, and by a trial made at his own farm in Long Island, he proved that neither their strength nor speed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... Valcartier, we had free shows and pay shows, also moving pictures. The pay show got to be so amusing that we made a bonfire out of it one bright September night, and found it more entertaining as a conflagration than it ever had been as an entertainment. At all events, that was how one of the boys of the Fifteenth ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... increased exercise, cleanliness, regular habits, hard beds, and useful employment. The diet may be improved by animal broths, roasted meats, fresh beef, mutton, chicken, or eggs, and the dress should be comfortable, warm, and permit freedom of motion. The patient should indulge in amusing exercises, walking, swinging, riding, games of croquet, traveling, singing, percussing the expanded chest, or engage in healthful calisthenic exercises. The hygienic treatment of this form of amenorrhea, then, consists in physical culture, regular bathing, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... towards the poor and the needy, and I joined the new movement. Two others—the one John D. O'Shea, a local painter, and the other John L. O'Shea, a carman (the similarity of their names often led to amusing mistakes)—with some humble town workers, formed the working vanguard of the new movement, what I might term a sort of apostolate of rural democracy. Our organisation was first known as the Kanturk Trade and Labour Association. As we carried our flag, ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... p.0125] habit of astonishing the congregation by the way he harmonized the chorales got him into trouble. But he was already too great an ornament to be lightly dismissed; and though his answers to the complaints of the authorities (every word of which makes amusing reading in the archives of the church) were spirited rather than satisfactory, and the consistorium had to add to their complaints the grave scandal of his allowing a "strange maiden" to sing in the church,[1] Bach was able to maintain his position at Arnstadt until he obtained ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... appearance, it was quite a misfit for Christmas—a mere toy with which a gay young horse might condescend to beguile a few loose hours. It was a charming morning. Birds were vulgarly sportful. Honey-eaters whistled among the trees, scrub-fowl chuckled in the jungle. Christmas, too, was bent on amusing himself, and he was so lusty and jocund, and the toy jangled and clattered so cheerfully that neither Tom nor myself could bestow much attention to the birds. What was gentle exercise to Christmas was quite sensational ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... peut!" at odd times of sunset; though, for my part, I have no pleasure in recalling unpleasant remembrances to brave men; and yet, really, being so philosophic, they ought not to be unpleasant. But the amusing feature in M. Michelet's reproach is the way in which he improves and varies against us the charge of running, as if he were singing a catch. Listen to him: They "showed their backs" did these English. ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... double entendre. The few selected may suffice. The so-called conversations of "the Ettrick Shepherd" are full of matter of this kind, treated by "Christopher North" with a happy combination of rare power of description and apt exaggeration of detail, often highly amusing. One or two instances are given here, such as the Fox-hunt and the Whale. The intention of this book is primarily to be amusing; but it will be strange if it do not instruct as well. There is much in it that is true of the habits of mammalia. These, with birds, are likely to interest young ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... other great man in history has had to live down such a mass of absurdities and deliberate false inventions. At last after a century and a quarter the rubbish has been mostly cleared away, and only those who wilfully prefer to deceive themselves need waste time over an imaginary Father of His Country amusing himself with a fictitious ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... interested to note how persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He suspected that it was all a feverish anodyne to still some inward unease. Since they ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... walk about with something like an approach to their former strength, but that they also expressed their conviction that they would be perfectly able to begin work on the morrow. It appeared that they had been amusing themselves by prowling about the camp and investigating the condition of affairs generally. It was only natural that their chief interest should centre in the cutter, and the probable amount of work ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and Conan Doyle," returned Inspector Val; "all detectives have. They are amusing if not instructive. But to resume: There is another reason why I'm certain a woman wrote this note. All the writer knows the writer got from Storri. It's a long yarn; it must cover in its transaction a dozen interviews between Storri and Mr. Harley. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of Charles it has been suggested that he was only playing at the same game as his opponents, amusing them as they sought to amuse him. This, however, is very doubtful as far as it regards the superior officers, who appear to me to have treated with him in good earnest, till they were induced to break off the negotiation by repeated proofs of his duplicity, and ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... that gains 19 seconds odd in every hour by false quadrature. But he ventures to tell me that pebbles from the sling of simple truth and common sense will ultimately crack my shell, and put me hors de combat.[220] The confusion of images is amusing: Goliath turning himself into a snail to avoid [pi] 3-1/8, and James Smith, Esq., of the Mersey Dock Board: and put hors de combat—which should have been cache[221]—by pebbles from a sling. If Goliath had crept into a snail-shell, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... generation. He shone particularly in comedy. His 'Gli Orazi e Curiazi,' which moved his contemporaries to tears, is now forgotten, but 'Il Matrimonio Segreto' still delights us with its racy humour and delicate melody. The story is simplicity itself, but the situations are amusing in themselves, and are led up to with no little adroitness, Paolino, a young lawyer, has secretly married Carolina, the daughter of Geronimo, a rich and avaricious merchant. In order to smooth away the difficulties which must arise when the inevitable discovery of the marriage takes place, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... T.S.D.'s account of a supposed date upon the Church of St. Brelade, Jersey, brings to my mind a circumstance that once occurred to myself, which may, perhaps, be amusing to date-hunters. Some years ago I visited a farm-house in the north of England, whose owner had a taste for collecting curiosities of all sorts. Not the least valuable of his collection was a splendidly carved oak bedstead, which he considered of great antiquity. Its date, plainly ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... Arabic proverb to the effect that "all Christians are of one tribe." That is the spirit which in reality inspires the whole Moslem world. It is illustrated by the author of that very remarkable work, Turkey in Europe, in an amusing apologue. Let once some semi-religious, semi-patriotic leader arise, who will play skilfully on the passions of the masses, and it will be somewhat surprising if the distinction which now exists will long survive. All Frenchmen, those in France equally with those in Algeria, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... further surmised that the young Shakespeare accumulated his law-treasures in the first years of his sojourn in London, through "amusing himself" by learning book-law in his garret and by picking up lawyer-talk and the rest of it through loitering about the law-courts and listening. But it is only surmise; there is no EVIDENCE that he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... anecdotal and amusing at tea, that afternoon. Claire saw how the Gilsons, and two girls who dropped in, admired him. That made her uneasy. And when Mrs. Gilson begged him to leave his hotel and stay with them, he refused with a quick look at Claire that ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... leaving the native encampment, it was several weeks before we made the Ord River, and then we glided down that fine stream for many days, spearing fish in the little creeks, and generally amusing ourselves, time being no object. I have, by the way, seen enormous shoals of fish in this river—mainly mullet—which can only be compared to the vast swarms of salmon seen in the rivers of ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... person who hadn't slept for a week. His lips were large and red, and the lower part of his face a good deal too big for the upper. Altogether Mr Masham was neither a very healthy nor a very prepossessing-looking specimen; but Hawkesbury had told me he was clever and very amusing, so I supposed I ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of organic compounds are discouraging to the beginner and amusing to the layman, but that is because neither of them realizes that they are not really words but formulas. They are hyphenated because they come from Germany. The name given above is no more of a mouthful than "a-square-plus-two-a-b-plus-b-square" ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... of that time, were as much opposed to harmless recreations and healthful amusements as those of the present day, and it is amusing to observe that each in their generation, advance precisely the same description of arguments. In the British Museum, there is a curious pamphlet got up by the Agnews of Charles's time, entitled 'A Divine Tragedie lately ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... as one might say, the Auld Licht kirk gave way and burled its minister. The congregation turned their empty pockets inside out, and the minister departed in a farmer's cart. The scene was not an amusing one to those who looked on at it. To the Auld Lichts was then the humiliation of seeing their pulpit "supplied" on alternate Sabbaths by itinerant probationers or stickit ministers. When they were not starving themselves to support ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... salute a man at his birth, then the genii of the earth, the great gods, Mamitu the moulder of destinies, all of them together assign a fate to him, they determine for him his life and death; but the day of his death remains unknown to him." Gilgames thinks, doubtless, that his forefather is amusing himself at his expense in preaching resignation, seeing that he himself had been able to escape this destiny. "I look upon thee, Shamashnapishtim, and thy appearance has not changed: thou art like me and not different, thou art like me and I am like thee. Thou wouldest be strong enough ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... you I do," he answered drily. "My world consists of myself for the central figure, and the half a dozen or so of people who are useful or amusing to me! Except that the rest are needed to keep moving the machinery of the world, they might all perish, so far as I ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with a smile; for Sancho sat bolt upright in the chair which Ben pushed, while Thorny strolled beside him, leaning on a stout cane newly cut. Both boys were talking busily, and Thorny laughed from time to time, as if his comrade's chat was very amusing. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... other has pained the animal no more than one of us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers, and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic patient. The first offender says "I did it because I find fishing very amusing," and the magistrate bids him depart in peace; nay, probably wishes him good sport. The second pleads, "I wanted to impress a scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no other way, on the minds of my scholars," and the magistrate fines ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... station of a pulpit. We forbear to quote cases of this nature, though really existing in print, because we feel that the blasphemy of such anecdotes is more revolting and more painful to pious minds than the absurdity is amusing. Meantime it must not be forgotten, that the principle concerned, though it may happen to disgust men when associated with ludicrous circumstances, is, after all, the very same which has latently governed very many modes of ordeal, or judicial inquiry; and which has been adopted, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... but it was dark and disagreeable there! And they said to him: "To-morrow you shall be hanged." That was not amusing to hear, and he had left his Tinder-box at the inn. In the morning he could see, through the iron grating of the little window, how the people were hurrying out of the town to see him hanged. He heard the drums beat and saw the soldiers marching. All the people were ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... rings,—the only articles made by the Providence jewellers for many years. In due time Jabez Gorham set up for himself; and he added to the list of articles the important item of watch-chains of a peculiar pattern, long known in New England as the "Gorham chain." The old gentleman gives an amusing account of the simple manner in which business was done in those days. When he had manufactured a trunkful of jewelry, he would jog away with it to Boston, where, after depositing the trunk in his room, he would go round to all the jewellers in the city to inform them of his arrival, and to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... jumping over a wall. Their fad at present is pedicure. Peachy's at it just like the rest of them. Every night when I come home, I find her sitting down with both feet done up in one of those beautiful scarfs she's collected, resting on a cushion. It's rather amusing, though." Ralph struggled to suppress his smile ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... in her long life that she had ever pronounced the name of her husband, for in India no woman, high or low, ever pronounces the name of her husband,—she would consider it disrespectful towards him to do so; and it is often amusing to see their embarrassment when asked the question by any European gentleman. They look right and left for some one to relieve them from the dilemma of appearing disrespectful either to the querist or to their absent husbands—they perceive that he is unacquainted ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... interesting things that could be given vividly in the little space of eight or ten such pages as this, and for a time I found it a very entertaining pursuit indeed. Mr. Hind's indicating finger had shown me an amusing possibility of the mind. I found that, taking almost anything as a starting-point and letting my thoughts play about it, there would presently come out of the darkness, in a manner quite inexplicable, some absurd or vivid little incident more ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... absolutely ignored. My own lamp seemed to be a grave distraction among the invisible occupants of the roadside meadows, and often much lowing rose up on either side. The hedges would suddenly whirr with countless grasshoppers, although, no doubt, they had been amusing themselves with their monotonous noises for hours. The strange sound seemed to follow me in a most persistent fashion, and then would be merged into the croaking of a vast assemblage of frogs. These sounds, however, carry with them no real menace, however late the hour, but there is ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... me that they are the very men we seek; for they said they meant to have some game with you, and what more amusing than to give you a ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Cordova. After the Gitanos had discussed several jockey plans, and settled some private bargains amongst themselves, we all gathered round a huge brasero of flaming charcoal, and began conversing sobre las cosas de Egypto, when I proposed that, as we had no better means of amusing ourselves, we should endeavour to turn into the Calo language some piece of devotion, that we might see whether this language, the gradual decay of which I had frequently heard them lament, was capable of expressing any other matters than those which related ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... course it was only an amusing dream. He was not malignant enough. The old-fashioned sense of honour was too strong in him. Pooh! He would go and dine, and then laugh away ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... matter, which he substantiated by printing all the documents, and, not content with that, gave little details of the negotiations which show, either that Whitesides was one of the most grotesque braggarts of the time, or that Merryman was an admirable writer of comic fiction. Among the most amusing facts he brought forward was that Whitesides, being a Fund Commissioner of the State, ran the risk of losing his office by engaging in a duel; and his anxiety to appear reckless and dangerous, and yet keep within the statute and save his salary, was depicted by Merryman with a droll fidelity. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... retorted Spargo. "Well, stop here, and hear what this chap has to say: it'll no doubt be amusing." ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... is infinitely more graceful and becoming in the natives, than the most showy European apparel, in any variety of which, indeed, they generally look highly ridiculous. After they had made the chief and all his attendants nearly tipsy, the former began to be very talkative and amusing, continuing to chat without interruption for a considerable time, not omitting to whisper occasionally to the interpreter, by no means to forget, after his departure, to remind the travellers of the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... James had much regard and respect for Noel de Caron. He knew him to be able, although he thought him tiresome. It is amusing to observe the King and Ambassador in their utterances to confidential friends each frequently making the charge of tediousness against the other. "Caron's general education," said James on one occasion to Cecil, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... live Gnashing All Review Mr. Smacksy is, as usual, at his most vigorous. Among the statesmen who come in for his attacks are Mr. ASQUITH and Lord HALDANE, both of whom are probably by now quite inured to his blows. Nothing could be more amusing than the renewed play which is made with the phrase, "spiritual home." Mr. Smacksy has also something to say to members of what might be called his own Party. Other articles deal with "The Psychology of the Pacifist," a trenchant exposure; "The Teeth of American ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... never heard anything so amusing. But your comparison will not stand; everyone would have seen your petticoats, whereas no one has any ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a pause. "Is there anything amusing about being loved?" she thought; "what patient women the great coquettes of the world must have been! How I wish I were a crisp intelligent old maid, with a talent perhaps for gardening or ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... gave up the duty of amusing her guests, and stationed herself at the bedside of her cousin; and the unhappy husband wandered in and out of the room like a ghost; trying to think upon each fresh visit, that there was a slight improvement in ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... devoted herself to woodland sports. She was a favorite of Diana, and attended her in the chase. But Echo had one failing; she was fond of talking, and whether in chat or argument would have the last word. One day Juno was seeking her husband, who, she had reason to fear, was amusing himself among the nymphs. Echo by her talk contrived to detain the goddess till the nymphs made their escape. When Juno discovered it, she passed sentence upon Echo in these words: "You shall forfeit the use of that tongue with which you have cheated me, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... is anxious to present a clear picture of what happened; but he cannot make it animated, and he never reflects at length upon the matter of his history. At the same time he lacks the naiivete which makes Corio, Allegretti, Infessura, and Matarazzo so amusing. He gossips as little as Machiavelli, and has no profundity to make up for the want of piquancy. The interest of his chronicle is greatest in the part which concerns Savonarola, though even here the peculiarly reticent and dubitative nature of the man is obvious. While he ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... other hand I was not too happy with the overall style of the book, which is too florid and long-winded. Practically every sentence could be greatly shortened without loss, and it is sometimes an amusing exercise to rest from reading, and then try to re-phrase the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... direction of his victuals, but towards the warehouse of Joseph Varnhagen. There was no hurry in his gait; he sauntered down the street, his eyes observing everything, and with a look of patronising good humour on his dark face, as though he would say, "Really, you people are most amusing. Your style's awful, but I put up with it because you know ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... rather amusing," said he, "to hear those special qualities attributed to the work of a man who had no belief whatsoever, and no sympathy with the devotional feeling he is thought to have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... that you are not amusing yourself," she remarked, with some faint yet kindly note of condescension ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... any one there to counteract her. By this step we shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing whether the Empress wishes to take any friendly concern in our affairs; a point of knowledge perhaps not altogether unprofitable, though it should turn out contrary to our wishes, as it may prevent our amusing ourselves vainly with expectations of important assistance from Europe, and teach us one wholesome lesson, that America, under the blessing of God, must depend more upon her own exertions, for the happy establishment of her great ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... in style, is well motivated throughout, and has one amusing episode for which I know no parallel, the tying of Satan in his rocking-chair while he is taking his siesta, and then frightening him into compliance, when he wakes, by displaying, before him the cross-embroidered gown. The first task the hero is ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Claire's spirit, and prophesied her rapid success as a teacher. Mrs Gifford murmured sweetly, "And if you don't like it, dear, you can always come out by the next boat. Try it for a year. It will be quite an amusing experience to live the life of a bachelor girl. And, of course, in a year or two we'll be coming home. Then you must spend the whole leave with us. We'll see, won't we? We won't make any plans, but just be guided by circumstances. If you want ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... loudly as she finished, as though her words were highly amusing. To be experienced in the ways of evil seemed to her to ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... somewhat amusing discussion on this subject with a friend, only the other day; and one of his retorts upon me was so neatly put, and expresses so completely all that can either be said or shown on the opposite side, that it ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... over. The people of the town have again found, as in every other year, that their treasury is poorer, that they have worked, sweated, and stayed awake much without really amusing themselves, without gaining any new friends, and, in a word, that they have dearly bought their dissipation and their headaches. But this matters nothing, for the same will be done next year, the same the coming century, since it has always been ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... side, where the country is stony and barren, a multitude of old women are dragged forward on horses, waggons or carriages, and with much trouble are got into the water. On the other side of the fountain they appear as young maidens splashing about and amusing themselves with all kinds of playful mischief; close by is a large pavilion into which a herald courteously invites them to enter and where they are arrayed in costly apparel. A feast is prepared in a smiling meadow, which seems to be followed by a ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... Buckland's answer, which I think you may pretty nearly consider as an acceptance of your offer, and I really congratulate you upon it. He is full of information of all sorts, with lively spirits, and a most active mind and body, and will, I think, be as cheerful and amusing a companion as a man could have in such a tour. I trust you take a draughtsman with you, for without that your cortege ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Majesty's good spirits," said Albert, "that after a day of danger, fatigue, and accidents, you should feel the power of amusing yourself thus." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... centuries of all knowledge of its contents, are still stronger elements of doubt. Together, the circumstances fully justify the scepticism of Mr. Hepworth Dixon in the copious compilation styled by him a History of the Tower, though it is not requisite to adopt his amusing surmise that a document allowed to repose in the dark till the present age was fabricated to taint the credit of Ralegh as a virtuous husband. Probably the epistle was innocently concocted as a literary exercise by an admirer, who wished ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... of the lady I could see no sign. I was rather disappointed at first, as day after day went by and my young friend showed no disposition to break the silence in which he had chosen to wrap himself; for I had nothing to do in Venice, and I thought it would have been rather amusing to watch the progress of this incipient romance. By degrees, however, I ceased to trouble myself about it; and at the end of a fortnight I had other things to think of, in the shape of plans for the summer, my sister ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... ask ourselves deliberately what things we are going to allow ourselves to laugh at. We all laugh at some of the ways of lovers and no doubt we always will. They have beautiful ways, but beyond question some of them are amusing. There is no possible reaction to a girl's persuasion that her boy is pure hero and saint except a smile; and love itself will ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... pronunciation, together with the corresponding word in the Cherokee language and characters. As the language lacks a number of sounds which are of frequent occurrence in English, the attempts to indicate the pronunciation sometimes give amusing results. Thus we find: Fox (English script); kw[^a]gis[)i]['] (Cherokee characters); ts[/u]'l[^u]['] (Cherokee characters). As the Cherokee language lacks the labial f and has no compound sound equivalent to our ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... and manners of a by-gone generation, caught, as it were, through the chinks of the wall which time is building up between the past and the present, are instructive as well as amusing. It would be a great mistake to regard these details, apparently very loosely connected with the life of Chopin, as superfluous appendages to his biography. A man's sympathies and antipathies are revelations of his nature, and an artist's surroundings ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Walpole, she thankfully accepted the invitation, and decided to write the new book there in the bracing air of the hill town. In Walpole, she met delightful people, who were all attracted to the versatile, amusing young woman, and she was in great demand when there was any entertainment on foot. One evening she gave a burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position, by Oronthy Bluggage," which created such a gale of merriment that she was asked to repeat it for money, which ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... he," the prince said, speaking for the first time, "It was but yesterday in the great hall downstairs he stood up with blunted swords against young Victor de Paulliac, who is nigh three years his senior. It was amusing to see how the little knaves fought against each other; and by my faith Gervaise held his own staunchly, in spite of Victor's superior height and weight. If he join the Order, Sir Thomas, I warrant me he will cleave many an infidel's skull, ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... 1825, at Rheims, during the coronation of CHARLES X, with an amusing causerie on the manners and customs of the Restoration. The splendour of this coronation ceremony was singularly spoiled by the pitiable taste of those who had charge of it. These worthies took upon themselves to mutilate the sculpture work on the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... for some time, the silence being often broken by exclamations and questions. John and Betty could not understand how people avoided being run over when they all dashed across the street, right under the very noses of the horses. It was amusing to see people stumbling up the narrow, winding stairs of the buses, as they jolted along, and even the signs over the shops attracted some attention. They wondered if the King and Queen could shop in them all, for so many bore the words, "Jewelers to T. R. M.," or "Stationers ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... a series of pathetic, amusing and entertaining poems rendered in Indiana dialect on notable Hoosier scenes with parodies on poems by James ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... for truth, what exquisite skill in maintaining it and making it understood, characterise these eight last letters with their so different tone! I understand that you have read them only hurriedly, enjoying the more amusing passages; but that is not how one reads them ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... down and watch?" I asked again, pointing at the plateau; for I was young enough to find all operations of war amusing. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the novel in question, and, in an interview in the London 'Observer,' remarks: 'The suggestion of the German papers that I had Pygmalion produced in Germany lest I should be detected in my own country of plagiarism, shows an amusing ignorance of English ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... that Miss Blaine and Miss Mills were also members of the faculty; and they were. But they had just come in from a horseback ride, and they sat in rather disheveled attitudes, eating taffy out of a paper bag, and their conversation was very amusing and perfectly intelligible, even to a freshman who had still an ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... rang at dusk; at six o'clock they had tea—which was a repetition of breakfast, with leave to add to it whatever else they liked—and immediately after sat down to "preparation," which lasted from seven till nine. During this time one of the masters was always in the room, who allowed them to read amusing books, or employ themselves in any other quiet way they liked, as soon as ever they had learnt their lessons for the following day. At nine Dr. Rowlands came in and read prayers, after which the ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Senator Hearst, who entered the Senate two years after Senator Stanford, was also a man of very large wealth and possessor of a interesting character. Concerning him many amusing stories are told. He gave an elaborate dinner one evening, which I attended. There were twenty-five of us present with our wives, and after dinner was over the men went down to the smoking-room. Senator Hearst had thought out a little speech to make to us, in which he said: "I do now ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... intermixed in the garments of most of them. The most grotesque variety prevailed especially in their head-gear, which culminated in the case of one who wore a long, barrel-shaped, slatted sun-bonnet made out of spotted calico. They were boisterous and even amusing, had they not been well armed and apparently without fear or reverence for any authority or individual. For the present, the Irishman was evidently in command, by virtue of his ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... know very well, Candida, that I often blow them up soundly for that. But if there is nothing in their church-going but rest and diversion, why don't they try something more amusing—more self-indulgent? There must be some good in the fact that they prefer St. Dominic's to ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... that Saints' and Sinners' Corner was a place where congenial fellows met. We simply feasted our eyes on beautiful books or old manuscripts and chatted with each other after the usual fashion of book-lovers. The stories told were sometimes more amusing than profitable." He also told how Field, on one occasion, saved a book which he greatly coveted by ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... palaces only were to be left standing, to be utilized for public purposes. The whole of the remaining male population of Lucknow was set to work to carry out these alterations. The scene was busy and amusing, and the change from the fierce fight, the din of cannon, and the perpetual rattle of musketry, to the order, regularity, and bustle of work, was very striking. Here was a party of sappers and miners demolishing a row of houses, there thousands of natives filling baskets with rubbish and ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... saw her young friend again. Indeed, it required some clever diplomacy to heal the breach made, and even in her most amusing and affectionate moods, she often felt afterward that she was treated with a reserve which held her ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... they are very voluminous, but particularly devoid of interest, as they are written in a dry heavy style, and consist almost entirely of trifling details of forgotten Florentine society, mixed with small portions of Italian political news of the day, which are even still less amusing than the former topic. They have, however, been found useful to refer to occasionally, in order to explain allusions in the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the world has been the dupe of this marvellous dramatic genius and his work, changed in a fatal hour from fiction to history. I know no stronger proof for the existence of a malicious devil who takes pleasure in our amusing errors. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... personally, at different times, visited the frontiers of Ohio and Indiana, for the purpose of conversing with the Indians and the pioneers of that region, who happened to be acquainted with Tecumseh and his brother; and by these visits, has been enabled to enrich his narrative with some amusing and valuable anecdotes. ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... devoted to amusing the children, and contained a Punch and Judy show, fish pond, and ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... as good. When you're worried in London why don't you look me up? My wife and I will play the game for you. She's an amusing body. Heaven knows how I should have got through without her. She also ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... final refusal is simply too absurd. Miss FAY DAVIS made quite a little triumph of gentle gracious kindliness out of one of those potentially tiresome explanatory parts without which no mystifications can be contrived. Miss KATE JEPSON is a comedienne of rich grain, and gave a very amusing study of the hero's old nurse. Miss JEAN GADELL, that clever specialist in dour unpleasant stage women, made a properly repulsive thing out of the matron of the orphanage. Mr. HYLTON ALLEN scored his points as a comic lover with droll effect. If the distinctly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... gesture. "You thought—" He broke off. "I will tell you what you thought: That after amusing yourself with me you could say, 'Va-t-en!' with a wave of the hand. As if I were a clod like those we once had under us! American girls would make serfs of their admirers. Their men," contemptuously, "are fools where their women are concerned. You dismiss ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... which formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners, which united the Creole nonchalance with the vivacity of France. She was gay, gentle, and amiable. She had wit, which, without the smallest ill-temper, had just malice enough to be amusing. A polished and well-conducted education had improved her natural talents. She drew excellently, sang harmoniously, and performed admirably in comedy. In 1800, she was a charming young girl. She afterward became one of the most amiable princesses in Europe. ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... amusing to be engaged to him for a time, but now I am tired. You can give him what excuse you like, but tell ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... was only for a moment, for Barby immediately began to tell about an amusing experience she had on her way home, and started upstairs to take off her hat, with Georgina tagging after to ask a thousand questions, just as she had ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mean to be so atrociously impertinent," she sighed, in truth missing what had come to be such an amusing and novel way of using up some of each twenty-four hours. "But I can't, in self-respect, go to him ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... afternoon, in his cheerful yet cheerless words, she would have been deeply impressed by his appreciation of her playing, and his keen reflections on the merits of the composers; by his still keener attention to his subsequent experiments, and his amusing comments upon them. But, somehow, that very cheerless cheerfulness seemed to proclaim him superficial. Though she had no knowledge of science, she instinctively doubted his earnestness even in this work, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was not singular in confounding Dati and Deodati; it has been done by Fenton and others: but that Dr. Symmons, in his Life of Milton (p. 133.), should transform La Tina into a wine-press, is ludicrously amusing. La Tina is the rustic mistress to whom the sonnets are supposed to be addressed; and every one knows that rusticale and contadinesca is that naive and pleasing rustic style in which the Florentine poets delighted, from the expressive nature of the patois of the Tuscan ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... that there were many things in them which were unsound; but the rumour only gave additional zest to the speeches in which at Church Congresses and elsewhere he flattered clerical prejudice, and encouraged clerical ignorance. To him there was no more "amusing" study—using "amusing" in the French sense as meaning something that keeps a man intellectually happy and awake—than the study of the Gospels. They presented an endless series of riddles, and riddles were what he liked. But the scientific ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for two hours in his own defence, with an eloquence and effect to which no description can do justice. He touched the low underplot of the Committee on Foreign Affairs with pointed severity and bitter truth, and then gave amusing particulars of missives he had received from the South threatening him with assassination. Among other kindly hints sent through the post-office was a colored lithograph portrait of himself, with the picturesque annotation of a rifle-ball on the forehead, and a promise that such ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... quite one of the inner circle, you know. But we like him. He is really clever and very amusing. He is one of the heads of the Medical Faculty of our London University. All medical men, you know, are shareholders in the Medical Faculty Company, and wear that purple. You have to be—to be qualified. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... arrived at Lewes we put up our horses at the inn, and Charles ordered a lunch on his wonted scale of princely magnificence. Meanwhile we wandered, two and two, about the town and castle. I annexed Lady Belleisle, who is at least amusing. Charles drew me aside before starting. "Look here, Sey," he said, "we must be very careful. This man, Polperro, is a chance acquaintance. There's nothing an astute rogue can take one in over ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... place near the little lieutenant of doctor's degree, who was quite an amusing fellow, and chattered away so glibly that his neighbour hardly needed to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... may add, that to be a good housewife does not necessarily imply an abandonment of proper pleasures or amusing recreation; and we think it the more necessary to express this, as the performance of the duties of a mistress may, to some minds, perhaps seem to be incompatible with the enjoyment of life. Let us, however, now proceed to describe some of those home ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Own Wonderland is a delightful realm, wherein the very little ones can wander with interest through coloured pictures and easy fairy tales. Among the coloured picture series, the Old Mother Hubbard of 1793, with its contrast, Old Mother Hubbard of To-day, is very amusing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... "Bacon, Butler, and Shakspeare have rendered it impossible for any one after them to be profound, witty, or sublime," it is equally true that Scott, Irving, and others have rendered it impossible for any one to be equally entertaining, interesting, or amusing. I hold, however, to another maxim, that "he is a benefactor to mankind who furnishes them with innocent materials for laughter and delight," a maxim that did not come exactly "ex cathedra," but is full as profound, and correct. If I have been so fortunate as to contribute to, or become the cause ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... necessary to seek another parent for his children. For this purpose, he gave a commission to his friends to look out for him a suitable wife, and, in a long and jocular letter to Baron Strahlendorf, he has given an amusing account of the different negotiations which preceded his marriage. The substance of this letter is so well given by Mr Drinkwater Bethune, that we shall follow his ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... you would be amused if you could see his smile of placid self-satisfaction as he listens to our discussion of questions and problems which no more enter his daily life than they enter the daily life of an Eskimo; but I do not find it altogether amusing myself, and I could not well forgive it, if I did not know that he was at heart so simple and good, in spite of his commerciality. But he is sweet and kind, as the American men so often are, and he ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... escape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his tin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good marksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my mother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was amusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the way over that high board fence and escaped for that time. After an hour or two, when I ventured back, there was no one around and I thought the incident was closed. But it was not. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... not at once discern in the darkness who it was that opened the door, and he remained an aloof black shape against the moon-glare, lifting his cap and saying, "I am sorry to knock you up at this hour," so for a minute Marion had the amusing joy of seeing him as he appeared to other people, remote and vigilant and courteous and really more hidalgoesque than the occasion demanded. She laughed teasingly. The hard line of him softened, and he said, "Mother," and stepped over the threshold and folded her in his arms, and kissed ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... embassy reception the other night. Papa said it was like a green-room, only not half so amusing. They talked in one corner as openly as you might speak of the Prince Imperial, about Mademoiselle Schneider's child. There were women of the company whose liaisons are as well known as their faces, and yet they were parfaitement ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... overhead in a long, Gothic-like arch, he saw Miss Hargrove, mounted also, coming slowly toward him. He never forgot the picture she made under the rustic archway. Her fine horse was pacing along with a stately tread, his neck curved under the restraining bit, while she was evidently amusing herself by talking, for the want of a better companion, to an immense Newfoundland dog that was trotting at her side, and looking up to her in intelligent appreciation. Thus, in her preoccupation, Burt was permitted to draw comparatively near, but as soon as she observed ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... amusing in me to talk of being tired of giving explanations, when I have neither given nor mean to give any; but so it is, whether my hand aches, or I am sick of the subject, I feel as if I have given a hundred. Since you ask me, I will say, as far as I can collect my thoughts on an instant, that my ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... whenever you speak, speak with self-possession. Speak in a subdued tone, and always look at the person whom you are addressing. Before one can engage in general conversation with any effect, there is a certain acquaintance with trifling, but amusing subjects, which must be first attained. You will soon pick up sufficient by listening and observing. Never argue. In society, nothing must be discussed: give only results. If any person differ with you—bow and turn the conversation. In society, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... habitually growls and grumbles in a way that is highly amusing, and the absurd pitch of the deep bass voice issuing from so small an animal is ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... and apparently, to Borrow, a little Spanish; and Borrow, with his wonderful memory, must have been his favourite pupil. In his edition of Lavengro Dr. Knapp publishes a brief dialogue between master and pupil, which gives us an amusing glimpse of the worthy d'Eterville, whom the boys called 'poor old Detterville.' In the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of Lavengro he is pleasantly described by his pupil, who adds, with characteristic 'bluff,' that d'Eterville said 'on our arrival at the conclusion of ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... tremolos! I thought, hearing it, that God and his court of saints had left the heavens to take a walk, leaving the little angels masters of the house, full liberty! Universal gambols! The heavenly children, without any restraint, sported from cloud to cloud, amusing themselves by scattering on the earth the garlands of flowers that the saints had left behind them; one let loose the rain and made it fall on the earth; another seized the key of the thunder and touched it, fearful peals which frightened all the revellers and ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... There is nothing make-believe here as there is in the virtue of the letters. This is Pope's confession, the image of his soul. Elsewhere in Pope the accomplishment is too often rhetorical, though The Rape of the Lock is as delicate in artifice as a French fairy-tale, the Dunciad an amusing assault of a major Lilliputian on minor Lilliputians, and the Essay on Criticism—what a regiment of witty lines to be written by a youth of twenty or twenty-one!—much nearer being a great essay in verse than is generally admitted nowadays. As for ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... rubber band back of the corona, on the outer integument, so as to act like a tourniquet and limit the action of the anaesthetic effect to the prepuce. By this procedure he avoids all pain and the operation can be performed while the child is even amusing itself, care being taken that it does not see it. Sutures that require removal should not be used, according to the Doctor, and the operation thereby becomes a perfectly painless and unalarming performance to the patient in ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, was intimately acquainted with Boiastuan's book as translated by Alday; for there are passages in Burton's 'Love Melancholy' (the most extraordinary and amusing part of his work), which bear a very strong resemblance to many in the 'Gests and Countenances ridiculous of Lovers,' at p. 195 of Boiastuan's Theatre, or Rule ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... would be pleased to see another of Elia's contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... till he began to quail under the world's ill opinion, and especially, not till he felt secure that he might rely on his wife's fidelity and mercy, her silence and magnanimity, that he changed his tone to one of aspersion and contempt, and his mode of attack to that of charming, amusing, or inflaming the public with verses against her and her friends. We have his own testimony to her domestic merits in the interval between the parting and his lapse into a state of malignant feeling. In March, 1816, within two ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... which a puzzle was built has proved of considerable value to them in a most unexpected way. Indeed, it may be accepted as a good maxim that a puzzle is of little real value unless, as well as being amusing and perplexing, it conceals some instructive and possibly useful feature. It is, however, very curious how these little bits of acquired knowledge dovetail into the occasional requirements of everyday life, and equally curious ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... "It would be amusing for Rippingdale to hear these records—my Lord Clarendon's, are they not? Ah—not in the formal copy of his work? And by order of my Lord Rippingdale? Indeed! And wherefore, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... no answer was vouchsafed till the 11th, and then in the old terms; and meanwhile, on the 10th, Leary got into his gaiters—the sure sign, as was both said and sung aboard his vessel, of some desperate or some amusing service—and was set ashore at the Scanlons' house. Of this he took possession at the head of an old woman and a mop, and was seen from the Tamasese breastwork directing operations and plainly preparing to install himself there in a military posture. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his connection with Blackwood's Magazine, to which he was the chief contributor, De Quincey removed with his family to Edinburgh, where his erratic genius and his singularly childlike ways produced enough amusing anecdotes to fill a volume. He would take a room in some place unknown to his friends and family; would live in it for a few years, until he had filled it, even to the bath tub, with books and with his own chaotic manuscripts, allowing no one to ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... surrounding world I had nothing to ask for, aim at, or argue about. Fortune had taken me by the hand. One fine morning she had lifted me out of an abyss and put me down on a bed of roses and made me a young gentleman. The eagerness of others was for me but an amusing spectacle. My heart was interested in the future only on one mysterious point, the love which I felt ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... instilled into the mind of little Ursula a jealousy and distrust, which, but for the good sense maturer years brought to bear against such early impressions, would have rendered her unhappy for life. Propped up by pillows, she sat at a small table amusing herself by building little card houses, and then seeing them tumble down with all the kings and queens of her little city, when she heard her name mentioned in accents of pity by an old lady who had come to pay her aunt ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... there were moments when I pacified my conscience and others when I lashed it into pain. I did not laugh all day—that I do recollect; the case, however it might have struck others, seemed to me so little amusing. It would have been better perhaps for me to feel the comic side of it. At any rate, whether I had given cause or not it went without saying that I could not pay the price. I could not accept. I could not, for a bundle of tattered ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... the story always in the exact same words." This Jeanie must have been a character. She took great pride in exhibiting Maidie's brother William's Calvinistic acquirements when nineteen months old, to the officers of a militia regiment then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This performance was so amusing that it was often repeated, and the little theologian was presented by them with a cap and feathers. Jeanie's glory was "putting him through the carritch" (catechism) in broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning with "Wha made ye, ma bonnie ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... smart boots, bosomed shirts, or other dainty wear for men. He was quite innocent of giving any offence to the eye, however. Lying back in the comfortable chair with his coat off and his great lumberman's boots crossed, he laughed at anything Nan said that chanced to be the least bit amusing, until the gas-globes ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... got up, discountenanced and helpless, and as we stood there before her aunt it would certainly have seemed to a spectator of the scene that the old woman was amusing herself at our expense. Miss Tita protested, in a confusion of exclamations and murmurs; but I lost no time in saying that if she would do me the honor to accept the hospitality of my boat I would engage that she should not be bored. Or if she did ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... an inmate in the house of his uncle, John Goldsmith, Esq., of Ballyoughter, in that vicinity. He now entered upon studies of a higher order, but without making any uncommon progress. Still a careless, easy facility of disposition, an amusing eccentricity of manners, and a vein of quiet and peculiar humor, rendered him a general favorite, and a trifling incident soon induced his uncle's family to concur in his mother's opinion of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... often a surface of red mud, as if the surface had been enameled or electrotyped with mud. It appears to date from the first muddy day of creation. I have such a one for my doorstone at Woodchuck Lodge. It is amusing to see the sweepers and scrubbers of doorstones fall upon it with soap and hot water, and utterly fail to make any impression upon it. Nowhere else have I seen rocks casehardened with primal mud. The fresh-water origin of the Catskill rocks no doubt ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... very odd girl. There is, indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover that they live near each other and that they ought to have known each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck anyone else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when I met ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... its amusing features. A nervous representative shied violently at a piece of writing paper one night which had been left on his floor by a careless chambermaid; for the member rooming next him had the night before ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... as it had her parents, but, being wiser, he felt no antagonism. It was an amazing, an interesting thing. The girl had suddenly developed: that was all. She was eager to try her wings at a longer flight than any of her sex in Kenmore had ever before dreamed. It was amusing even if it ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... college which bears the same name as that of a city. Pembroke is another. Keble is, of course, named after the hymn-writer and divine; and Balliol, where C. S. C. played the wag so divertingly, after Balliol. A propos of Oxford, it is a question whether that extremely amusing book, Verdant Green, is still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... these two cases of the strength and weakness of the mind will not comprehend all mankind, and that there are in England, in particular, many honest gentlemen, who being always employed in their domestic affairs, or amusing themselves in common recreations, have carried their thoughts very little beyond those objects, which are every day exposed to their senses. And indeed, of such as these I pretend not to make philosophers, nor ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... this clamour of inharmonious voices, it is a little amusing to see how quietly and effectively some women settle the matter for themselves. If, indeed, they are among the best of their sex, they are surely qualified to judge, not only of their own ability, but also as to that which is proper. And they have no difficulty in finding this reply to ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... days the French language has as many idioms and represents as many idiosyncracies as there are varieties of men in the great family of France. It is extremely curious and amusing to listen to the different interpretations or versions of the same thing or the same event by the various species which compose the genus Parisian,—"Parisian" is here used merely to ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... is the matter now?" Graham knew the answer to his question, even before he asked it, and was irritated. If it was amusing to make Ruth scream by pointing his finger in her direction, when he was in a teasing mood, it was extremely annoying to have her suspect him of such intentions when his conscience was altogether clear, when indeed, with Peggy as a witness, he had solemnly renounced all ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... written for his director, is still at St. Sulpice. He stops short in his writing to make such reflections as these: "My courage is at times utterly cast down when I see what impertinences I have been writing. They must, I think, be a great waste of time for my good director, whom I am afraid of amusing. I pity him for having to spend his time in reading them, and it seems to me that he ought to stop my writing this intolerable ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of matter;" "that the world is a great body, which has sense, spirit, and reason;" that "matter, in appearance the most cold and insensible, is in reality animated, and capable of engendering thought." It might be amusing, were it not melancholy, to refer to one of his proofs of this position: "Une horologe mesure le temps; certes, c'est la un effet intellectuel produit par une cause physique!"[111] His grand principle is the doctrine of what he calls "Unisubstancisme," and it is applied ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... mood to meet people and kept out of the way of strangers as much as possible; even of her former acquaintances who came to the For'ard Lookout she saw but few. If she had not been too busy she might have found it amusing, the contrasting studies in human nature afforded by these former acquaintances in ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West, by Mrs. Bray: written for the entertainment of a family circle, these amusing records of the doings of the little people will find favour with all lovers of folk lore.—Ada's Thoughts, or the Poetry of Youth, may be commended for its natural, simple, yet elevated tone.—Essay on Human Happiness, by C. B. Adderley, M.P.; the first ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... it all about? Were they in earnest, or was it only their way of amusing themselves?" inquired Mary Carmichael, who had slipped into Mrs. Clark's kitchen after the men at the table had taken ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... twins had entered a new world and were rapturously making an omelet in a kitchen that had begun life as a closet, while Mr. Morton put up shelves and hooks and Mr. White tacked green burlap over gloomy wall-paper. Groceries and kitchen utensils and amusing make-shift furniture kept arriving in exciting profusion. They had not dreamed that there was such happiness in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... the origin of our Indians from the fugitive Trojans, stated in your letter of January the 26th, and his manner of accounting for the sprinkling of their Latin with Greeks is really amusing. Adair makes them talk Hebrew. Reinold Foster derives them from the soldiers sent by Kouli Khan to conquer Japan. Brerewood, from the Tartars, as well as our bears, wolves, foxes, &c. which, he says, 'must of necessity fetch their beginning from Noah's ark, which rested after the deluge, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of the city was an open field that was used as a race-course and practice ground for horses. Here the seven sons of Amphion were amusing themselves, when suddenly the oldest dropped his reins with a cry and fell from his horse, pierced to the heart by an arrow. One after another the whole seven were ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... presented by these men—some of them with grey heads and beards—as they marked time or tramped along singing this childish twaddle, would have been amusing if it ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... figures called tarascas gamboled about; and the auto, which was more like our operas than any other composition of the Spanish stage, was begun by a loa, written or sung. After this came the play, then an amusing interlude, followed by music and sometimes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the elder formed an amusing contrast with the laughing eye and untamable vivacity of the younger; but they smiled and they wept in unison. They thought and acted in different but not discordant keys. On all momentous occasions, they reasoned ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... town of Waukesha County, twenty miles by rail, to a Temperance meeting advertised for "speaking and the transaction of business." The meeting was held in the Congregational church, the pastor acting as chairman. The real business of the meeting was soon disposed of, and then was enacted the most amusing farce it was ever my lot to witness. The chairman and his deacon led off in a long-drawn debate on sundry matters of no importance, and of less interest to the audience, members of which attempted in vain, by motions and votes, to cut it short. When it had become sufficiently ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... laughingly about my enthusiasm for Tennyson, and asking me if I had read a certain severely caustic and condemnatory article in the Quarterly upon his poems. "Have you read it?" said she; "it is so amusing! Shall I send it to you?" "No, thank you," said I; "have you read the poems, may I ask?" "I cannot say that I have," said she, laughing. "Oh, then," said I (not laughing), "perhaps it would be better that ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... news—come from allied sources via correspondents in neutral countries. The German censor's task is here a relatively simple one, for German war correspondents never allow professional enthusiasm to run away with practical patriotism, and you note the—to an American—amusing and yet suggestive spectacle of war correspondents specializing in descriptions of sunsets ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a rose from a bunch she had fastened in her dress. "Why don't you pick one yourself, Giff?" she said simply; and afterwards, with a sparkle of indignant tears in her eyes and with a quick impatience which made her an amusing copy of her father, she said to Helen, "I suppose he meant to treat me as though I was some fine young lady. Why can't he be just the old Giff?" And when he came back from Europe, she declared ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... foibles. I remember that she made me laugh more than I liked; for I was, at that time, an eager scholar of ethics, and had tasted the sweets of solitude and stoicism, and I found something profane in the hours of amusing gossip into which she drew me, and, when I returned to my library, had much to think of the crackling of thorns under a pot. Margaret, who had stuffed me out as a philosopher, in her own fancy, was too intent on ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... fine that we had both been in love with her. It was not an air moreover for the plaintive note: no private inconvenience could long outweigh for him the great happiness of these years—the happiness that sat with us when we talked and that made it always amusing to talk, the sense of his being on the heels of success, coming closer and closer, touching it at last, knowing that he should touch it again and hold it fast and hold it high. Of course when we said ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... Duc d'Arscot, and M. d'Aurec. After an exchange of compliments, he mounted his horse, but continued in discourse with me until we reached the city, which was not before it grew dark, as I set off late, the ladies of Mons keeping me as long as they could, amusing themselves with viewing my litter, and requiring an explanation of the different mottoes and devices. However, as the Spaniards excel in preserving good order, Namur appeared with particular advantage, for the streets were well lighted, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... and amusing entourage vanished in all directions. Standing idly at the portico was a very straight, black Soudanese. On his head was the usual red fez; his clothing was of trim khaki; his knees and feet were ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White |
