"Absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this same village of Cloon appear as old friends in other of Lady Gregory's plays, with, as usual, nothing to do but mind one another's business. In The Jackdaw another absurd rumor is fanned into full blaze by greed; upon Hyacinth Halvey works the potent and embarrassing influence of too good a reputation. Still other plays attain a notable height of beauty—notably The ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... shower-bath to sentimentalism. The method of Meilhac and Halevy in sketching this couple is not unlike that employed by Mr. W.S. Gilbert in H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. Especially to be noted is the same perfectly serious pushing of the dramatic commonplaces to an absurd conclusion. There is the same kind of humor too, and the same girding at the stock tricks of stage-craft—in H.M.S. Pinafore at the swapping of children in the cradle, and in Tricoche et Cacolet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... years, the absurd Duke, transformed into a mere Porcus by his Circe in that scandalous miraculous manner, has lived; and so he still lives. And his Serene Wife, equally obstinate, is living at Stuttgard, happily out of his sight now. One Son, a weakly man, who had one heir, but has ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... infinite difficulty and pain, for the protection and help of its own weakness,"[36] I am aware that neither Mr. Grant Allen with his "hill-top" novels, nor Mrs. Mona Caird need be taken too seriously, but when the latter says, "There is something pathetically absurd in this sacrifice to their children of generation after generation of grown people,"[37] I would suggest that it would be still more pathetically absurd to see the whole upward-striving past, the whole noble future of the human race, sacrificed to their unruly wills and affections, ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... example, absurd that Mr. Moses Feldt, who was a Jew, should make her feel like that, but he did. And all the while that she was disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his back, she was as uncomfortable and "horrid" as possible. While this fact, of course, only served to make her horrider still. At present ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... morrow, nor of dyspepsia. We ate and drank without fear and without shame, in the sheer, abandoned ecstasy of celebration. And by means of motley paper headgear, fit only for a carnival, we disguised ourselves in the most absurd fashions, and yet did not make ourselves seriously ridiculous; for ridicule is in the vision, not in what is seen. And we danced and sang and larked, until we could no more. And finally we chanted ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... liquid sought by the old physical investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. They called this something, when regarded as a solid, the Philosopher's Stone. In the poem it is also called ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... been frightening the whole school, Miss Halcombe, by declaring that he saw a ghost yesterday evening," answered the master; "and he still persists in his absurd story, in spite of all that I can say ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... my things and depart to Brighton, and face whatever annoyance is awaiting me at Brighton." The prospect desolated her. She could not bear to leave Edwin Clayhanger without some definition of their relations, and yet she knew that it was hopeless and absurd to expect to arrive immediately at any such definition: she knew that the impetuosity of her temperament could not be justified. Also, she feared horribly the risk of being caught again in the net of Brighton. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... ladies did us the honour to express a particular pleasure in seeing us there: They had heard that there were great philosphers among us, and not at all knowing what were the objects of philosophical knowledge, they asked us several questions that were absurd and extravagant in the highest degree; one was, when it would thunder; and another, whether a spring of fresh water was to be found any where within the walls of their convent, of which it seems they were in great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... call the effect, and that we know not how they are connected. But there seems a natural propensity in the mind of man, to endeavour to account for every phenomenon that falls under his view, which has given rise to a number of absurd and romantic conjectures in almost every branch of science. From this source has risen the vibration of the fibres of the optic nerve, or the undulation of a subtile ether, or animal spirits, by which attempts have been made to explain the theory of vision; ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... for some years, and even now I cannot recall without a smile the absurd incompetency of every one connected with the institution and their utter ignorance of the art ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... irritated me. "How infinitely absurd!" I said. "Do they dream of sinking you into a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... from the sparkling effervescence of his gall, Swift's brain was as "dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." He hated absurdity— Rabelais loved it, exaggerated it with supreme satisfaction, luxuriated in its endless varieties, rioted in nonsense, "reigned there and revelled." He dwelt on the absurd and ludicrous for the pleasure they gave him, not for the pain. He lived upon laughter, and died laughing. He indulged his vein, and took his full swing of folly. He did not baulk his fancy or his readers. His wit was to him "as riches fineless"; he ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... is, there is nothing more absurd, than for a Man to set up for a Critick, without a good Insight into all the Parts of Learning; whereas many of those who have endeavoured to signalize themselves by Works of this Nature among our English Writers, are not only defective in the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... if Mr. Hastings had contended, as other men have often done, that the system of government which he patronizes, and on which he acted, was a system tending on the whole to the blessing and benefit of mankind, possibly something might be said for him for setting up so wild, absurd, irrational, and wicked a system,—something might be said to qualify the act from the intention; but it is singular in this man, that, at the time he tells you he acted on the principles of arbitrary power, he takes care to inform you that he was not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sits a wounded, and hatless, and handcuffed captive, his pockets bulging with money. Nobody suspects anything, no one calls the attention of a magistrate to this extraordinary demarche! It is too absurd! ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... father of ten sons (Gen. xlvi. 21), but here Bene Benjamin is used in its broad sense of "descendants," for in 1 Chron. vii. 6-12 we find that the "Bene" were sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. To hold that Joseph at 40 had a younger brother who was a great-grandfather, is, of course, utterly absurd. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... SOME most absurd and preposterous experiences were forced upon us by the habits and notions of the people. Amongst these I recall very vividly the story of Nelwang's elopement with his bride. I had begun, in spare hours, to lay the foundation of two additional rooms ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... you again as I told you before, Dam had not the faintest notion that I cared for him and would not have told me that he cared for me had I not shown it. Your belief that he didn't trouble to warn you because he had me safe is utterly wrong, absurd, and unjust. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... example of this superiority of attitude is to be seen in the people who are called pacifists. They are a peculiarly English type, and they are the most arrogant of all the English. The idea that they should ever have to fight for their lives is to them supremely absurd. There must be some mistake, they think, which can be easily remedied once it is pointed out. Their title to existence is so clear to themselves that they are convinced it will be universally recognized; it ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... the last question to me a circumstance rushed into my mind which—so far as the strict letter was concerned—might seem to demand 'Yes' instead of 'No.' But not in the spirit of your inquiry. It would be absurd to attach any importance to the ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... absurd, Wilbur!" said Margaret. "He is deeply, honestly, utterly in love with her, and she's worthy of every bit of it, if I'm any judge of a girl, and if she isn't careful she'll drive him away or anger him with her refusals to hear him. Why, she has refused even to see him, Mrs. Wells tells me, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... same way, although it would have been absurd in Willie to rack his brain for some scheme by which to restore such a grand building as the Priory, he could yet bethink himself that the hundredth room did not come next the first, neither did the third; the one after the first was the second, ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... were practised to compel uniformity. To that absurd shrine many thousand invaluable lives were sacrificed. Blessed be God, that happier days have dawned upon us. Antichrist can no longer put the Christian to a cruel death. It very rarely sends one to prison for refusing obedience to human laws ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... but they attacked his habits of speech; and he began to grow more and more alarmingly absurd in each fresh caricature of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of ankles that ever were seen. And your dear little nose is just a leetle—not red, no, certainly not red, but just delicately pink on its jolly little tip, having gallantly braved the north wind without a veil. To call you a bore is absurd. But men are such brutes, and it is as certain as that two and two (even at our public schools) make four, that ladies are—what shall I say?—not so popular as they always ought to be when they come amongst shooters engaged in their sport. Even at lunch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... overcome by the conviction—perhaps it was no more than a sensation—that that girl was mixed up in this thing, that her shadow was somewhere among the others flickering upon the sheet. I wanted to ask Fox if he knew her. But, then, in that absurd business, I did not even know her name, and the whole story would have sounded a little mad. Just now, it suited me that Fox should have a moderate idea of my sanity. Besides, the thing was out of tone, I idealised her then. One wouldn't talk about her in a smoking-room full ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... was proud of himself in the costume of a groom, partly because he was timid, he desired to get away, to go back to the stables. He walked up to the mirrors as if about to challenge them, peering in. He knew he would look absurd, and then knew, with shame, that he looked splendidly better than most of the gentlemen that Freda Buckler knew. He hated himself. A man who had grown out of the city's streets, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... pulpit-bible?—not to mention that they would have you believe, or be damned to all eternity, that every thought vibrated in the convolutions of your brain is known to him as well as to yourself! The thing is really too absurd! Ha! ha! ha! The man died—the death of a malefactor, they say; and his body was stolen from his grave by his followers, that they might impose thousands of years of absurdity upon generations to come after them. And now, when a fellow feels miserable, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... held her in my arms and whispered: "Don't be afraid! I am here." Oh, enchanting dream, so sweet that I laugh to think of it. [He laughs] But my God! My head reels! Why am I so old? Why won't she understand me? I hate all that rhetoric of hers, that morality of indolence, that absurd talk about the destruction of the world——[A pause] Oh, how I have been deceived! For years I have worshipped that miserable gout-ridden professor. Sonia and I have squeezed this estate dry for his sake. We have bartered our butter and curds and peas like misers, ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... into account before the war, have added largely to the development of the country and the production of wealth; but that the tremendous gains of free labor as against slave labor are to be placed principally to their intelligence and industry is too absurd to be seriously debated. The Charleston (S.C.) News and Courier, a pronounced anti-negro newspaper, recently made such a charge in all seriousness. The struggle for supremacy will largely come between the small white and black farmer; because each recurring ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... suggestions to the other magistrates, that were always approved; his courage in every danger; his mastery in every game, and his skill in every science. She was a little, vulgar-looking woman, with small cunning eyes, and a very round face, glistening and shining with its absurd obesity; and in shape and complexion bearing a close resemblance to a sun-flower stuck into a Dutch cheese. The awe with which she regarded her nephew arose partly from his size, but principally from the aristocratic loftiness of his birth—being the third in descent from the original ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... if you think such talk does not affect young girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation—" She broke off, wondering ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... will find novel colours in the work-a-day world and a sort of quaint music in the song of the city. Some of the glowing reds and greens and purples that you saw those grown-up children in the Village joyously splashing on their wooden toys or the walls of their absurd and charming "shops" will somehow get into the grey fabric of your life; and a certain eager urging undertone of idealism and hope and sturdy aspiration will make you restless as you follow your common round. Perhaps you will go back. Perhaps you will keep it ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... short letter we find the keynote of all our subsequent troubles. The complete and almost absurd confidence of the British, supported as it was by valour without wisdom or activity, was a "voice" and nothing more. Deeply have we suffered since those words were written, for an arrogant under-estimation of the enemy, a reprehensible delay in preparing for him, and ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... with perhaps the exception of a diver's costume, the most absurd-looking dress a man can get into. The stranger's suit was of black rubber, tightly strapped at the wrists and ankles, but it was his head-gear which gave the man his weird and uncanny effect. It was a combination of mask, goggles, hood, ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... and habit which were already an affliction in themselves. But Robert was persevering, and would always carry his point, let it be what it might, teasing and cajoling the mother until she granted his wishes however absurd they might be. He domineered over every one, mother, father, servant maids and servant men; he was the ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... of which he advanced Billali's allusions to her age and power. I was by this time too overwhelmed with the whole course of events that I had not even the heart left to dispute a proposition so absurd, so I suggested that we should try to go out and get a bath, of which we all ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... suppose," said her mother, for lack of a better answer. "Everything is so absurd in the West. But you were good to my daughter, and to poor, dear Andrew. If only he had been spared. Women are so unused to these business responsibilities, Mr. Conward. It is fortunate there are a few reliable firms upon which we can lean in ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... in the body. In the rest he expounds the nature of Sattwa which the commentator takes to mean buddhi or knowledge. He begins with the statement that Sattwasya asrayah nasti. This does not mean that the knowledge has no refuge, for that would be absurd, but it means that the asraya of the knowledge, i.e., that in which the knowledge dwells, viz., the body, does not exist, the true doctrine being that the body has no real existence but that it exists like to its image in a dream. The body being non-existent, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... once too absurd and too grave to be permitted to continue. "Sockless" Jerry Simpson now counseled the Populists to let the decision go to the courts. The judges, to be sure, were Republican; but Simpson, ever resourceful, ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... actors are abashed and hostile; most of them ridicule what they have to say. The press has been practically unanimous every morning in making fun of the piece and the author. If I enter a reading room I cannot pick up a paper without seeing: "Absurd as 'Hernani'; silly, false, bombastic, pretentious, extravagant and nonsensical as 'Hernani'." If I venture into the corridors of the theatre while the performance is in progress I see spectators issue from their boxes and slam the doors indignantly. Mlle. Mars plays her part honestly and faithfully, ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... whether there is a God or not, whether there is another life or not; satisfied that the scheme of atonement is a mistake, that the innocent cannot, by suffering for the guilty, atone for the guilt; satisfied that the doctrine that salvation depends on belief, is cruel and absurd; satisfied that the doctrine of eternal punishment is infamously false; satisfied that superstition is of no use to the human race; satisfied that humanity is the only true and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the gravity that had fallen upon Seth Winter's face her own sobered, though she had to turn her eyes away from the absurd appearance of poor Monty's waving legs. Then the legs ceased to wave and hung limp ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... figures, representing the ancient kings or princes of Teneriffe, each of which has the shin-bone of a man's leg in his hand. This image is held in great honour by the lower classes of people, who tell many absurd stories of its first appearance in the island, the many miracles she has ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... religious origins is somewhat complex, and yields many aspects for consideration. It is only, I think, by keeping a broad course and admitting contributions to the truth from various sides, that valuable results can be obtained. It is absurd to suppose that in this or any other science neat systems can be found which will cover all the facts. Nature and History do not deal in such things, or supply them for a ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... true it is exquisitely pretty and touching; if not, it is highly absurd and ridiculous, but the same may be said of many hypothetical historical incidents. At all events, the financial arrangements which followed upon the discovery of the MS. and the price demanded for it ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... such small men before, and there was something so absurd to him in the sight, that he burst ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... long-case clock, and inserted into its dial was a ruddy, round, slant-eyed, joyous-painted face, that wagged over with the most ridiculous ogle when the clock ticked, and back again with the same absurd glad-eye at the next tick. All the time the absurd smooth, brown-ruddy face gave her an obtrusive 'glad-eye.' She stood for minutes, watching it, till a sort of maddened disgust overcame her, and she laughed at herself ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... paused. I lacked the necessary conviction. After all I was the average citizen, with the average incredulity of the far-fetched, the melodramatic, the absurd. To connect the head waiter's panic at my departure with the episode in my room, to declare that the floor clerks had been called from their posts for a set purpose, and the halls deliberately cleared for the thief, were flights of fancy that were beyond ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... that it did not transcend the Constitution; that no man was coerced to take the oath; and that to make pardon conditional upon taking it was strictly lawful; that a test of loyalty was necessary, because it would be "simply absurd" to guarantee a republican form of government in a State "constructed in whole, or in preponderating part, from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected;" that the pledge to maintain the laws and proclamations as to slavery ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... for the night. When he looked through his telescope his eye was dazzled by a light which obliged him suddenly to close it and lift his head. At first he thought that he had reached the fabulous region of eternal fire, but this he knew to be absurd; and, besides, the light was not that of fire or heated substances. It was pale, colorless; and although dazzling at first, he found, when very cautiously he applied his eye again to the telescope, that it was not blinding. ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... replied. "I did not realize that—But it's too absurd—it can't be! You did not mean what you said this afternoon. It can't be you're writing to that ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... was the custom of the Countess, when out for an airing in her carriage, to be constantly asking such questions as "Who was that person that met us just now? What is the name of this bridge? What is written on that sign-board?" On this occasion, however, Lizaveta returned such vague and absurd answers, that the Countess ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... also been the absurd suggestion that the impediment was Swift's knowledge that both he and Stella were the illegitimate children of Sir William Temple—a theory which is absolutely ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... talking about taking the law into your own hands. I, you see, have taken it into mine. What do you propose to do? I am quite at your service. Your idea of arresting me on a charge of receiving stolen goods is, if you will allow me to say so, absurd. You could no more make me guilty of that than you could hang me for the deaths of those foolish spies of yours. Now, what is it to be? Pardon me, Herr von Hamner: the bracelets inconvenience you. Allow me." He took the handcuffs between his finger and thumb, shook the chain, and ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... that her mind was inferior to man's mind in kind and quality, and that she could not do the work required. In the presence of thousands of young women carrying all kinds of university work with credit and honor such charges become absurd. The belief that woman's health could not stand the strain fails for the same reason. The fear that she would be less likely to marry; or marrying, would be less likely to have children, has been seen to have some body of fact behind it; but we have seen also that university students are recruited ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... yet but a beginner," thought the assembled officials as they watched his agitation. "Otherwise how could he allow such an absurd attempt to clear an accused thief to affect him so deeply, or disturb ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that a purchaser would find it so difficult to prove the falsity of any of the statements upon which he had relied in purchasing the stock that the vendor would practically be immune, but in these days of muck- raking and of an hysterical public conscience prosecutors sometimes go to the most absurd lengths and spend ridiculous sums of money out of the county treasuries ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... haughty, as he imagined when he first beheld her at the ford. He had had doubts of that after her kindly treatment of his dying dog Mike. And now to-day he knew that such an opinion did her an injustice, was absurd. ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... feel imperiously bound to enforce the penalty." So that there were some special, as well as general grounds for disaffection among these ungrateful favorites of Fortune, the slaves. Then there were fancied dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen—since you cannot keep men ignorant without making them unreasonable also—that on the ensuing Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that every black ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... could not be by evolution, for creation by evolution could not, and can not be; because that which is not in a thing can not be evolved out of it, unless you can get more out of a thing than there is in it; which is absurd. So evolution is a negation of the doctrine of a creation. And the doctrine that there is nothing but matter, and that matter is eternal, is a denial of creation by intelligence or otherwise. The infidel says, life began to be; for there was a time when there was no life. But they say matter is ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... motley stories; here and there instructive, but mostly absurd. I shall now endeavour to sift out the rubbish from this patristic and legendary heap, and perhaps we shall find more of value than ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... 'Don't be absurd; it's simply wicked to talk like that. How do I know what you are doing? As if I can leave you for an hour in uncertainty! Your face! If you don't open at once I shall believe there's something seriously wrong: I shall ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... prolonged, Man's sorrow is always barren and profitless. It cannot restore to a disconsolate mother, bemoaning her untimely loss, the son for whom she weeps, or give him back to his friends.... Let the words written by Dujarier: 'I am about to fight a duel for the most absurd and futile of causes,' never be effaced from our memory. Farewell, Dujarier! Rest in peace! Let us carry away from the graveside the hope that the recollection of so lamentable an end will last long enough to shield others from a similar one. Let all mothers—still astounded ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the veteran keeper donned a helmet, or a gray three-cornered hat, of so ridiculous a shape—so royally absurd—that for my life, when he was thus attired, I could not, even in the presence of his master, refrain from laughter; then he would tell you, with a gravity it was impossible to disturb, that it had taken him fifteen ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... "Why," she exclaimed, "how absurd of me not to have thought of it before! But, you see, Mr. Colston always speaks of you by your first name. You ought to hear how he ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... only." An increase of 20 per cent. in ten years, by procreation, would therefore be the very utmost that he would allow to be possible. We have already shown, by reference to the census of the slave population, that this doctrine is quite absurd. And, if we suppose it to be sound, we shall be driven to the conclusion that above eight hundred thousand people emigrated from Europe to the United States in a space of little more than five years. The whole increase of the white population from 1810 to 1820 was within a few hundreds ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that; but the two hundred years have passed since then. Yes; it is absurd and impossible, I know, but nothing is truer. That banjo, which was made last year, existed in the sixteenth century, and has been rotting ever since. Stay. Give it to me a moment, and I'll convince you. You recollect that your name and ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... poor Jessica. As July drew on, Jessica began to look cadaverous, ghostly. She would assuredly break down long before the time of her examination. What a wretched, what an absurd existence! Her home, too, was so miserable. Mrs. Morgan lay ill, unable to attend to anything; if she could not have a change of air, it must soon be all over with her. But they had no money, no chance ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... bill of many years' standing and absurd provisions, has just passed to a second reading in the House of Commons. Although it was treated as a joke by all parties, it served to emphasize the fact that Sir Vernon Harcourt and the Liberals are opposed to any advance ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... that any Dame Wood change of choice a well mixt white and red For bloodles palenes, if she striv'd to move? Her painting then is to shun motion, But if she mended some defects with it, Breedes it more hate then other ornaments; (Which to suplie bare nature) Ladies weare? What an absurd thing is it to suppose; (If nature made us either lame or sick,) We wood not seeke for sound limmes, or for health By Art the Rector of confused Nature? So in a face, if Nature be made lame, Then Art ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... here, especially as it has been urged against Hamlet, and that is the introduction of low characters and comic scenes in tragedy. Even Garrick, who had just assisted at the Stratford Jubilee, where Shakespeare had been pronounced divine, was induced by this absurd outcry for the proprieties of the tragic stage to omit the grave-diggers' scene from Hamlet. Leaving apart the fact that Shakespeare would not have been the representative poet he is, if he had not given expression to this striking tendency of the Northern races, which shows ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Quixotic, absurd, romantic, ridiculous; from Don Quixote, the hero of a celebrated fictitious work, written by Cervantes, a distinguished Spanish writer, and intended to reform the tastes and opinions ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... the animal nature of the contagion of disease; many have assumed it to be developed from animal substance, and that it is itself animal and possesses the property of life. I shall not waste time in refuting these absurd hypotheses." The theory of a living contagion was too simple, and not sufficiently related to the problems of the universe to ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... pressing it to the lips of the sufferer, "it'll set you up like a new pin." So the schoolmaster drank and was comforted, and Coristine took a nip also, and they felt better, and laughed and joked, and said simultaneously, "It's really too absurd ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... said Hegel, "as storms preserve the sea from putrescence." "War is an integral part of God's Universe," said Moltke, "developing man's noblest attributes." "The condemnation of war," said Treitschke, "is not only absurd, it is immoral."[7] These brave sayings scarcely bear calm and searching examination at the best, but, putting aside all loftier appeals to humanity or civilisation, a "national regenerator" which we have good reason to suppose ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... I could hear Jimmy calling his captors by all the absurd and ugly names he could invent, the pain and aching seemed to come back into my wrists and ankles, making me groan as I sat and clasped them, a little use having begun to creep back into ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... may however be said to come from Ireland, and to consist of mechanics of the most inferior class, and of labourers. These are all impressed with the most absurd notions of the riches of America, and on landing at Quebec often refuse high wages with contempt, to seek the Cathay of their ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... conventions, and mass-meetings; opposition and curiosity yielding finally to sympathy and aid. But for years the meetings were often broken up by mobs. The effort to uproot slavery was pronounced either absurd, treasonable, or irreligious; that it would incite insurrection of the slaves; or if successful, bring great responsibility upon the Abolitionists, and disaster ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... age who surpassed him in any exercises—though I never saw him so for, when in rowing on the lake, or in shooting with bows and arrows, or in other sports, some of our neighbors' sons have surpassed him, he never seemed to mind at all; and it seems almost absurd to think that he could be jealous of a great leader, who has done brave deeds ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... to submit to all this, and he did so without much opposition; but it all determined him to commence a steady opposition to the false principles which prompted such absurd observances. As to Uncle Joseph, he was indignant, and failing to gain admittance by way of the front door after one or two trials, determined not to go near his sister and nieces, a promise which he kept for a few ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... as I was kept at a distance, prevented from studying the real character of the woman. I required to put her into play. And I ask you whether any more innocent way of doing so could be found than talking to a woman, and letting her talk, about an absurd fancy she had for a couple of ancestors of hers of the time of Charles I., and a poet whom they had murdered?—particularly as I studiously respected the prejudices of my host, and refrained from mentioning the matter, and tried to restrain Mrs. Oke from doing so, in the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... the machinery by which justice is administered. If so, it's all right in its proper place; but what on earth is the good of keeping it up out of court? Sitting here on the bank of a west of Ireland river, with a large salmon lying dead at our feet, it really is rather absurd to ask ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... nobles in possession of fiefs, of ecclesiastical dignitaries, and of a small number of municipal officers. It claimed to elect the deputies to the States-general according to the ancient usages. Mirabeau's common sense, as well as his great and puissant genius, revolted against the absurd theories of the privileged: he overwhelmed them with his terrible eloquence, whilst adjuring them to renounce their abuseful and obsolete rights; he scared them by his forceful and striking hideousness. "Generous friends of peace," said he, addressing the two ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... after he entered upon his charge, asked the people about him to show him the tree on which grew the fine istamalee* rice which they used at Lucknow." "There is no question, sir," said Bukhtawar Sing, "that is too absurd, for these cockney gentlemen to ask when they enter upon such revenue charges as these. They are the aristocracy of towns and cities, who are learned enough in books and court ceremonies and intrigues, but utterly ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... the contrast between the arrogance of their swords and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. But these Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold had the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to be taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into position with an almost startling dignity ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... of glorification such as it is not easy to explain. The evening came. The conqueror had a mistress whom he loved, and whom he was eager to see again—a sort of Madame de Sabran—with the exception that the husband thought proper to be jealous, while ours, as you know, is not so absurd. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... so much importance to the selection of animals and plants, it may be objected that methodical selection would not have been carried on during ancient times. A distinguished naturalist considers it as absurd to suppose that semi-civilised people should have practised selection of any kind. Undoubtedly the principle has been systematically acknowledged and followed to a far greater extent within the last hundred years than at any former period, and a corresponding result has been gained; ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... before putting the intended teachers to the test, commit their sons to the charge of untried and untested men. If they act so through inexperience it is not so ridiculous; but it is to the remotest degree absurd when, though perfectly aware of both the inexperience and worthlessness of some schoolmasters, they yet entrust their sons to them; some overcome by flattery, others to gratify friends who solicit their favours; acting just as ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... lies on the borders of Tartary? There, a barber is minister; and you, forsooth, will make a fireman the confidential friend of the empress! Why, Scheherezade would not have dared to relate such an absurd fairy tale to her sleepy sultan, as you, sir, now seek to ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... rate we have been doing for the last week. What do you suppose the people at home would think of us? Why, I didn't expect to hear any of their sermons when I came. I as good as promised Flossy that I would frolic about with her all the time, and now the absurd little dunce acts as if she were under a wager to be on the ground every time the bell rings! I've declared off. I can tell you to an item just what I am going to hear. There is a performance to come off this afternoon some time that I shall be ready for. I loitered behind ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... "It looks absurd at first sight. I remember the time poor Mrs. Dillon sent out her photographs, scattered a few hundred of them among the police and the miners of California, in the hope of finding her lost son. That was done with my advice. She had her first ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... hour, and then I was convicted and sentenced to execution, with an intimation from the judge that it would be perfectly absurd of me to dream, for one moment, of a remission of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... drink, and sleep, are merely salutary precautions for maintaining the men in health and strength to do their work, it is obvious that the observance of these abstinences or taboos after the work is done, that is, when the game is killed and the fish caught, must be wholly superfluous, absurd, and inexplicable. But as I shall now show, these taboos often continue to be enforced or even increased in stringency after the death of the animals, in other words, after the hunter or fisher has accomplished his object by making ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... as I told you. This absurd young man does not know that he ever heard of a woman in the middle of a fire before; he does not know that he ever learned to fear, so he says: 'I am not afraid of a little fire; I will go and get your bride for you if you will give me your ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... piece of advice, at the last moment, which was as common-place and natural, and which I ought to have expected, enervated me, and, in spite of myself, plunged me into a state of perplexity, from which I could not extricate myself. I remembered those absurd stories which we hear among friends, after a good dinner. What would be that last trial of our love for her and for me, and could that love which then was my whole life, come out of the ordeal lessened ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... gets into, the blunders he is incessantly committing from his imperfect knowledge of the languages of the various nations among whom he is thrown, the continual equivoque and play upon words, his absurd misconceptions of the orders he receives, his buffetings, bastinadoes, feasts, imprisonments, and escapes, the odd satirical remarks elicited by the different objects, places, and strange fashions he encounters,—all afforded opportunities to the ingenious ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... admit, has a perennial interest for all of us. Personal chat is the current coin of conversational capital. Society lives by gossip as it lives by bread. The most absurd rule in the world is to avoid personalities in conversation. To annihilate gossip would be to cut conversational topics in half. There is musical gossip, art gossip, theatrical gossip, literary gossip, and court gossip; there is political gossip, and fashionable gossip, and military gossip; ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... in women. They do what they see others do, they think what they are told to think—like a flock of sheep. Their hair is a joke—absurd frizzles and ear puffs that are always imitated. Their shoes are a tragedy. Their corsets are a crime. But they would die rather than change these ordered abominations. So would I. I flock with the crowd. I hobble my skirts, wear summer furs, powder my nose, wave my hair (permanently ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... sense of some absurd discrepancy, of some unseemly occupation, in her thus dwelling on the wishes and the burdens of a sous-officier of Light Cavalry, she laughed a little, and put the White Chief back once more in his place. Yet even as she set the king among his mimic forces, the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... he went and kicked up clouds of dust with his bare feet. As Van watched the sway of his shoulders and the unhampered tread of his unshod feet he could not but recall the days when he, too, had gloried in going barefoot. He smiled at the memory which now seemed so absurd. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... life with distaste for safe ways, because the sure profits are slow; if the opinion becomes prevalent that all business is great, only as it tends to the uncertain, the extravagant, and the romantic; then we may stay our hand at once, nor waste labor in absurd expostulations of honesty. I had as lief preach humanity to a battle of eagles, as to urge honesty and integrity upon those who have determined to be rich, and to gain it by ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... absurd to write "Dear Gallery"),—In 1914 or 1915 I brought you a small oil painting, which you agreed to sell or return to me. As I haven't heard from you since, I conclude that there has been nothing doing in such pictures and ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... strong hand, it is therefore unnecessary for nations to be ready to defend their rights. These persons would do irreparable harm to any nation that adopted their principles, and even as it is they seriously hamper the cause which they advocate by tending to render it absurd in the eyes of sensible and patriotic men. There can be no worse foe of mankind in general, and of his own country in particular, than the demagogue of war, the man who in mere folly or to serve his own selfish ends continually rails at and abuses other nations, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... I'm angry! Who wouldn't be? Of course I'm disappointed! Did I expect this twenty years ago? Yes, we ought to save more. But we don't, so there you are! I'm bound to worry! I know I should be better if I didn't smoke so much. I know there's absolutely no sense at all in taking liqueurs. Absurd to be ruffled with her when she's in one of her moods. I don't have enough exercise. Can't be regular, somehow. Not the slightest use hoping that things will be different, because I know they won't. Queer world! Never really what you may call happy, you know. Now, ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... once that the Count was annoyed. He was standing in the middle of the salon, fingering his sword-hilt in a manner which expressed the most absurd irritation. So I said immediately that I was awfully sorry, but it seemed so difficult to get anything to eat in Rome at that time of year, that the head-waiter was really responsible, and wouldn't he ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... your theory about seeing them again is absurd," asserted George. "I'll never forget that wretch, Girty, as he spoke to Nell. Why, she just wilted like a flower blasted by fire. I can't understand why he let me go, and kept Jim, unless the Shawnee had something ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... cults of ancestors to public religion? Do men after death become gods? Euhemerus of Messenia tried of old to rationalize the Greek myths by supposing that the Olympian gods were deified men. Such a theory, like its modern rival of the sun-myth, may of course be pushed till it becomes absurd; yet in India critical observers, like Sir Alfred C. Lyall, attest innumerable examples of the gradual elevation into gods of human beings, the process even beginning in their lifetime. There a man wins local fame as an ascetic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... take the place of his general, disgraced and imprisoned? Did he not accept willingly a position, the difficulties of which he had already recognised? He says himself that his predecessor was wrong to have stayed in so absurd a position, and why did he voluntarily put himself there, where he blamed another for remaining? If the new delegate hoped by his own cleverness to modify the position, he ought not, the position remaining the same, accuse anything but his own incapacity. In a word, the conclusion ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... Lynar had managed such a difficulty. He says seraphically, in a Letter to a friend, which the Prussian hussars got hold of, 'The idea of it was inspired by the Holy Ghost:' at which the whole world haha'd again. For it was a Convention vague, absurd, not capable of being executed; ratification of it refused by both Courts, by the French Court first, if that was any matter:—and the only thing now memorable of it is, that IT was a total Futility; but, that there ensued from it a Fact still of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... 'How absurd to walk about on such a pouring night, dressed up like that,' she remarked crossly, and roughly pulled off the wreath as she spoke, to place it on her own daughter. As she did so the roses became withered and brown, and the birds ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... starting again," said he, and the two hastened forwards to take their places at the tail of the absurd procession. ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... the fact by reading the proclamation of the "sous-comite en exercice." What is the "active under-committee?" I admit that I am in total ignorance on the subject; but, what does it matter! In these times when committees spring up like mushrooms, it would be absurd to allow oneself to be astonished at a committee—and especially a sub-committee—more or less. Here is ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... claim to have invented the business of the scene. I may have added to it by my imaginative participation. In any case my understanding as interpreter was the prime essential—a fact that shows how absurd it is to speak of "photographic detail" in literature, or indeed to attempt a proper differentiation between realism ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... was a good person, it was all that she for her part had to ask; and rather to dread the arrival of the guardian uncle who she foresaw would regard Mr. Pen's marriage in a manner very different to that simple, romantic, honest, and utterly absurd way in which the widow was already disposed to look at questions of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from the atoms, these pieces being then projected into space with enormous force and velocity. There are theories galore of the structure of the atom; but as Prof. E.P. Lewis has said, most of these theories are so impossible as to be absurd, or so speculative that "they suggest no experimental tests for their validity."[2] Just at present Rutherford's theory of the structure of the atom is quite popular. This postulates a nucleus ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... just fancy! I feel friendship for him. He is at least my most cherished—habit. My suspicions were absurd, thou wert right in combating them. By way of precaution, however, make a tour of the corridor between midnight and two o'clock. Now come and double-lock me in my room, for I feel a paroxysm coming on. To-morrow at five o'clock thou wilt come to ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... if you knew how it acts on my nerves!" the young man groaned. "You speak as if you had done it on purpose—to carry out your absurd threat." ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... not every wine, so it is not every life, that turns sour from keeping, Serious gravity I approve of in old age, but, as in other things, it must be within due limits: bitterness I can in no case approve. What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive. For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more journey money, the less there remains of ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... more general considerations, it discusses the two pretexts of the Spaniards for their sole sovereignty in the West Indies,—the Papal donation, and the right of first discovery. Both are dismissed as absurd; and the document ends with an appeal to the common interests of Protestantism throughout Europe. Even the recent massacre of the Vaudois Protestants is brought into ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... was, 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 rather ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... not be thought, however, that I deny the value and certainty of chemical theories, or that the atomic theory seems to me absurd, or that I share the Epicurean opinion as to spontaneous generation. Once more, all that I wish to point out is that, from the point of view of principles, chemistry needs to exercise extreme tolerance, since its own existence depends on a certain number of fictions, contrary to reason and experience, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... romantic origin of the Clan Mackenzie, though vouched for by certain charters and local histories, is now believed to be fabulous. It seems to have been first advanced in the 17th century, when there was an absurd desire and ambition in Scotland to fabricate or magnify all ancient and lordly pedigrees. Sir George Mackenzie of Tarbat, the Lord Advocate, and Sir George Mackenzie, the first Earl of Cromartie, were ready to swear to the descent of the Scots nation from ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... stories of this series is "The Devil's Visit" (Jannsen: Veckenstedt), which, notwithstanding its subject, has an absurd resemblance in some of its details ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... version which was composed in the eclipse of heart and taste, on the restoration of the Stuarts; and if such verses could then pass for serious poetry, they have ceased to sound in any ear as other than a burlesque; the associations which they arouse are only absurd, and they could only have continued to ring in his memory through their ludicrous doggerel. * Here is the old stanza. Let whoever is disposed to think us too hard on Captain ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... This is absurd; for since, though having faith, we cannot have virtues, how should we have faith? Is there a greater distance between infidelity and faith ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... in Russia, or had he had the experience which was his in the following twelve months, he would not have asked so absurd ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... Egyptian goddess, Isis, and that this place had once been sacred to some form of her worship, or at any rate to that of a Nature goddess with like attributes, a suggestion which the other learned gentlemen treated as absurd. They declared that Isis had never travelled into Britain, though for my part I do not see why the Phoenicians, or even the Romans, who adopted her cult, more or less, should not have brought it here. But I know nothing of such matters and will ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... should pretend that the pantomime art is superior to the actor's power of representation in tragedy or comedy, or that such an entertainment of dumb show ought to exclude that of speaking characters; nothing could be more ridiculous or absurd than ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... which, if it were not so common as it is, I would not mention it, it is so ridiculous—how can I come to Christ so unclean and so guilty, nothing but condemnation in me? If I were such and such, I would come to him. Alas! there can nothing be imagined more absurd, or contrary even to sense and reason. If thou wert such and such, as thou fanciest a desire to be, thou wouldst not come to Christ; thou neededst him not. That which thou pretendest as a reason why thou shouldst not come, is the great reason pressed ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... that arch enemy of all that was respectable in Barchester, of that new low church clerical parvenu that had fallen amongst them, that alone would be worth more, almost than the situation itself. It was frightful to think that such unhoped for good fortune should be marred by the absurd crotchets and unwholesome hallucinations by which Mr Harding allowed himself to be led astray. To have the cup so near his lips and then to lose the drinking of it, was more than ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... POCAHONTAS, and all the rest. Leave them alone; and, taking fresh subjects, dip your brushes in brains, as old OPIE or somebody else said, and go to work with a will. No fresh subjects to be had, you say? Bosh! absurd interlocutor that you are. Here's a bundle of 'em ready cut to hand. We charge you no money for them, and you may take ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... face of the chosen priest with such fury that the man rolled upon the ground and for a while lay there stunned. Now he who had drunk first began to spring about in a ludicrous fashion, and presently was joined in his dance by the other two. So absurd were their motions and tumblings and clownlike grimaces, for they had dragged off their masks, that roars of brutal laughter rose from the audience, in ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... star we see—as irradiating from some sort of centrally-situated spiritual power-house. As we look up into the starry heavens we cannot imagine the Activity as residing in the empty space between the stars or between the stars and the Earth on which we stand. It seems absurd to picture its dwelling-place there. Equally absurd does it seem to regard the Activity as emanating from some spiritual sun situated far beyond the confines of the stars, and from there emitting spiritual rays ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... made him fearless even of a second encounter with the robbers. He felt certain he could hold his own against one or two, and a whole band would never take him unawares. He should hear or see them in plenty of time to hide away in some tree or thicket. It was absurd to be ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... wholly absurd," he said, without however looking at James Douglas; "our cousin Gilles is in ill odour with the commonalty. He is a philosopher and makes smells with bottles. But there is neither harm nor witchcraft in it. He is ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the Earth for its base: the two ideal lines drawn from the extremities of this diameter would come together between the Earth and the Sun; there would be no triangle, and the measurement would be absurd. ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... Men, women, and children are all of one mind in the quarters of the working men. I have been much struck with the difference between one of these poor fellows who is prepared to die for the honour of his country, between his quiet, calm demeanour, and the absurd airs, and noisy brawls, and the dapper uniforms of the young fellows one meets with in the fashionable quarters. It is the difference between reality and ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... a round trot. Colonel Philibert, impatient to reach Beaumanoir, spurred on for a while, hardly noticing the absurd figure of his guide, whose legs stuck out like a pair of compasses beneath his tattered gown, his shaking head threatening dislodgment to hat and wig, while his elbows churned at every jolt, making play with the shuffling gait of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... newly married. You run across your friends everywhere, and they grin when they see you. You can't help feeling as if a lot of people were watching you through opera-glasses, or taking snap-shots at you with a kodak. It is absurd to imagine that the first month must be the real honeymoon. And just suppose it were,—what bad luck that would be! What would there ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... I responded. "You are not an ordinary man, and it was absurd of me to treat you as one. Absolute candor is, as you say, essential, and so I'll confess that your case does puzzle me. There is no organic disease, but there is a quite unaccountable organic weakness—a weakness which fifty broken ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... sagacity will not be so lavish of acknowledgments as filial piety. There does not appear the least foundation for this remark in the Scene, nor has the Poet given us the least room to doubt of Clitipho being actually departed. To me, instead of an agreeable {jeu de theatre}, it appears a most absurd and ridiculous device; particularly vicious in this place, as it most injudiciously tends to interrupt the course of Clinia's more interesting passion, so admirably delineated in ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... this occasion, the most powerful that had ever left a Grecian port, was intrusted to the joint command of Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lam'achus. The expedition captured the city of Cat'ana, which was made the headquarters of the armament; but here Alcibiades was summoned to Athens on the absurd charge of impiety and sacrilege, connected with the mutilation of the statues of the god Her'mes, that had taken place just before he left Athens. He was also charged with having profaned the Eleusinian mysteries by giving a representation of them in his own house. Fearing to trust ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... Duck, who has in spring some pleasing notes, so mellow and musical that he may almost be said to sing; but he is not choice or dainty in his food, and the flesh is too rank for House People to eat. He has many absurd names ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... bewilderments, thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and suchlike? No man oppresses thee, O free and independent Franchiser: but does not this stupid Porter-pot oppress thee? No Son of Adam can bid thee come or go; but this absurd Pot of Heavy-wet, this can and does! Thou art the thrall not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites and this scoured dish of liquor. And thou pratest of thy 'liberty'? ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... scurrilous, and profane jester, that more swift than Circe, with absurd similes, will transform any person into deformity. A good feast-hound or banquet-beagle, that will scent you out a supper some three miles off, and swear to his patrons, damn him! he came in oars, when he was but wafted over in a sculler. A slave that hath an extraordinary ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... duties, an incident occurred which illustrates the character of the two men. The old duke of Newcastle, probably desiring a post for some nominee of his own, conveyed to the ear of the new minister various absurd rumours prejudicial to Burke,—that he was an Irish papist, that his real name was O'Bourke, that he had been a Jesuit, that he was an emissary from St Omer's. Lord Rockingham repeated these tales to Burke, who of course denied them with indignation. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... ceased to be of the slightest value to her. But to come to the point. She bade me tell you that, if you persist in sheltering yourself in a hermit's cell from the fear of meeting her—if she be so dangerous to your peace—you may dismiss such absurd apprehension. She is going abroad, and between you and me, my dear fellow, I have not a doubt that she will marry again before six months are out. I spoke of your sufferings; she told me she had not the smallest ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... greatest masters of the form are inconsistent with the motives that impelled them to its use, and where these motives were followed to their logical conclusion, the resuit, both in literature and in life, became a byword for absurd unreality. To live at all the ideal appeared to require an atmosphere of paradox and incongruity: in its essence the most 'natural' of all poetic forms, pastoralism came to its fairest flower amid the artificiality ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... in number, and fourfold in character. The first is the Apology tyrannical; the second, the Apology imbecile; the third, the Apology absurd; and the fourth, the Apology infamous. That is all. Tyranny, imbecility, absurdity, and infamy all unite to dance, like the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton |
