"Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by this time threading in and out among the transports on our way to a vacant berth at no great distance from the "Victory," and in about five minutes afterwards the "Requin" and her prizes came to an anchor. It was amusing enough to see Master Bob strutting up and down the diminutive quarter-deck of the brig, his telescope tucked under one arm, and the cherished speaking-trumpet under the other, issuing his orders as to the stowing of the canvas and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become imbecile. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... merry crowd of cooks and pullers is working and frolicking in the kitchen, under Norah's watchful eye, a few of the company may be found in other parts of the old mansion, amusing themselves in their own fashion. Some of the very young guests are in the upper rooms playing childish games; and one or two older ones, who, as it happens, see quite enough of the kitchen in their own homes, prefer to enjoy themselves now in the ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... given a loud sigh, and burying his head once more in his hands had said no more. Then Jokisch had said good night. They could very well have gone home together—their roads only parted at the Bo[^z]a m[,e]ka[A] just before you come to the Przykop [Pg 135]—but Mr. Tiralla's company wasn't amusing enough. By Jove, the old man seemed ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... wearing anything on my head, and did not require it: these were, after a certain amount of haggling, surrendered, on condition that the sultan would exert himself a little more energetically on my account. The way he handled the musket was very amusing: he had never had one in his hands before, and could not get it to sit against his shoulder; and when his people placed it for him, he persisted in always cocking the wrong eye, which tickled Farhan's fancy so much, that he burst into loud roars of laughter. Nevertheless, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... glanced at my pistols. Fortunately, after a few minutes' conversation with the miller, the hunters withdrew, not without giving me to understand that, if they had formed a better opinion of my character, they went away with a most amusing idea of ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... pathetic. A fall on the ice which seemed to offer only a ludicrous contrast between the dignity and grace of the man erect and the ungainly attitude of the falling figure ceases utterly to be funny when it is seen to entail some physical injury; and wit which burns and sears is not amusing to its victim."[12] The ability to appreciate the humorous in life is a great gift and should be cultivated to a much greater extent than it is ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... secures this—a standard that might have satisfied Mark Pattison[C]—but also the painstaking love revealed in it, which, like every other true love, whether of men or books, will not give of that which costs it nothing. And, as a further title to our regard, Dr. Bliss is amusing at his own expense, and compares himself to Earle's "critic," who swells books into folios with his comments. Not that this humorous self-depreciation is to be pressed; for, unlike that critic, he is no ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither ill-temper nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even and constant flow of artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English affording Sofia considerable entertainment together with not a little food ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... performance has filled the stage with several large flags, a bouquet of flowers and, may be, a beautiful lady, all, possibly produced from a top hat. His performance is given to the accompaniment of amusing patter and is brightened with the colour of the articles ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... unreasonably gay almost immediately, though the beverage scarcely accounted for the delicate intoxication that seemed to creep into their veins. Yet it was sufficient for Siward to say an amusing thing wittily, for Sylvia to return his lead with all the delightful, unconscious brilliancy that he seemed to inspire in her—as though awaking into real life once more. All that had slumbered in her through the winter and spring, and the long, arid summer now crumbling ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... last show itself), and by other devices of what may be called Material Logic or Methodology. But only direct experience and personal manipulation of scientific processes, can give a just sense of their effectiveness; and to stand by, suggesting academic doubts, is easier and more amusing. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... palatable dinner. As it was, all I learned of her, to my sorrow, was a detestation of bad cookery, and a firm conviction that that which was exquisite was both wholesomer and more economical than any other. Dr. Kitchener, the clever and amiable author of that amusing book, "The Cook's Oracle" (his name was a bona fide appellation, and not a drolly devised appropriate nom de plume, and he was a doctor of physic), was a great friend and admirer of hers; and she is ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... realized that it was a kingfisher which had just crossed the pond. For a long time, standing quite still for fear a movement might betray her presence and cause the birds to fly away, she stood at the opening looking out at them. How pretty it all was in the morning light, gay, alive, amusing, something new to ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... Squire was born April 2, 1884, at Plymouth, of Devonian ancestry. He was educated at Blundell's and Cambridge University, and became known first as a remarkably adroit parodist. His Imaginary Speeches (1912) and Tricks of the Trade (1917) are amusing parodies and, what is more, excellent criticism. He edited The New Statesman for a while and founded The London Mercury (a monthly of which he is editor) in November, 1919. Under the pseudonym "Solomon Eagle" he wrote a page of literary criticism ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... (given to masturbation), studied by Macdonald in America, was similarly hyperaesthetic to the symbols of sexual emotion. "I like amusing myself with my comrades," he told Macdonald, "rolling ourselves into a ball, which gives one a funny kind of warmth. I have a special pleasure in talking about some things. It is the same when the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... what is the result? On the first occasion when Romayne presents himself I can place you in a position to become his daily companion. All due, Arthur, in the first instance, to my impatience of obstacles. Amusing, isn't it?" ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... father of one-half of the young men who now fill the middle and lower posts in the government of Japan." For the foreign side, see The Japanese in America, by Charles Lanman, New York, 1872, and in The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, London, 1894, and for an amusing piece of literary ventriloquism, Japanese Letters, Eastern Impressions of Western Men and Manners, London ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... acquiesced Gabriella, though without the enthusiasm of Algernon. "Do you remember what a belle she always was at the germans?" Though she was willing to admit that love was the ruling principle of life, it occurred to her that Algernon would be more amusing if he were less abundantly ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... evidences of the extent and power of the popular faith in the devil and in purgatory, and in their close connection with the present life, a faith nourishingly embodied in thousands of singular tales. Thomas Wright has collected many of these in his antiquarian works. He relates an amusing incident that once befell a minstrel who had been borne into hell by a devil. The devils went forth in a troop to ensnare souls on earth. Lucifer left the minstrel in charge of the infernal regions, promising, if he let no souls escape, to treat him on the return with ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... similar to the one I have just mentioned, of pretended loss of the use of the legs, or partial inability to walk; but as there was no marked difference in the cases, I need not notice them. There was, however, an amusing incident connected with one of them which I may mention. This prisoner was allowed a little porter every day, which was served out about one o'clock. One day at that hour he happened to be in an adjoining room ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... Buckingham Palace is as unlike a club as any place is likely to be. The Court is a separate part, which stands aloof from the rest of the London world, and which has but slender relations with the more amusing part of it. The first two Georges were men ignorant of English, and wholly unfit to guide and lead English society. They both preferred one or two German ladies of bad character to all else in London. George III. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... by 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 enter or disturb his den; and then, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... you meant the words you said, 'Twould be amusing to discover If she had really turned your head, And in her lawyer found a lover. Yet even should this be the case, You cannot well escape supporting This statement—that it's not the place In open ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... at the cover side, admirably dressed in a white cravat and white tops, which latter either he, or Robinson his valet, introduced, and which eventually superseded the brown ones. The subtlety of Brummell's sneers, which made him so highly amusing to the first rank of society, made him an object of alarm if not of respect to others. "Do you see that gentleman near the door?" said a woman of rank to her daughter, who had been brought for the first time to Almack's. "Yes! Who is he?" replied the young ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... own law. When it became independent Greece was extremely ill administered under a nominal parliamentary government by politicians who made use of the brigands for their own purposes. The result was the state of things described with only pardonable exaggeration in Edmond About's amusing Roi de la montagne. An authentic and most interesting picture of the Greek brigands will be found in the story of the captivity of S. Soteropoulos, an ex-minister who fell into their hands. It was translated into English under the title ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... sad and so serious, it would be amusing to watch the double game that Turkey is playing with the Powers, and how she is laughing in her sleeve at ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... tolerably often from Livingstone during my absence. His letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not indicated a vein of sarcasm deepening ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... now such an odd idea to have a man paid to make jokes, but in those days it was the fashion. Some man who had a gift for saying funny things used to live in the household of a great nobleman and be as amusing as he could, and for this he received payment. More's fool was often rather impertinent, and at one time when there was a big dinner, and one of the guests happened to have a particularly large nose, the fool said out loud: 'What a terrible nose that gentleman has got!' So all the family pretended ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... for the boards were well joined and strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I thought it would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a garden planted with flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old duenna of a directress, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... aspect. The old Spanish newspapers continued to be published, and some of them, especially El Comercio, were enterprising enough to print alternate columns of English and Spanish, and, occasionally, a few advertisements in very amusing broken English. Two rebel organs, La Independencia and La Republica Filipina, soon appeared. They were shortly followed by a number of periodicals of minor importance, such as El Soldado Espanol, La Restauracion (a Carlist organ), The Kon Leche, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... latter is the object of the present volume. Vast as the subject appears, it is easily reducible within such limits as will make it comprehensive without being wearisome, and render its study both instructive and amusing. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the execution. So intense was the popular feeling, that when the time came for sailing he thought it prudent to avoid Montreal and Quebec and to board his ship at Rimouski. This circumstance afforded material to the editor of the Mail, Mr Edward Farrer, for an amusing article, bearing the alliterative title, 'The Murderer's Midnight Mizzle, or the Ruffian's ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... communicative, and with a manner equally free from violence and insipidity. Few subjects can be started, on which he is not qualified to appear to advantage as the gentleman and scholar. If there is some tinge of pedantry, it is carried off by great affability of address and variety of amusing and interesting topics. There is scarce an author that he has not read; a period of history that he is not conversant with; a celebrated name of which he has not a number of anecdotes to relate; an intricate question that he is not prepared to enter upon in a popular or scientific manner. If an ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... friends! which was a jest many of them could not relish, as they had before tasted of the whipping; looking on the other side, he saw a fine house, and demanding whose it was, they told him it was the assembly-house. While he was thus amusing himself, reflecting on the variety of his fate, fortune was preparing a more agreeable scene for him. A person coming up to the window, asked where the runaway was, who had been brought in that day, Mr. Carew composedly told him he was the man; they ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... she stood aside to make way for them, declared that the bell sounded as though it were within her bonnet. When they reached the school they found that many a child was absent who should have been there, and Mrs. Fenwick knew that the truant urchins were amusing themselves at the new building. And with those who were not truant the clang of the new bell distracted terribly that attention which was due to the collect. Mrs. Fenwick herself confessed afterwards that she hardly ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... the tall thick grass was as full of hopping, fluttering, and creeping things as a wheat beard is of grain. These tiny little creatures seemed to find life so pleasant and comfortable, and the glisten and "swish" of John Goodnow's scythe so very odd and amusing, that they kept only a little out of his way as he mowed, and when he stopped to whet his scythe they flocked around and settled on his boot-legs, on the brim of his hat, and even in the creases of his shirt sleeves, to see how ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... very long. Paris is like the earth: one half of it is always illumined by the sun. On this fateful evening the incroyables and the merveilleuses were amusing themselves within the walls of the Palace ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... present have just had a jolly warm bath and feel a very clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she called him wogger wd give anything to be back in Gib and hear you sing Waiting and in old Madrid Concone is the name of those exercises he bought me one of those new some word I couldnt make out shawls amusing things but tear for the least thing still there lovely I think dont you will always think of the lovely teas we had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore well now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... at last ended by the Edict of Nantes issued after Henry of Navarre became Henry IV. of France. Besides the political bearing of the letters, they give a picturesque account of Court life at the end of the 16th century, the fashions and manners of the time, piquant descriptions, and amusing gossip, such as only a witty woman—as Marguerite certainly was—could inject into such subjects. The letters, indeed, abound in sprightly anecdote and small-talk, which yet have their value in lightening up the ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... collected in the following amusing lines a large number of the natural prognostics of rain. They are said to have been addressed to a lady, who asked the Doctor if he ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... ride upon your bicycle—that nice new one that you received as a present from—from your grandfather." Here the speaker paused and laughed as if the idea of Margaret Anstruther getting a bicycle from her grandfather was a distinctly amusing idea. "We will go far, far along to the blue distance—much farther than you ever went with Miss Bidwell—and we will have tea at the inn down by the river and come home by moonlight. We shall be quite safe, for Reginald and Lionel will ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... comedy and obvious farce—the humour that finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. How thoroughly wholesome it is too! To be at the same time merry and wise, says the old adage, is a hard combination. Dickens was both. With all his boisterous merriment, his volleys of inextinguishable laughter, he never makes game of what is ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... of civilization. We find it amusing to read that three or four hundred years ago bathing for pleasure was unknown, that when soap was first invented it was used only for washing clothes, and that even so late as the Seventeenth Century an author compiling a book of ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Westminster Review contains a pleasant scientific article under the title of "Shell Fish, their Ways and Works," in which the subject so much debated lately, whether the lower orders of animals are capable of reason, has some new and amusing illustrations. Generous and honestly disposed lovers of good dinners will be gratified with the notion that oysters receive as well as communicate a degree of happiness. The reviewer treats the subject in ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Verne have dreamed of encircling the globe with a motor cycle for emergencies he would have deemed it an achievement greater than any he describes in his account of the amusing travels of Philias Fogg. This, however, is the purpose successfully carried out by the Motor Cycle Chums, and the tale of their mishaps, hindrances and delays is one of intense interest, secret amusement, and incidental ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... Another incident was amusing in its way. Poor Mr. Irvine (who was going to be married) mended up a very much smashed greenhouse to greet his bride thereby with floral joy. Unluckily, the boys preferred broken panes to whole ones, so nothing was easier than by flinging brickbats and even ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... whom she might already have entrusted with her secret. There should be a strenuous effort first to bring her to her senses. Physical pain, he had noticed, had more effect on people's senses than any amount of argument. There had been a very amusing instance recently. One of his dancing girls named Malati had refused recently to sing and dance her best before a man to whom Gungadhura had designed to make a present of her; but the mere preliminaries of removing a toe-nail behind the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... girl, only a girl as the familiar phrase expresses it—a seventeen-year-old girl. She was reminded of a pathetic and familiar line, "A woman naturally born to fears ..." A wholesome reaction to pride followed and, suddenly, an amusing memory of Miss Blake, of her corduroy trousers stuffed into boots, of her broad, strong body, her square face with its firm lips and masterful red-brown eyes; a very heartening memory for such a moment. Here was a woman that had adventured without fear and had quite ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... his hands in expostulation. He liked Lisle, and Gladwyne was a distinguished guest. Batley seemed to find his confusion amusing. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... occasions was regulated on a scale of almost puerile splendor. The Banquet of Vows given at Lille, in the year 1453, and so called from the obligations entered into by some of the nobles to accompany Philip in a new crusade against the infidels, showed a succession of costly fooleries, most amusing in the detail given by an eye-witness (Olivier de la Marche), the minutest of the chroniclers, but unluckily too long to find a place in ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... figures in almost as distressing a state. A god only ordinarily maltreated could not excite the pity or interest of the Mexican Indian, whose every-day life has its own share of barked shins and painful adversities. It was amusing to find this village, hardly larger than many a one about the home of Mexican hacendados, the capital of a State. But the squads of rurales and uniformed police and the civil employees of Government were very solemn with their responsibilities. I had ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... Karl and the Crown Prince of Sweden, the latter expressing himself anxious to be the first to welcome Haakon VII into his capital. What became of Princess Maud's reluctance is not definitely known. It is understood that she never found life at the Danish court very amusing, and probably the prospect of exchanging Copenhagen for a city of less than half its size did not allure her. She must have realized that if she accepted a share of the Norwegian throne, she would be forced to abandon her favorite cure for ennui—frequent ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... spirit was amusing the crowd, a second medium brought out ten coconut shells, one of which was filled with blood and rice. These she placed on a winnower, which in turn was set on a rice-mortar. Soon the spirit Ilongbosan entered her body, and commanded the son of the patient to take some of the blood and rice ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... Guicciardini are absent from the pages of Nardi. He 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 sympathizes with Savonarola's ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... needle in hand as a child. He caricatured "Boney," borrowing not a little from Gilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis XVIII. trying on Boney's boots. Before the century was actually in its teens we believe that George Cruikshank was amusing ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... allowed]. Weekly baths were the regulation, but "it was often possible for pushing natures to get an extra bath on other days," by a method which works all the world over. At Burg "the new Commandant was a tall, well-made, soldierly figure. He had a strong face, curiously resembling an owl." An amusing little story follows as to the preciseness of the Commandant and Mr. O'Rorke continues: "It is pleasant to add that this new Commandant was in one respect just the man that was needed. From the first day he began to make the place hum, the foul ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... you to indignation. In his "Onyegin," Pushkin often pleases you, but he never stirs you. Pushkin is in literature what the polished club-man is in society. In society the man who can repeat the most bon-mots, tell the most amusing anecdotes, and talk most fluently, holds the ear more closely than he that speaks from the heart. So Pushkin holds his place in literature because he is brilliant, because his verse is polished, his language chosen, his wit pointed, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... unfortunately, the vine broke. The residue, unable to cross, remained on the hither side, and became afterwards the enemies of those who had passed over. Cusick anticipates that his story of the grape-vine may seem to some incredible; but he asks, with amusing simplicity, "why more so than that the Israelites should cross the Red Sea on dry land?" That the precise incident, thus frankly admitted to be of a miraculous character, really took place, we are not required to believe. But that emigrants ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put 'bodily into their souls' his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional ...
— The Republic • Plato
... while Morton Agnew was amusing himself with a game of solitaire, and chuckling with glee over the clever manner in which he had put Buck Badger in a "box," a rap sounded on the door of his room that made ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... snigger, crow, snicker, chuckle, cackle; burst out, burst into a fit of laughter; shout, split, roar. shake one's sides, split one's sides, hold both one's sides; roar with laughter, die with laughter. Adj. amusing, entertaining, diverting &c. v.; recreational, recreative, lusory[obs3]; pleasant &c. (pleasing) 829; laughable &c. (ludicrous) 853; witty &c. 842; fun, festive, festal; jovial, jolly, jocund, roguish, rompish[obs3]; playful, playful as a kitten; sportive, ludibrious|. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Hilario. The devil that possessed her, in consequence of the charm, began immediately to howl, and to confess the truth. "I have suffered violence," said he; "I have been forced hither against my inclination. How happy was I at Memphis, amusing my friends with visions! O the pains, the tortures which I suffer! You command me to dislodge, and I am detained fast by the charm below the threshold. I cannot depart, unless the young man dismiss me." So cautious, however, was the saint, that he would not permit the magic figures to be searched ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... but is improving. Good by, my dear." "Venice, November 30, 1807. I have your letter of the 22d. I have been for two days in Venice. The weather is very bad, which has not prevented my going through the lagoons to see the different forts. I am glad to see that you are amusing yourself in Paris. The King of Bavaria and his family and the Princess Elisa are also here. After December 2, which I shall spend here, I shall be on my way back, and glad to see you. Good by, my dear." "Udine, December 11, 1807. I have your ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... on famously. Betty and she have fallen in love with each other. It is amusing to hear Betty try to talk in the Wyandot tongue, and to see Myeerah's consternation when Betty gives her a ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... from something I had seen among Flaxman's drawings." John Flaxman was the son of a humble seller of plaster casts in New Street, Covent Garden. When a child, he was such an invalid that it was his custom to sit behind his father's shop counter propped by pillows, amusing himself with drawing and reading. A benevolent clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Matthews, calling at the shop one day, saw the boy trying to read a book, and on inquiring what it was, found it to be a Cornelius Nepos, which his father had picked up for a few pence at a bookstall. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... manufactory passed on very merrily. One day, however, when I was in my best singing vein, and everybody spoke of the extraordinary brilliancy of my voice, one of the journeymen said that I was a girl, and not a boy. He seized hold of me. I cried and screamed. The other journeymen thought it very amusing, and held me fast by my arms and legs. I screamed aloud, and was as much ashamed as a girl; and then, darting from them, rushed home to my mother, who immediately promised me that I should never ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... food of every kind, as much of it as we want, and constant variety, so that even the most fastidious cannot tire of it, good shelter, good clothing, good ventilation, exercise in the open air ad libitum, no over-exertion in the way of work, instructive and amusing books of every kind, relaxation in the shape of cards, chess, dominoes, halma, music, and story-telling—how should any one be ill? Every now and then I hear remarks expressive of perfect satisfaction with the life. Truly the whole secret lies in arranging ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... quite delightful at the eyrie. Cecil and Miss Violet have made fast friends, and Duke, the greyhound, looks on approvingly, though with an amusing tint of jealousy. The child has forgotten her wounds, has had some berries, cake, and ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... suffered nothing by the circumstance, it is to be regretted that he was still left under the charge of his mother: a woman without judgment or self-command; alternately spoiling her child by indulgence, irritating him by her self-willed obstinacy, and, what was still worse, amusing him by her violence, and disgusting him by fits of inebriety. Sympathy for her misfortunes would be no sufficient apology for concealing her defects; they undoubtedly had a material influence on her son, and her appearance was ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... beginning. From the concealment of her lofty bluebell Maya commanded a splendid view of the social life coming awake beneath. Watching it she forgot, for the moment, her anxiety and mounting homesickness. It was too amusing for anything to be safe in a hiding-place, high up, and look down on the doings ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... and "ordinarily do attend" in the laws meant. [b] The important question of how many absences from church would prevent a man from claiming that he was a regular attendant was thus left in the hands of judges, who were for the most part prejudiced or partial. Many amusing and exasperating legal quibbles occurred in the courts between judges, who were determined to sentence for neglect of public worship, and defendants, who were equally positive of their rights. Many dissenters ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... of a series of volumes, designed to contain the literary, political, and social reminiscences of Mr Jerdan during the last fifty years, has just seen the light. It will be found to be one of the most amusing books of the day, and also not without a moral of its own kind. We presume it is of no use to debate how far it is allowable to bring before the public matters pertaining to private life, and about which living individuals may feel a delicacy. The time for such questions seems ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... an amusing thing has happened. Mr. S—— said to Dr. ——, "We English have captured your Kronprinzessin Cecilie," without saying that he meant the ship, and not the lady. As the Government keeps all such disagreeable intelligence dark, it was news to the doctor, and he stoutly contradicted ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... capital, and has been repeatedly noticed by travellers; as, for instance, Kohl, Custine, &c. &c. Our readers will find the singular colour of the St Petersburg atmosphere (particularly observable in the winter, or at night) very well described in Sir George Lefevre's amusing "Notes of a Travelling Physician." This greenish tint is as peculiar to the banks of the Neva, as is the reddish-black to the neighbourhood of Birmingham or the Potteries; or the yellowish-brown (in November—"let rude ears be absent!") to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... as well as amusing, excellently describing the extravagance still practiced in middle-class Moslem families on the death of the pater familias. I must again note that Arab women are much more unwilling to expose the back of the head covered by the "Tarhah" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... guidance in the case of their best, or almost their best, prose writer, may perhaps be followed by a similar docility in the case of their best, or almost their best, poet, Poe, whom also England had preceded the United States in recognizing." This comical patron is all the more amusing from his ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... left my room this evening when I heard a pattering step and a hurried tap on my door. On my saying "Come," my opposite neighbor slipped in and turned the key in the lock. It was an unconventional and amusing performance, but I didn't mind. Somehow one couldn't mind anything with such a ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that gay thing, the indoor winter game, becomes rampant. It is there that the old euchre deck and the staring domino become fair and beautiful things; that the rattle of the Loto counter rejoices the heart, that the old riddle feels the sap stirring in its limbs again, and the amusing spilikin completes the mental ruin of the jaded guest. Then does the Jolly Maiden Aunt propound the query: What is the difference between an elephant and a silk hat? Or declare that her first is a vowel, her second a preposition, and her third an archipelago. It is to crown such ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... "You'll be out on Main Street, to-night, ready to tramp miles and miles, if anything amusing ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... Pretentious Young Ladies, Mascarille and Jodelet impose upon two provincial girls, in Bury-Fair, La Roch, "a French peruke-maker" succeeds in deceiving Mrs. Fantast and Mrs. Gertrude under the name of Count de Cheveux. The Count is very amusing, and though a coward to boot, pretends to be a great warrior. His description of war is characteristic; he states that "de great Heros always burne and kille de Man, Woman, ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... sound, startlingly akin to the agitated contents of over-ripe vegetables, came from somewhere in the internal mechanism of the small man. Inferentially, the inquiry was amusing to the questioned, likewise the immediately surrounding listeners who became suddenly silent, gazing at the stranger with the wonder of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... of self, of him, of a situation which to any wholesome masculine mind contained the germs of humour, romance, and all sorts of amusing possibilities, began to be a little irksome to him. And still her aloofness amused ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... against their wills they bequeath to their children a bodily dwelling of inferior material, and so poor in construction that it very soon falls into decay through disease, or in very early life becomes a tottering ruin. It would seem rather amusing to us if one should sit down and write his will and say: "I bequeath to my daughter Mary my yellow, blotched and pimpled complexion, resulting from my own bad habits of life. I bequeath to my son John, the effects of my habits of dissipation ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... the planter cried, impatiently. "Don't you see you can trust me? God! The recklessness, the folly of young people! Could you not leave this insurrection to your elders? Or perhaps you thought it a matter of no great importance, an amusing thing— " ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... presents a varied and select bill of fare, containing among other things, Part XIII. of Robert Dale Owen's novel "Beyond the Breakers," "The Fairy and the Ghost," a Christmas tale, with six amusing illustrations; a curious and interesting article on "Literary Lunatics," by Wirt Sikes, "Our Capital," by William R. Hooper, and very much more excellent matter in the way of stories ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... vividly recall how in 1875, when we were all returning en famille from a long summer holiday spent at Torquay in a pleasant house lent us in Meadfoot Bay, we all travelled together in a third-class carriage; how it fell to my lot to have the amusing of Hugh, and how difficult he was to amuse, because he wished to look out of the window the whole time, and to make remarks on everything. But at Lincoln I hardly remember anything of him at all, because I was at school with my elder brother, and only came back for the holidays; and we ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... came again in person and told dowager lady Chia that she would take Hsi Jen home to drink a cup of tea brewed in the new year and that she would return in the evening. For this reason Pao-y was only in the company of all the waiting-maids, throwing dice, playing at chess and amusing himself. But while he was in the room playing with them with a total absence of zest, he unawares perceived a few waiting-maids arrive, who informed him that their senior master Mr. Chen, of the Eastern Mansion, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... amusing to read the address I enclose. [Footnote: A newspaper cutting containing an address: From the Students of the Technological Institute of Harkov to M. M. Solovtsov, was enclosed.] My God, how low taste and a sense of justice have sunk! And these are the students—the devil ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... business was. He was 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 must (not being ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... sister Barbara are amusing. She was four or five years older than he, but being a woman had not had his opportunities. He begins by trying to teach her Latin. But the difficulties were many, and apparently she did not progress far enough to write in the tongue. At any rate, Ellenbog copied none of ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... Another amusing incident of the same campaign, and one which illustrates Lincoln's love of a practical joke, is given as follows: "Among the Democrats stumping the county at this time was one Dick Taylor, a most pompous person, who was always arrayed in the richest attire—ruffled shirts, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the only thing observed among the Negritos of Zambales which had the slightest resemblance to a game. Even the children, who are playful enough at times, find other means of amusing themselves than by playing a systematic game recognized as such and having a distinct name. However, they take up the business of life, the quest for food, at too early an age to allow time, to hang heavy, and hence never feel the need of games. Probably the fascination ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... the second day after his interview with Mrs. Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the little document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinking what he would do in the circumstances and how he would do it. He would not have said that Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemed very short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walked over to the Rue de l'Universite and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde's portress whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him that she had arrived, with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, ...
— The American • Henry James
... heart had been warmer toward his dead son George than to any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair as Andrew was dark, as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and dispiriting, as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother was slow and angular, as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was phlegmatic and sour—or so it seemed to the father and to ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... very day when Tommy Fox was amusing himself, and swallowing crickets as fast as he could grab them, his mother came out of her house and watched him for a little while. Tommy was feeling ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... thinks it fortunate for the Whigs 'that their very enemies acknowledge the finest women of Great Britain to be of that party;' and in an amusing but rather absurd way he discourses to maids, wives, and widows on the advantages of adhering to the Hanoverian Government. It is characteristic of Addison that a political paper like the Freeholder should be flavoured with the humour ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... staggered at this second blow. "Vewy amusing anecdote, indeed! Thank you, Lorton. Much obwiged, and all that sawt of thing, for the in-fawmation. Yaas, bai-ey Je-ove! And so I'll say good day. Good day, Lorton; good day to you!" and he started off, with a quick step, in the very opposite direction to that ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... head it may rack with a bilious attack, And your senses with toothache you're losing, Don't be mopy and flat—they don't fine you for that, If you're properly quaint and amusing! Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day, And took with her your trifle of money; Bless your heart, they don't mind—they're exceedingly kind— They don't blame you—as long as you're funny! It's a comfort to feel If your partner should flit, Though you suffer a deal, They ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... musicians of the old school, conducted occasionally at the Ancient Concerts and the Philharmonic, and his glees are still favourites after public dinners, and are sung by those old bacchanalians, in chestnut wigs, who attend for the purpose of amusing the guests on such occasions of festivity. The great old people at the gloomy old concerts before mentioned always pay Sir George marked respect; and, indeed, from the old gentleman's peculiar behaviour to his superiors, it ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conversation, Bluebell sat incapable of contributing to it. She would not have believed that his presence should afford her so little pleasure; but he seemed incongruous here, and was apparently amusing himself with the simplicity of her relatives. A clatter of tea-things filled her mind with dismay. The ideas of the "help" on the subject of cleanliness were in a very rudimentary stage, and that the cloth would be in anything but its first freshness, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... house, and all goes as merrily as it can, while the horrors which they have left behind them hang, like a black background, to all their thoughts. However, both Scoutbush and Campbell send as cheerful reports as they honestly can; and gradually the exceeding beauty of the scenery, and the amusing bustle of the village, make them forget, perhaps, a good deal which they ought to ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... the spirit of my contemporary group by looking over many documents, I find nothing more amusing than a plaint registered against life's indistinctness, which I imagine more or less reflected the sentiments of all of us. At any rate here it is for the entertainment of the reader if not for his edification: "So much of our time is spent in preparation, so ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... all the evening without ceasing, and at night accompanied Lucy to her room, there to go on talking still, enlarging, in a lively, amusing strain, on the adventures of their seaside life; the "fun," the "splendid bathing," the people who were there, their dress, manners, and conversation; all the flirtations she had observed, with the quick eye of a girl who as yet has no personal interest ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... Inn; and here was Herbert to sit, studious, for the next three years,—to sit there instead of at the various relief committees in the vicinity of Kanturk. And why could he not be as happy at the one as at the other? Would not Mr. Die be as amusing as Mr. Townsend; and the arguments of Vice-Chancellor Stuart's court quite as instructive as those heard in ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... old. But of all his lessons he liked geography best, he liked to find out places in the maps, and to know whereabouts the different countries were that he heard people talk of; and then his papa was often kind to tell him amusing stories about the inhabitants of those countries, and he also told him what things are brought from them: for instance, Charles knew that tea grows in China, which is in Asia; and sugar in the West-Indies; that the rose-wood that his mamma's chairs and card tables were made of, ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner
... see my nevy, while you and Peter are amusing each other," he ses at last. "I'll ask 'im to come round to-morrow and then you can ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs |
