"Absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sangleys, which is built in a marshy place on the border of this city between its northern and southern sides. The Sangleys were transferred thither by Diego Ronquillo, during his governorship, because the Parian which Don Gonzalo Ronquillo had built was destroyed by fire. At first it seemed absurd to think that human habitations were to be built in that marsh, but the Sangleys, who are very industrious, and a most ingenious people, managed it so well that, in a place seemingly uninhabitable, they have built a Parian resembling the other, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... of course. The story will sound altogether too absurd." "What will he do—have us sent to jail ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... John; it was absurd!' and vexed at having checked her gladsomeness, he added, 'It is I rather who should ask your pardon, for looks that will not make a cheerful figure in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... queerest arrangement I ever heard of. The idea of a father having the sole care of a daughter up to her twenty-first birthday, and then delivering her, like a piece of joint property, over to her mother! Oh, I know that according to their lights it did not seem absurd, but the very idea of it is contrary to nature. Of course we all know that your father was peculiarly fitted to undertake your training, and in this way your mother could more easily indulge her love of society; but as it is, no wonder she is as jealous of your success ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... Now began an absurd contest between the two in which Ramon was always manoeuvring to get her alone somewhere so that he might complete his conquest if possible, while her sole object was to have him gratify her vanity by appearing in public with her. This he knew he could not afford to do. He could not even ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... obstinacy. The complainants had witnesses who testified under oath what they had heard in taverns and tap-rooms from Sir Seitz Siebenburg and those who repeated his tales. Their examination had lasted a long time, and what they alleged was as absurd as possible, yet for that very reason difficult to refute. These depositions had aided the cause of the accused, but in consequence of such numerous charges many questions of course were put to Biberli, and thus the torture had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ridiculous—your absurd attitude of taking everything for granted. Well, it may be the Tucson custom, but where I come from it is ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... Absurd! There was not half enough to do to satisfy his Napoleonic ambition. Nothing but the Vicariate of the whole of the Dark Continent ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... Earthly parallels did not necessarily apply. It was undignified, certainly, to be revolving like a child on a merry-go-round, while these crowds glared with bright alien eyes; but the important thing was that they had not once offered him any violence. They had not even put him into the absurd revolving seat by force; they had led him to it gently, with a great deal of gesturing and twittered explanation. And if their faces were almost nauseatingly unpleasant—with the constantly-moving complexity of ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... many political injustices in this country and many absurd, oppressive, or obsolete practices. But the main aspirations of the British people are at this present time social rather than political. They see around them on every side, and almost every day, spectacles of ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the Truck Commission in Edinburgh lately, witnesses were examined who had little knowledge of Shetland business, and many of the statements were not only contrary to fact, but simply absurd. For instance, can any man of common sense imagine that a merchant would come to grief in consequence of not having enough of bad debts, and that if he could carry on until he had 2000 of bad debts, he would do a flourishing trade, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... past life. In what possible way could any trace of that misfortune, or any suggestive hint of something resembling it, exist in the archives of the "Annual Register" or in the pages of Voltaire? The bare idea of such a thing seemed absurd The mere attempt to make a serious examination in this direction was surely ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... age, but, now that the world has broadened somewhat, I think an addition to the trio is demanded. A man may be faithful, hopeful, and charitable, and yet leave much to be desired. He may be useful, no doubt, with that equipment, but he may also be both tiresome and even absurd. The fourth quality that I should like to see raised to the highest rank among the Christian graces is ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... edict regarded only himself, and, therefore, it is difficult to tell what was his motive, unless he intended to spare himself the mortification of absurd and illiberal flattery, which, to a mind stung with disgrace, must have been in the highest degree ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... attention in this connection is the common statement that only married women, preferably mothers, can be competent instructors of young women. This strikes me as more than absurd. Personal experience is not always necessary for teaching in any line. The greatest medical teachers have not had the diseases they describe so clearly. The best elementary teachers and specialists on the ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... case of rather a curious nature, and which was characterised rather by the absurd credulity of the parties than by its novelty, came before the Commissioners on Thursday last. A man of the name of O'Regan attended the Court, to show cause against a summons which had been issued, calling upon him to pay a debt of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... critically outspoken on every occasion. All the same, I would not have put up with his humours if it had not been my lot at one time to nurse him through a desperate illness at sea. After snatching him out of the jaws of death, so to speak, it would have been absurd to throw away such an efficient officer. But sometimes I wished he would ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... room. Only he had to wait for her till past midnight. She appeared at last in a high state of intoxication and more maternal even than on the previous nights. Whenever she had drunk anything she became so amorous as to be absurd. Accordingly she now insisted on his accompanying her to the Abbey of Chamont. But he stood out against this; he was afraid of being seen. If he were to be seen driving with her there would be an atrocious scandal. But she burst into tears and evinced the noisy despair of a slighted woman. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... character many things appear of a nature, either so monstrous as to shock humanity, or so absurd as to excite derision; yet they have some redeeming qualities which must elicit commendation. And while we view with satisfaction those bright spots, shining more brilliantly from the gloom which ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... numerous. The firman was an order to all Egyptian officials for assistance; the cook was dirty and incapable; and the interpreter was nearly ignorant of English, although a professed polyglot. With this small beginning, Africa was before me, and thus I commenced the search for the Nile sources. Absurd as this may appear, it was a correct commencement. Ignorant of Arabic, I could not have commanded a large party, who would have been at the mercy of the interpreter or dragoman; thus, the first qualification necessary to success was a knowledge of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... poet was inspired. Had he not been so, he had not cried, "Baffle the raging year;" and if you be not so, you will think it a most absurd expression. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... his blue eyes growing dreamy with musing. "That says nothing to me—nothing! and yet—you will laugh at me, I know, but I sometimes get the most tantalizing impression that I remember my mother. It is absurd, of course—I suppose I could not possibly remember her—and yet there is such a haunting, vague sense of close-clinging arms, of an intensely white and tender face bending over me—sometimes in the radiance of day and again in the soft shadows of night, but always, always ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... and easily how per- -versely absurd 'tis to sound this name Cowper, As people in general call him named super, I remark that he rhymes it himself ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... kindness and mild persuasion. He had one very annoying habit, and that was he would very seldom give a satisfactory answer if suddenly asked a direct question, and often his reply would be very absurd, sometimes bordering on downright impudence. The master noticed one afternoon, after calling the boys from their play at recess, that Ned had not entered the school-room with the others. Stepping to the door, ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... she seated herself upon the edge of the ivory footstool and commenced to untie the little bands which fastened her buskins. We moderns, owing to our horrible system of footgear, which is hardly less absurd than the Chinese shoe, no longer know what a foot is. That of Nyssia was of a perfection rare even in Greece and antique Asia. The great toe, a little apart like the thumb of a bird, the other toes, slightly long, and all ranged in charming symmetry, the nails well shaped and brilliant as agates, ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... qualification in whose nostrils the mere name of professional oarsman seems to stink. These pampered denizens of the amateur hothouse would, doubtless, wear a kid-glove before they ventured to shake hands with one who, like myself, despises them and their absurd pretensions. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... said Fred, after a few puffs. "I'll give you twenty points and beat you out of your boots." Now I was very fond of billiards, and usually didn't care who knew it, but Mrs. Pinkerton did not approve of the game, and had no knowledge that I indulged in it. But Fred would speak in that absurd shouting way of his, and all the ladies heard him. Again I mustered up resolution and went into the billiard room, but I played very indifferently, and was thinking all the time of my mother-in-law and her opinion of me. I really wanted to get ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... off diplomatic relations with Sardinia in 1848, and when Victor Emmanuel communicated the death of his father to the Powers, the only one which returned no response was the empire of the Czar. It would be absurd to adduce this lack of courtesy as an excuse for war; still it gave a slightly better complexion to an attack which the Russian Government was justified in calling "extraordinarily gratuitous." Cavour had one person of great ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... animal world has always been full of dizzy surprises, and the insects led him "into a new and barely suspected region, which is ALMOST ABSURD." (16/6.) ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... the year 1418, and the same infatuation existed among the people there as in the towns of Belgium and the Lower Rhine. Many who were seized at the sight of those affected, excited attention at first by their confused and absurd behavior, and then by their constantly following the swarms of dancers. These were seen day and night passing through the streets, accompanied by musicians playing on bagpipes, and by innumerable spectators attracted by curiosity, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... shipping; but when war actually began in 1744, he received orders not to attack the English, the French company hoping that neutrality might exist between the companies in that distant region, though the nations were at war. The proposition does not seem absurd in view of the curious relations of Holland to France, nominally at peace while sending troops to the Austrian army; but it was much to the advantage of the English, who were inferior in the Indian seas. Their company ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to cry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing naturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... of kingship. But our aborigines had not developed any such absurd notion as that there are particular families to which God has given the privilege of lording it over their fellow men. They were still in the free stage of choosing their chiefs from among the men who served them best. We may say with confidence that there was not an emperor, or a king, or anything ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... energy of the sufferer's character; but in death from a stab the countenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity, and the mind its bias, to the last. [According to Medwin (1824, 4to, p. 223), an absurd charge, based on the details of this note, was brought against Byron, that he had been guilty of murder, and ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... her self-respect, and enabled her to hold her ground with them. For instance: by the time she was four and twenty, Lydia's age, she had received at least a dozen proposals. Lydia's scalps, so far as her mother knew, were only two—fellow-students at South Kensington, absurd people, not to be counted. Then, pretty as Lydia was, her nose could not be compared for delicacy with her mother's. "My nose was always famous"—Mrs. Penfold would say complacently to her daughters—"it was that which first attracted your dear father. 'It ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lolled back among his pillows, dabbing complacently at the absurd yellow toy. A description of his surroundings would sound like pages 3 to 17 of a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward. The place was all greensward, and terraces, and sundials, and beeches, and even those rhododendrons without which no English novel or country estate is ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... in all this; and all this does not mitigate my horror of political women in general, who are, I repeat it, both mischievous and absurd. If you could but hear the reasoning in these feminine ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... immediately began to tremble, not doubting that he was going to say something absurd. Sancho observed him, and, understanding his looks, he said: "Be not afraid, sir, of my breaking loose or saying anything that is not pat to the purpose. I have not forgotten the advice your worship gave me awhile ago about talking much or ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... is indeed your aunt, as she says she is, you must have hundreds of other relations, many of whom you would without doubt find very different people. Besides, in that case, you see, Isobel, you ought to be living altogether differently. It is absurd for you to be grubbing along with us in an attic when you ought to be living in a palace, with plenty of money and servants and beautiful frocks, and all that sort of thing. You understand me, don't you?" I concluded a little ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... study of medicine than do thickly inhabited countries, as Germany and Great Britain; but we do contend that when a city of the size of St. Louis has as many schools as Russia, the craze for multiplying these schools is being carried to absurd and harmful lengths. However, that the number of schools and their yearly supply of graduates of medicine are far beyond the demand is perfectly well known to all. The Medical Record and other medical journals have fully discussed and insisted upon that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... quite firm in this decision,—however absurd or obscure their conclusions,—and Jackson, after his first flash of indignation, felt a certain relief in their departure. But strangely enough, while he had hesitated about keeping the property ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... the most ridiculous idea in the world. It had not seemed so before; it had appeared probable enough, nay, with many coincidences in its favour. And he had even been conscious of something like disappointment to find that it was not true. But now it seemed to him too absurd for credence; and what creature in the world, except himself, could have known the circumstances that made it possible? No one but ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... dear sir, he doesn't conduct at all. His orchestra pays no attention to him, and plays in spite of the absurd and meaningless passes which he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... see about it," exclaimed the colonel, now more than ever annoyed. "It is impossible that a man of such low extraction should aspire to the hand of my daughter. The idea is too absurd!" ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... might be, it is beyond question that the ridiculous clothes that a clergyman of the Church of England is compelled to wear did not make him absurd, nor did he look an over-dressed fop ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... was six feet tall and broad in proportion, and I, as I have already confessed, am very short. His robes transformed me into such an absurd caricature of a preacher that it was quite impossible for me to wear them. What, then, were we to do? Lacking clerical robes, the police would not allow me to utter six words. It was finally decided that the clergyman should meet the ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... disputation. Observe secondly:—when a man is said to be a knave or a fool, it is commonly meant that he is either the one or the other; and that,—either in the sense that the hypothesis of his being a fool is too absurd to be entertained; or, again, as a sort of contemptuous acquittal of one, who after all has not wit enough to be wicked. But this is not at all what Mr. Kingsley proposes to himself in the antithesis which he suggests to his ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... nothing but a shroud!" I cried in great wrath—and then stopped short, and burst out laughing. "What an absurd and gruesome conversation," I said, holding out my hand. "Good-bye, Frau Inspector, I am sure you ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... stared at us superciliously, and lifting an absurd watch from her antique chatelaine, observed calmly, "Egeria will be at this hotel in one hour and fifteen minutes; I telegraphed her the night before last, and this ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... since her visits to Nearminster, and that was her acquaintance with Kettles. She neither saw nor heard anything of her, which was not surprising, since neither Miss Unity nor the Merridews were likely to know of her existence. To Nancy, however, it seemed absurd that Pennie should go every week to Nearminster and bring back no news at all. She began to feel sure that Pennie had not made good use ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... more than she knew, for suddenly Mrs. Danvers—it seemed absurd to call her "Mrs." she looked so like a girl—turned upon her and took her ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... was singing in a shrill, nasal voice a pathetic ballad. She sang without expression, bringing her hands with monotonous gestures alternately to her breast. Her squat, matronly figure, beef from the heels up, looked singularly absurd in her short skirt. Her face was excessively over-painted, her mouth good-naturedly large, and her eyes out of their slit-like lids ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... that knowing his man thoroughly, he was aware that, with the bane, he bore about with him, in some degree, its antidote. For so vast and absurd were his vain boastings, and so needless his exaggerations of his own recklessness, blood-thirstiness, and crime, that hitherto his vaporings had excited ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... How absurd, in the light of my experience, now seemed to me the common idea of the so-called believers - as though the earthly life with all its joys and its misery would break off all at once with death and suddenly, without transition, change into a bliss ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... neighborhood of people who owned their houses but did not spend much money on them. Number 48 was a good deal like the others. "Decent enough, but commonplace," Randolph pronounced. "Yet what could I have been expecting?" he added; and his whimsical smile told him not to let himself become absurd. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... be identical with units of external force. Clearly, if units of external force are regarded as absolutely unknown and unknowable, then to translate units of feeling into them is to translate the known into the unknown, which is absurd. And if they are what they are supposed to be by those who identify them with their symbols, then the difficulty of translating units of feeling into them is insurmountable: if Force as it objectively exists is absolutely alien in nature from that which ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... history seemed to have innumerable records of it in the hearts and memories of each generation. But as there appears no document or parchment of such criteria as to satisfy all inquiries, historical skepticism has ventured upon the absurd length of calling in question the fact of the treaty. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, with commendable zeal, has bestowed much labor upon the questions connected with the treaty, and the results which have been attained can scarcely fail to satisfy a candid inquirer. All claim to a peculiar ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... insatiable curiosity must assuredly have led him to experiment in this direction, and his subsequent reputation confirms these suspicions. But the specific charges of magic on this occasion were frivolous and absurd. In the first portion of the speech Apuleius plays with his accusers, mocking them from the heights of his superior learning. In the second portion, where he defends his marriage with Pudentilla and justifies his dealings with his step-sons, he clears ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... "Something the most absurd you ever listened to. He proposed, if other people would furnish the money, to establish a public coach from this city to Boston, to run as often as once a week, and, after the first expense, to support itself ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... when men have conflicting opinions about a certain thought, and try to prove the truth or falsity of this definite idea. Since a term—a word, phrase, or other combination of words not a complete sentence—suggests many ideas, but never stands for one particular idea, it is absurd as a subject to be argued. A debatable subject is always a proposition, a statement in which something is affirmed or denied. It would be impossible to uphold or attack the mere term, "government ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... and abideth for ever," 1 Pet. i. 22, 23. We are begotten of one Father, and that by a divine birth, we have such a high descent and royal generation! There are so many other bonds of unity between us, it is absurd that this one more should not join all. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one body, one spirit, called to one hope, one God and Father of all," Eph. iv. 2-6. All these being one, it is strange if we be not one in love. If so many relations beget not a strong and warm affection, we are worse ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... was a happening," remarked Joe, as he slowed down. "I wonder what it all meant? Shalleg must be getting desperate. But why does he keep after me? Unless he thinks I am responsible for his not getting a place on the Cardinals. It's absurd to think that, but it does seem so. I wonder what ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... feeling. But such an interpretation of the facts as helps us to bridge over the gap, derives additional likelihood from doing this. The hypothesis I have sketched out enables us to see that primitive ideas are not so gratuitously absurd as we suppose, and also enables us to rehabilitate the ancient myth with far less distortion than at ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... it in all good faith as though war were a duel in which the traitor was henceforth ruled out and unable to continue his outrages. Besides, the heroic resistance of Belgium was nourishing the most absurd illusions in his heart. The Belgians were certainly supernatural men destined to the most stupendous achievements. . . . And to think that heretofore he had never taken this plucky little nation into account! . . . For several days, he considered Liege a holy city before whose walls the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... grant that generals, admirals, majors, sheriffs, constables, captains, masters, yea, every man that hath an office, is either Christ's vicegerent, or the devil's vicegerent, than which what can be more absurd? I might, beside all these, show some other flaws in his divinity, as, namely, p. 9 and 13, he doth not agree to this proposition, that "the admitting of the scandalous and profane to the Lord's table, makes ministers to partake of their sins;" and he supposeth that ministers may do their duty, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... every opportunity of ferocious punishment was seized, and men no longer waited to hear the fate of accused persons, since it was always the same. One Paulus, of the Praetorian guard, was at an entertainment, wearing a portrait of Tiberius Caesar engraved in relief upon a gem. It would be absurd for me to beat about the bush for some delicate way of explaining that he took up a chamber-pot, an action which was at once noticed by Maro, one of the most notorious informers of that time, and the slave of the man who was about to fall into the trap, who drew the ring from the ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... besides that of being senior to him in the army, in the fact that the Brigadier was a servant of 'John Company,' while Campbell belonged to the 'Queen's Service.' From the time of the establishment of a local army there had existed an absurd and unfortunate jealousy between the officers of the Queen's and Company's services, and one of the best results of the Mutiny was its gradual disappearance. This ill-feeling influenced not only fellow-countrymen, but relations, even brothers, if they belonged to the different ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... a grave American savant, being in London, observed at an evening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow, as he thought, an absurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart persiflage, whisking about to the admiration of as many as were disposed to admire. Great was the savan's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... its slaves," I continued. "That's absurd. We have only a sensible regard for it, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... out of town had an element of the absurd in it, and in one case that of mystery, namely: a sheriff appeared before the woebegone intruder, and said, half laughing, "I warn you off the face of the earth." "Let me get my hat before I go," stammered the terrified wanderer, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... boy, Kid, was out in all that storm on your Caesar," he went on, changing the subject quickly from the man whom he knew bore him an absurd animosity. "A pretty great horse, Caesar. He's looking none the worse for fetching that whisky either. Guess the boys'll be getting over their drunk by now. And it's probably done 'em a heap of good. You did right to encourage 'em. Maybe ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... HARRISON. Absurd! This proposition would prevent All purchase and all progress. No, indeed; We cannot tie our hands with such conditions. What of the Prophet? Comes he ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... my road, completely. She was going to hand it to me, once. Why didn't she! Must be a deep woman. Deep devil! That is what she is; a beautiful devil—and perfectly fearless, too. The idea of her pinning that paper on a man and standing him up in the rotunda looks absurd at a first glance. But she would do it! She is capable of doing anything. I went there hoping she would try to bribe me—good solid capital that would be in the exposure. Well, my prayer was answered; she did try to bribe me; and I made the best of a bad bargain and let her. I am ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... know what it is, by all means," responded Mr. Silby, with a smile. "I am satisfied that what you have to say is for the best interests of the bank, and it would be absurd in me ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... extinguisher over the light of heaven-born genius, and that the power and passion and wisdom of Aeschylus came from himself or the devil, and not from God? Surely, without any further argument on such an absurd proposition, it ought to be sufficient for you that this kind of learning forms a part ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... contained in the foregoing declarations that unemployment is due to the private ownership of land and capital are absurd. If the private ownership of land and capital were the cause of unemployment, unemployment should be almost equally great in all civilised countries, because in all civilised countries land and capital ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... others, who say that it "joins words and sentences together," (see Errors on p. 434 of this work,) it is scarcely possible to conceive. If they imagine it to connect "words" on the one side, to "sentences" on the other; this is plainly absurd, and contrary to facts. If they suppose it to join sentence to sentence, by merely connecting word to word, in a joint relation; this also is absurd, and self-contradictory. Again, if they mean, that the conjunction sometimes connects word with word, and sometimes, sentence with sentence; this ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... appeared before the magistrates and protested against the step being carried out. Twelve thousand cattle grazed upon the pastures which would be submerged, and the destruction of farms, homesteads, and orchards would be terrible. As to the blocking up of the river, the idea was absurd, and the operation far beyond the power of man. The butchers were supported by the officers of the militia, who declared that were the authorities to attempt the destruction of the dyke the municipal soldiery would oppose it ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... the more substantial part of the feast had been concluded, a band of dancing-girls and musicians made their appearance; followed by a puppet-show, which might have afforded amusement to a party of children, but which to Reginald's taste appeared absurd in the extreme. He felt far more disgusted with the performances of the nautch-girls, and he resolved to ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... union of fineness and placidness. The table stood spread in the usual place, warmth and comfort filled every corner of the room, and Pleda began to feel as if she had been in an uncomfortable dream, which was very absurd, but from which she was very ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... pages of human life are worth reading; the wise instruct; the gay divert us; the imprudent teach us what to shun; the absurd cure the spleen." ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... geological collection in Shrub Place, which was, no doubt, the most valuable private one in the kingdom. He was haunted by apprehension of its robbery by a gang of thieves, and asked what measures of safety would be advisable. The professor endeavored to expel the absurd idea by playful remark, and supposed himself somewhat successful. The next thing he heard was the intelligence of his death. It is quite evident that the fatal revolver was purchased for the defense of his treasures. What a lesson is this of the danger of excessive application, of unreasonable ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... clearly and indisputably shown that Tom's good qualities did not enhance his value one cent with Haley. And at the same time, Tom was worth more to Shelby than any half dozen negroes on the farm. How absurd! Was a more barefaced, palpable, glaring and malicious falsehood ever fabricated? I am sorry that justice to my countrymen, my friends and my relatives, requires at my hands, an expose of this low, scurrilous production, entitled "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... it absurd that a man should be blinded by the will and command of God, and afterwards be punished for his blindness. They, therefore, evade this difficulty, by alleging that it happens only by the permission ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... While, as a general rule, to justify an original suit declaration, "one other honor" should accompany either Ace or King, it is not necessary to blindly follow such a requirement to an absurd extreme. ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... but another persisted in her mind, and while she followed her master to his dormitory she looked him over with unconcealed curiosity, eager to read something in his face. What had taken place in Valldemosa, Virgin del Lluch? What had become of that absurd plan of which the senor had told her ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... liabilities? Than to do this, would it not be safer, for fear of overissues by unscrupulous creditors, to say that all debt obligations are obliterated in the United States, and now we commence anew, each possessing all he has at the time free from incumbrance? These propositions are too absurd to be entertained for a moment by thinking or honest people. Yet every delay in preparation for final resumption partakes of this dishonesty, and is only less in degree as the hope is held out that a convenient season ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... the Maestro, "that the other boy would not leave his sister and his father." He roused himself suddenly. "Perhaps I do Ken injustice. I want to meet the gallant commander of the Flying Dutchman. It seems absurd that such close neighbors have not yet met. Bring him—and Felicia, when you come again. We'll drink to the success of the Sturgis Water Line. And don't dare to tell me, next time, that you never heard of the scale of A flat major, my ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... It may seem absurd and trifling to dwell upon such slight particulars in this itinerary of a month among the Blue Noses (as our brothers of Nova Scotia are called); but to give a correct idea of this rarely-visited part of the world, one must notice the salient points ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... of your life, as they are the necessary steps to your fortune. A man of the best parts, and the greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience and observation, will be very absurd; and consequently very unwelcome in company. He may say very good things; but they will probably be so ill-timed, misplaced, or improperly addressed, that he had much better hold his tongue. Full ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the Norman historians, that while the Normans passed the night preceding the battle in prayer, the English spent it in feasting, is even more palpably absurd than the many other falsehoods invented for the purpose of damaging the character of Harold. The English army had marched nearly seventy miles in the course of two days, and had in addition laboured incessantly for many hours in erecting ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... anything absurd in his aspiring in those her circumstances to win her. He was a man of good breeding, and more than agreeable manners—with a large topographical experience, and a social experience far from restricted, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... physics, chemistry, logic, philosophy, and sociology, which springs up during adolescent years along with that in poetry and religion, is also a perversion of the sexual instinct:—but that would be too absurd. Moreover, if the argument from synchrony is to decide, what is to be done with the fact that the religious age par excellence would seem to be old age, when the uproar of the sexual ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... cried. "This sudden illness, coming at the end of their honeymoon, and involving ten days' more stay at an expensive hotel, will probably upset the curate's budget. He'll be glad to sell now. You'll get them for three hundred. It was absurd of Charles to offer so much at first; but offered once, of course we must ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... crowning the son during the life and reign of the father, which appears so absurd in speculation, was actually performed in the succeeding reign, and seems to have been taken up by those two princes of French birth and extraction, in imitation of the like practice in their native country,[42] where it was usual for kings grown old and infirm, or swayed by paternal ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... But he isn't the right man. It's absurd. Major Selby wrote to me from this address. This ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of consistent naturalism verges on the absurd. Eliminate selection of detail and personal vision, and art becomes not only coextensive with life, but shares its confusion and its apparent purposelessness. It loses all interpretative power and ceases to be art. Practically, however, the doctrine led to a very definite ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... it was a toy, an absurd and pitiful toy. Real genius and lunacy had many an over-lapping line, Jerry reflected as he approached to look inside. But he found Winslow in a room surrounded by a network of curving, latticed struts. The machine was no makeshift of a demented builder: ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... rate, it would be absurd to give my white furs, or my chiffon frocks to poor people," she concluded, "for they couldn't use them. Well, after the holidays, I'm going to see what I can do. But now, I must hurry, or ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... dream in which she stood before him, dishevelled and tearful, his Amanda, very intensely his Amanda, and said that she was dirty and shameful and spoilt for ever, because he had gone away from her. Afterwards the dream became absurd: she showed him the black leopard's fur as though it was a rug, and it was now moth-eaten and mangey, the leopard skin that had been so bright and wonderful such a little time ago, and he awoke before he could answer her, and for a long time he was full of unspoken answers explaining that in ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... complete way of clearing those suspicions up. Whom do they seize and search? Not Mr. Luker only—which would be intelligible enough—but Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite as well. Why? Mr. Ablewhite's explanation is, that they acted on blind suspicion, after seeing him accidentally speaking to Mr. Luker. Absurd! Half-a-dozen other people spoke to Mr. Luker that morning. Why were they not followed home too, and decoyed into the trap? No! no! The plain inference is, that Mr. Ablewhite had his private interest in the 'valuable' as well as Mr. Luker, and that the Indians were so uncertain as to which ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... golden cloud. All at once, however, one of the cherubic multitude pulled off his white gown, thus transforming himself before my very eyes into a commonplace youth of the day, in modern frock-coat and trousers of a decidedly provincial cut. This absurd little incident, I verily believe, had a sinister effect in putting me at odds with the proper influences of the Cathedral, nor could I quite recover a suitable frame of mind during my stay there. But, emerging into the open air, I began to be sensible that I had left a ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rise again later, and the "established order" does absolutely nothing to prevent its return. They are applying old remedies to new woes, remedies that have never cured (nor prevented) the least ill. The reestablishment of credit seems to me colossally absurd. One of my friends made a good speech against it; the godson of your friend Michel de Bourges, Bardoux, ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... editor, Mr. Clement K. Shorter, a series of French Canadian sketches of which the first was 'The Tragic Comedy of Annette'. It was followed by 'The Marriage of the Miller, The House with the Tall Porch, The Absurd Romance of P'tite Louison, and The Woodsman's Story of the Great White Chief'. They were begun and finished in the autumn of 1892 in lodgings which I had taken on Hampstead Heath. Each—for they were all very short—was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... gentleman from Virginia, if the people want judges to protect them? Yes, sir, in popular governments constitutional checks are necessary for their preservation; the people want to be protected against themselves; no man is so absurd as to propose the people collectedly will consent to the prostration of their liberties; but if they be not shielded by some constitutional checks, they will suffer them to be destroyed—to be destroyed by ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... soldiers in the army. But gradually the hero had grown stout, embedded in flesh, timorous, lazy and satisfied. In 1870, still a captain, he had been made a prisoner in the first encounter, and he returned from Germany quite furious, swearing that he would never be caught fighting again, for it was too absurd. Being prevented from leaving the army, as he was incapable of embracing any other profession, he applied for and obtained the position of captain quartermaster, "a kennel," as he called it, "in which he would be left to kick the bucket in peace." ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... it absurd when I describe a certain system that was a stepping stone to such splendid results. Were this peculiar system to be named, we should likely call it: ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... days of heat and smoke, and the isolation, had made life seem unreal, like a dream which holds one fast and yet is absurd and utterly improbable. Her past was pushed so far from her that she could not even long for it as she had done during the first few weeks. There were nights of utter desolation, when Manley was in town upon some errand which prevented his speedy return—nights ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... convinced him that this miserable engagement was a fact. But, of course, he would not in any way intimate to the captain that he believed in such nonsense, and therefore, in an offhand manner, he mentioned Olive's absurd anxiety in ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... Geraldine had never ceased to develop since their commencement, even when they had not been precisely cordial and sincere. He remembered strange things that he had read about love in books, things which had previously struck him as being absurd, but which now became explanatory commentaries on the puzzling text of the episode in the cab. It was not long before he decided that the episode in the cab ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... laughed Mart, to whose practical mind treasure stories were all absurd. "If there'd been any treasure there it'd ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... dreary than racing during this week's weather at Newmarket can scarcely be imagined! I have often heard Lord ARTHUR declare he was "as dry as a limekiln," and always thought it an absurd expression; and now I know it is!—for anything more wet than the Limekilns at Newmarket this week I never saw!—it's a mystery to me how the poor horses and men avoid catching cold, cantering about there without galoshes—though, by the way, Mr. HAMMOND had one "Galoche" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... more natural and easy method: public, favor, nabor, hed, proov, flem, hiz, giv, det, ruf, wel, has the plea of antiquity in its favor; and yet I am convinced that common sense and convenience will sooner or later get the better of the present absurd practice." ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... To me, Overton, the whole thing seems absurd and incredible. But I am your commanding officer. A charge has been made that apparently destroys your honor. Some seeming proof against you has been found. There is only one course open to me. I must detain you in camp until ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... an authority almost unlimited. Entangled in a chain of consequences which he could not easily break, he was inclined to go higher, and rather deny the first principle, than admit of conclusions which to him appeared so absurd and unreasonable. Agree-* to the ideas hitherto entertained both by natives and foreigners, the monarch he esteemed the essence and soul of the English government: and whatever other power pretended to annihilate or even abridge, the royal authority, must necessarily, he thought, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... your powers; every day puts new machinery at your disposal, and increases, with your capital, the vastness of your undertakings. The changes in the state of this country are now so rapid, that it would be wholly absurd to endeavour to lay down laws of art education for it under its present aspect and circumstances; and therefore I must necessarily ask, how much of it do you seriously intend within the next fifty years ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... would fain have gone off into some poetical quotation, such as 'The breaking waves dashed high' or 'The Pilgrim fathers, where are they?' but K., who had been there before, desired me not to be absurd, but to step quietly on to the half-buried rock and quietly off. Younger sisters know a deal, so I did as I was bidden to do, and it was just as well not to make myself hoarse ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... her. Their pastime is to imitate a flirtation, and to burlesque love, but neither of them is ever deceived into attributing the least reality to this occupation, which is often as harmless as it is always absurd. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... is it not?' he observed, having brooded awhile on the scene he had just witnessed: 'an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... oftentimes the most scientific museum admitted as genuine fragments of the human osteology what in fact belonged to the gigantic brutes of our earth in her earliest stages of development. This mistake would go some way in accounting for the absurd disposition in all generations to view themselves as abridged editions of their forefathers. Added to which, as a separate cause of error, there can be little doubt, that intermingled with the human ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... plain of the great river. The Rajpoots fear us, and even the Pindaries would not dare carry their raids into our country. That a small body of merchants and soldiers should threaten us seems, to me, altogether absurd." ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... were not everywhere permitted to remain a dead letter. In this reign [296:3] we meet with some of the earliest indications of that zeal for martyrdom which was properly the spawn of the fanaticism of the Montanists. In a certain district of Asia, a multitude of persons, actuated by this absurd passion, presented themselves in a body before the proconsul Arrius Antoninus; and proclaimed themselves Christians. The sight of such a crowd of victims appalled the magistrate; and, after passing judgment on a few, he ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... truth!" he retorted. "Do you not see how absurd it is, as used by your exponents of realism? With a bit of charcoal some Raphael draws a face with five lines, and some photographer snaps a camera at the same face. Which would any sane man choose as the best work of art? The five-line face, of course. Why? Is the work of the ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... not to discuss this subject," Karl answered coldly. "You don't seem to understand my position. Why, it is absurd; I have seen this woman every day for years; met her and her husband; we have been good friends. That's all, absolutely, and had I thought of anything else I should laugh at myself. In wealth, position, everything, she ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... were chafing into the bone,—that taught her the unutterable vileness and loathliness of bonds,—that convicted her, in being a slave, of being something foul upon the fair face of creation. She sat casting about for ways of escape. It was absurd to think she could again blunder on that secure retreat of the swamp before being overtaken; no boats ever passed along down the foaming river; if she were some little mole to hide and burrow in the ground till danger were over,—but no, she would rather front fear and ruin than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... unqualified success. Stillman stooped, shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed down intently at each pair of feet as it passed. Fifty men tramped monotonously by—with no result. Sixty. Seventy. The thing was beginning to look absurd. The ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... brought them to the station in the waggonette, had kissed Rose and purchased her ticket, and had then driven off to a creditors' meeting at Hanbridge. All the women felt rather mournful amid that bustle and confusion. Leonora had said to herself again and again that it was absurd to regard this absence of Rose for a few weeks as a break in the family existence. Yet the phrase, 'the first break, the first break,' ran continually in her mind. The gentle sadness of her mood noticeably affected the girls. It was as though they had all suddenly ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... that he now heard, lofty and bitter reason which, though it had fled, at present came back in all sovereignty. As he had done already after Lourdes, he protested against the glorification of the absurd and the downfall of common sense. Reason alone enabled him to walk erect and firm among the remnants of the old beliefs, even amidst the obscurities and failures of Science. Ah! Reason, it was through ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... coarse gibes and exclaim, "What could have induced him to paint such things? surely he must have seen that it was absurd. I wonder if the Impressionists are in earnest or if it is only une blague qu'on nous fait?" Then we stood and screamed at Monet, that most exquisite painter of blonde light. We stood before the "Turkeys," and seriously we wondered if "it was serious work,"—that ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... I mean, Florence, so don't pretend to be as absurd as Polly Adams and Molly are. Of course you and I both know that you three girls could have the pick of the town, if you chose; and I don't see why you take up with the daughter ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... back to how he had felt yesterday about Topham's warning and how he himself had held the absurd belief that if Don Cazar was going to be in trouble, Drew himself wanted to be there. That was yesterday. But still he pointed his horse south—to the place where Hunt Rennie would return, bringing ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... sums annually in case they would settle down and commence farming, and that they should be allowed to select their own locality within certain prescribed limits. The making of such offers to tribes of savages half subdued is absurd. The wisdom of this assertion has since been clearly shown, for hardly one article contained in the treaty there made has been carried out. The actions of those Apaches present at the council were trifling in the extreme, notwithstanding which, they were presented with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... young people's infatuation for each other going to last? If it is to be brief and evanescent, it would be absurd for me to take a black eye. But if it is to be stable and enduring, I should be ashamed to stand in the way of it. Knowing something of Lucy's history, how long do you think her fancy ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... honor, and the regard he bore to the rights of his fellow-creatures. 'It were endless, as well as shocking, (says an elegant writer,) to enumerate all the instances of persecution, or, in other words, of absurd tyranny, which at this time prevailed in Scotland. Even women were thought proper objects on whom they might exercise their ferocious and wanton dispositions; and three of that sex, for refusing to sign some test drawn ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... that this girl cared for him, but vice versa: either supposition, however, was as absurd as the other. As if Lanyard could love a woman who loved another! As if the name of love meant aught to him but the memory of a sweetness like a vagrant air of Spring that had breathed fitfully for a season upon the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph |
