"Amused" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much amused for a time with this remark, and Hsi Ch'un told her waiting-maid, Ju Hua, to come and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... horses, Mr. Elmer had bought on Saturday. As Saturday is the regular market-day, when all the country people from miles around flock into town to sell what they have for sale, and to purchase supplies for the following week, Mark was much amused and interested by what he saw. Although in Tallahassee there are no street auctions as in Key West, there was just as much business done on the sidewalks and in the ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... he responded in amused tones. "But now"—striking a match and holding it for her to light her cigarette—"you will smoke because you really like it, and because it would be a friendly action and condone the fact that you are being held a prisoner against ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... and said something to a companion near him. They seemed amused by the reply, and the former speaker ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... of his great age (eighty-five), and recalled the names of several British governors and generals during the last seventy years. But his chief interest was in inquiries (through his interpreter) regarding the Queen and events in England, and he amused his visitors by the diplomatic shrewdness with which, on being told that there had been a change of government in England, and a majority in favour of the new government, he observed "They have ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... easy enough, but the climbing up again might be another matter. We were not afraid to venture on this score, however, for, as it happened, we had both often amused ourselves by climbing a rope hung from one of the rafters in the hay-barn, and though that was a climb of only twenty feet, we had done it so often and so easily that we did not question our ability to ascend a rope of ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... from Rieha, turned round its eastern corner, and in one hour from Rieha, reached the village of Kefr Lata [Arabic]. We were hospitably received at the house of the Sheikh of Kefr Lata, although his women only were at home. A wondering story-teller amused us in the evening with chanting the Bedouin history of the Beni Helal. Kefr Lata belongs to Ibn Szeyaf, one of ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... suspending the operation of smoking as they waited the summing up of this remarkably orthodox "preaching of the word." The sergeant only was a spectator of the scene, and much amused did he seem at the faces that prepared for a grin or a sneer as the forthcoming utterance should demand. Then said ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... that untidy studio, with canvases and easels heaped against the wall and with all sorts of litter about us, a trio strangely met, and one to have amused the high gods watching through the ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... nothing short of duty, in a politician, to bring every one of those white heads under the axe of the guillotine. It was plain enough to discern that the old fellows dreaded some such discourtesy at my hands. It pained, and at the same time amused me, to behold the terrors that attended my advent, to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an individual as myself; to detect, as one or another addressed me, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Martique! What did you wake me for? I haven't been asleep five minutes," grumbled Dennis. And then he sat bolt upright as he recognised the handsome face of the man who had shaken him by the shoulder, and saw the amused smile in ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... have you got there, Bub?' some one would ask. 'A book,' I would reply. 'What kind of a book?' 'Poetry-book.' 'Poetry!' would be the amused exclamation. 'Can you read poetry?' and, embarrassed, I'd shake my head and make my escape, but I held on ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... penetrating light of his usually swift deduction could throw no glimmer. She possessed the sins of the butterfly and the latent possibilities of a Judith. She was the most interesting feminine problem he had in his long years encountered. The mother mildly amused him, for he could discern the character that she was sedulously striving to batten down beneath inane social usages and formalities. Some day she would revert to the original type, and then he ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... the first direct question which had been asked him. He had stood in the midst of them like a horse at a fair, and he was just beginning to wonder whether he was more angry or amused. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he had divined the change, and suspected him of being amused thereby—a suspicion which he strengthened by saying with a laugh, "You didn't know I could be such a brute, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... He was amused at our discomfiture. "Simple enough? Yet really an intricate code in itself. It made the phrasing of the main note a little difficult to compose, that was all." He sat up with his accustomed snap of alertness, and ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... facetious mood. He chaffed Dunstable genially about his prospectus, and admitted that it had amused him. Dunstable smiled without enjoyment. It was a good thing, perhaps, that Mr. Appleby saw the humorous rather than the lawless side of the Trust; but all the quips in the world could not save that ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Twiss, Maberly, and Stanley. Mr. Twiss said, that a scheme had never been produced so happily calculated to ridicule parliamentary reform, although it was of course far from the intention of the noble lord by whom it had been introduced. Mr. Peel also amused the house with remarks on the title of the bill, and said that he would never be a party to a wholesale depreciation of the elective franchise, or assent even to the first stage of the bill, which devolved on a bal-lotted committee the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for the possession of the Milanese broke out between the King of France and the Emperor. It began with negotiation, artfully protracted by Charles, who promised the investiture, sometimes to the second, sometimes to the youngest, son of his formerly impetuous rival, whom he thus amused, while he took measures to crush him by the weight of his arms. But if misfortune had made the King of France too cautious, prosperity had inspired Charles with a haughty presumption, which gave ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... breakfast, and watched a wee Munchkin baby, who played with Toto and pulled his tail and crowed and laughed in a way that greatly amused Dorothy. Toto was a fine curiosity to all the people, for they had never seen ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... advise him to look well to his ways. This period, it is true, is much later with some men than with others; I have witnessed more than once the meeting of two wrinkled old lads of this kind, who had not seen each other for several years, and have been amused by the amicable exchange of compliments on each other's appearance that takes place on such occasions. There is always one invariable observation, "Why, bless my soul! you look younger than when last I saw you!" Whenever a man's ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... to make variations of such examples according to his own skill and liking. If he and the teacher could be got to clear their minds of ideas of "style," and to take some example simply because they liked it, and to adapt it just because it amused them, the mystery of design would be nearly solved. Most design will always be the making of one thing like another, with a difference. Later, motives from Nature should be brought in, but always with some guidance as to treatment, from an ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... for public executions, did not manifest very much impatience. It amused itself with watching the pillory, a very simple sort of monument, composed of a cube of masonry about six feet high and hollow in the interior. A very steep staircase, of unhewn stone, which was called by distinction ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... 'I have settled it all'; and then Teddy's mother picked him up from the dust and hugged him, crying that he had saved Teddy from death, and Teddy's father said that he was a providence, and Teddy looked on with big scared eyes. Rikki-tikki was rather amused at all the fuss, which, of course, he did not understand. Teddy's mother might just as well have petted Teddy for playing in the dust. Rikki ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... between each exclamation, then held her out at arm's length and looked her over critically, from head to feet and back again, then kissed her some more on both cheeks, laughing merrily the while, and attracting the amused attention ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... revolution of July, some salons, notably those of Mesdames d'Espard and de Listomere, Mademoiselle des Touches, and the Duchesse de Grandlieu, had selected certain of the celebrities in art, science, literature, and politics, and received them. Society can lose nothing of its rights, and it must be amused. At a concert given by Madame de Montcornet toward the close of the winter of 1833, a man of rising fame in literature and politics appeared in her salon, brought there by one of the wittiest, but also one of the laziest writers of that epoch, ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... she was awake early, and had it not been for the terrible situation in which she was placed she would have been amused by the busy stir in the village, and by the little copper-colored urchins at play, or going out with the women to collect wood or fetch water. There was nothing to prevent Ethel from going out among ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... his violin to Grosvenor Gardens when Mrs. Harrington invited him, in her commanding way, to dine. It amused Mrs. Harrington to accompany his instrument on the piano. Her music was of the accompanying order. It was heartless and correct. Some of us, by the way, have friends of this same order, and, like Mrs. Harrington's music, they are not in themselves ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... and museums; and when a child happened to be blown to pieces their unspoken comments upon the Prussian savagery were bitter. Their faces said: "Those barbarians cannot even spare our children!" They amused themselves by creating a market in shells, paying more for a live shell than a dead one, and modifying the tariff according to the supply. And as the cattle-market was empty, and the vegetable-market was empty, and beasts no longer pastured on the grass of the parks, and the twenty-five ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... were always amused at the Wheelers' doings, got almost as much pleasure out of Ralph's lavishness as he did himself. One said Ralph had shipped a new piano out to Yucca county, another heard he had ordered a billiard table. August Yoeder, their prosperous ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the names of the presidents and divided the world into its parts and recited the principal rivers with all the sources and emptyings of the latter and the boundaries of the states and the names and locations of their capitals. It amused me in the midst of my loneliness to keep my tongue busy and I exhausted all my knowledge, which included a number of declamations from the speeches of Otis, Henry and Webster, in the effort. Before the journey was half ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... weathers. We took no tents, and "slept out." This was nothing to me, as I had done it on my own when scouting hundreds of times. It amused me to hear the men grumbling about the hard ground, and to see them rubbing their hips when they got up. It was a hard training. Still we didn't seem to be going out, and once again, the novelty of a new place having worn off, we ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... strong in juvenile Radicalism, but he had a fund of common sense, and such a conclusion as this of poor John's half-astonished, half-amused him. However, the man's personality attracted him; it was honest, warm-hearted, interesting; the logic of his pleadings might be at fault, but Sidney sympathised with him, for all that. He too felt that 'things were wrong somehow,' and had a pleasure ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... about it," exclaimed Felicity crossly, aggravated by the amused smile with which the Story Girl was listening to the various speculations. "I think Sara is just as mean as mean ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sense at home under water like the shag. I have often, when at anchor ten or fifteen miles from the land, and attended by the usual convoy of seabirds that invariably gather round fishing-boats, amused myself by throwing scraps of fish to them and watching the gulls do their best to plunge below the surface when some coveted morsel was going down into the depths, and now and again a little Roman-nose puffin would dive headlong and snatch the prize from under the gulls' eyes. Most of the ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... worn out or torn away, but by many idle relations and injudicious remarks and prejudices of a young man; for which @the only excuse the author can pretend to make, is, that as some future reader may possibly be as young as he was when he first wrote, he hopes they may be amused with what graver people (if into such hands they should fall) will very justly despise. Who ever has patience to peruse the series, will find, perhaps, that as the author grew older, some of his faults became less striking." * They are marked in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... were in a fig grove which bore a very heavy crop of excellent figs. We stayed here about seven weeks, the longest spell we had in any one place, and made it into a good camp. There was a fair football ground on which we got through an inter-platoon American tournament, which kept everybody amused. There used to be a great turn-out when the officers' team was due to play—they occasionally won their matches. We also had a good 200 yards' range with sixteen targets, and carried out innumerable experiments to decide upon the best methods ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... them marry; I suppose that's the most natural thing," answered Vane, with an air of reflection that amused her. "Anyway, they have plenty of opportunities. There's a preponderating number of unattached young men in the newly opened parts ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... 7,000 fruit-trees, then one of Mr. Rhodes's favourite hobbies; and in the stud-farm for improving the breed of horses in South Africa. If I asked the profession of any of the smart young men who frequented the house where we were staying, for games of croquet, it amused me always to receive the same answer, "He is something in De Beers." The town itself boasts of many commodious public buildings, a great number of churches of all denominations, an excellent and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... exactly. She's what a Westerner might call 'crippled up some,' but she's livelier than most well persons." And she amused her friend with a vivid rehearsal of Mrs. Joyce's love of the city and her former ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... stage, by the closed door of the refreshment-room, a boy was standing alone. He was tearing up his dance order. It was empty, and he was making no further attempts to fill it. He tore it quite unostentatiously so that no young lady disposed to be amused by his defeat could see anything worth staring at in his performance, and he was forgotten in his corner. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... foot of the village the Moraca flowed past, now a formidable and swiftly running river. We were amused to see several oxen driven into it, and swim serenely to the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Holman Hunt,"[38] tells us that at thirteen he was removed from school as inapt in study. He began to spend his time in drawing in his copybooks. He was made clerk to an auctioneer, who fortunately encouraged his passion, and at sixteen was with a calico printer. Here he amused himself by drawing flies on the window, which his employer tried to brush off. There was the greatest home opposition to his studying art. After being rejected twice, he was admitted at seventeen to the Academy school ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... during the first weeks of her sojourn in her native country. She was so unconscious of her relationship that she liked to play at imitating native life, as something utterly peculiar and absurd. Meals in Japanese eating-houses amused her immensely. The squatting on bare floors, the exaggerated obeisance of the waiting-girls, the queer food, the clumsy use of chop-sticks, the numbness of her feet after being sat upon for half an ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Sadler asserted that the peers were a class condemned by nature to sterility. We denied this, and showed from the last edition of Debrett, that the peers of the United Kingdom have considerably more than the average number of children to a marriage. Mr Sadler's answer has amused us much. He denies the accuracy of our counting, and, by reckoning all the Scotch and Irish peers as peers of the United Kingdom, certainly makes very different numbers from those which we gave. A member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom might have been expected, we ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Ernestine was trying to make it clear what a gain it would be, especially to this class, if women had the vote. An uphill task to catch and hold the attention of those tired workmen. They hadn't stopped there to be made to think—if they weren't going to be amused, they'd go home. A certain number did go home, after pausing to ask the young Reformer, more or less good-humouredly, why she didn't get married. Lord Borrodaile had privately asked for enlightenment on ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Fred was highly amused at the comical way the old raven watched the preparations being made, looking to his capture. He would cock his head on one side, as he looked down, and occasionally utter some droll word that seemed ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... impulse, to act upon this one, and turned down a side street and found Mary's door. But her reception was not encouraging; clearly Mary didn't want to see her, had no help to impart, and the half-formed desire to confide in her was quenched immediately. She was slightly amused at her own delusion, looked rather absent-minded, and swung her gloves to and fro, as if doling out the few minutes accurately before she ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the writers of the different volumes to enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and struggled—as they studied and wrote, and as they amused themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with which the history of all lands begins, will not be overlooked, though these will be carefully distinguished from the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted historical authorities ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... the Americans from this position, Prevost kept up the attention of General Lincoln by the semblance of a design to cross the Savannah; and, at the same time amused General Ash with a feint on his front, while Lieutenant Colonel Prevost made a circuit of about fifty miles, and, crossing Briar Creek fifteen miles above the ground occupied by Ash, came down, unperceived ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... "for four hundred years the Roman people came here on holidays, and sometimes they had as many as one hundred and twenty-five holidays in one year. They came to be amused and entertained with games, contests, and combats between men and wild beasts; and they saw with delight many scenes of bloodshed and death, too horrible for me to describe ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... elephant shooting without regretting my folly in contenting myself with securing only one elephant. The first was now dying, and could not leave the ground, and the second was also mortally wounded, and I had only to follow and finish her; but I foolishly allowed her to escape, while I amused myself with the first, which kept walking backward, and standing by every tree she passed. Two more shots finished her: on receiving them, she tossed her trunk up and down two or three times, and, falling on her broadside against a thorny tree, which yielded like grass before her enormous ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... about them. Sometimes he insisted on being tender, and even this was not so bad as she expected, at least for a few minutes at a time; she rather enjoyed having her hand pressed so seriously, and his studied phrases amused her. It was only when he wished the conversation to be brilliant and intellectual, that he became intolerable; then she must entertain him, must get up little repartees, must tell him lively anecdotes, ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... c. The girls of our school often amused themselves in recess by collecting into little groups for singing. As there seemed to be a sufficient power of voice and a respectable number who were willing to join in the performance, it was proposed one day, that ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Neale were vastly amused, but Ruth pursued her inquiry. She wished to get to the ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... yet he was amused, by the evident coquetry the girl displayed, collecting around her a whole bevy of young fellows, for each of whom she seemed to have some gay speech, some attractive look or action. In a few minutes young Griffiths ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... lad," said Mark, quickly, and he walked forward again, half amused at his own importance, and thinking of how only the other day he was at school, and captain of the second cricket eleven, instead of commodore ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... returned home to dinner, his mother related to him the whole conversation. James was more amused than puzzled. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... requires that every measure, in order to become a law, shall have an affirmative majority of the actual members, yet forbids any member to vote who has not a distinct pecuniary interest in the result. I was once greatly amused by a spirited contest over a matter of harbor improvement, each of two proposed harbors having its advocates. One of these gentlemen, a most eloquent patriot, held the floor for hours in advocacy of the port where he had an interest in a projected mill ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the wolf-man's hand fumbled at the latch. In a moment she was back at his side. When Bram entered every muscle in Philip's body was prepared for action. He was amazed at the wolf-man's unconcern. He was mumbling and chuckling to himself, as if amused at what he had seen. Celie's little fingers dug into Philip's arm and he saw in her eyes a tense, staring look that had not been there before. It was as if in Bram's face and his queer mumbling she had recognized something which was not apparent to him. Suddenly she left him ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... to Mt. Gilead, in Morrow county, a county then recently created. I pointed to the telegraph wire stretched on poles, and told him to follow that. The old Judge, who had been on the supreme bench for over twenty years was quite amused at the directions given. He laughed and said he had been mislead by guideboards all his life, and now he was glad to be ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... took the frame of the boat to pieces, deposited it in a cache or hole, with a draught of the country from fort Mandan to this place, and also some other papers and small articles of less importance. After this we amused ourselves with fishing, and although we had thought on our arrival that there were none in this part of the river, we caught some of a species of white chub below the falls, but few in number, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... interests—public, fashionable, literary—gathered in groups at the different chocolate or coffee houses, and formed a kind of organized community. It was distinctly an aristocratic society: elegant in dress, punctilious in manner, exacting in taste, ready to be amused, and not indifferent to criticism when it took the form of sprightly badinage or of keen and trenchant satire. The informal organization of society, which made it possible to reach and affect the Town as a whole, is suggested by ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... reached the shore, they saw a detachment of Danish cavalry trotting their horses pretty coolly down in a direction for the boat. Feeling confident of their power to keep ahead of the pursuit, the sailors amused themselves with various sallies of nautical wit; and Pink, in particular, was just telling them to present his dutiful respects to the crown prince, and assure him that, but for this lubberly interruption, he ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... they had, and called the captain to me: when I called, as at a good distance, one of the men was ordered to speak again, and say to the captain, "Captain, the commander calls for you;" and presently the captain replied, "Tell his excellency I am just a coming." This more perfectly amused them, and they all believed that the commander was just by with his fifty men. Upon the captain's coming to me, I told him my project for seizing the ship, which he liked wonderfully well, and resolved to put it in execution the next morning. But, in order to execute ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... party were so highly amused by this, that they "went in," as Jeffson said, "for an evening's entertainment." One tossed the poor man a cut of ham, another a slice of pork, a third a mass of bread, and so they continued to ply him with victuals, determined to test his ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... with a crooked smile on his pale, smooth face. The credulous, drink-softened German amused him. He would have to avoid Twenty-ninth street in the future. He had not been aware that Bergman ever went home by ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... accounts for it," said Colville, and he laughed. It amused him to see the child referring even this point of propriety to her mother, and his thoughts idled off to what Mrs. Bowen's own untrammelled girlhood must have been in her Western city. For her daughter there ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... "I was amused; for I was thinking of the good-humoured face of Mrs McShane, which was much better than being in high company, and forgetting her entirely. Let me alone for amusing myself after my own fashion, O'Donahue, and that's all I wish. I suppose you have heard nothing in your ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... that he ought to stop and consider the possible consequences of a thing before launching it in that impulsive and random way of his; then he would not make so much trouble. He was not hurt by this plain speech; he only looked amused and surprised, and said: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... A.M. on the morning of the 18th Johnston received a telegram from the President to the effect that McDowell was advancing on Manassas. Stuart was immediately directed to keep Patterson amused; and leaving their sick, 1700 in number, to the care of Winchester, the troops were ordered to strike tents and prepare to march. No man knew the object of the movement, and when the regiments passed through Winchester, marching southward, with their ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... waiting until the sentence that General Washington was uttering, was finished, 'what do you think? Uncle Jack and I shot a duck in the head!' He deserved a reproof for his forwardness; but Washington joined the rest in a laugh, no doubt amused at the estimation in which the youth held himself and Uncle Jack. The two together, killed a duck, and the boy was boasting of it in the presence of the greatest man the world ever produced. The poor fellow left the room, and for a time ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... nineteen when he was made master of the wardrobe and grand equerry of France. Brilliant and witty, he amused the king and occupied the leisure which peace gave him. The passion Louis XIII. felt for his favorite was jealous and capricious. He upbraided the young man for his flights to Paris to see his friends and the elegant society of the Marais, and sometimes ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... all these ignorant people looked favorably upon a man once believed to be poor so soon as they knew that he had great possessions. He had seen, too, already that Cecile was spoiled by her father and mother; he amused himself, therefore, by ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... I amused myself with an exercise of a talent I once possessed, but have so neglected that my performance might almost be called an experiment. I cut out a dress for one of the women. My education in France—where, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... calamity with patience than to contend How can I have any regret when I partake your misfortunes Louis Philippe, the usurper of the inheritance of her family My father fortunately found a library which amused him No one is more dangerous than a man clothed with recent authority Rabble, always ready to insult genius, virtue, and misfortune So many crimes perpetrated under that name (liberty) Subjecting the vanquished to be tried by ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... into anything really interesting from an intellectual or artistic point of view, but whose attention can be distracted and whose interest held by a more or less open appeal to the primitive instincts of sex. Tired people want to be amused and interested if possible; but they are not easily amused by anything that appeals to the mind, because they are tired. They want a sensation other than the customary one of fatigue, and the easiest sensation to excite is ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... an' chuckle. I fancied he cast a wink. 'Twas a broad joke he was playin' with, whatever an' all; an' I wished I knowed what amused the dolt. ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... approaching this place we found our way barred by military policemen, who informed us the traffic was temporarily held up, and that we would have to seek our destination by another and a more devious route. Looking back, one is amused at the nonchalance of this tea in the open with the Hussar officers, while German missiles were shooting over our heads and crashing to earth a couple of hundred yards away. Had the enemy shortened the range we should all have gone up among the ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... bank, as the early settlers in New Jersey across the river had lived. Pastorius, a learned German Quaker, who had come out with the English, placed over the door of his cave the motto, "Parva domus, sed amica bonis, procul este profani," which much amused Penn when he saw it. A certain Mrs. Morris was much exercised one day as to how she could provide supper in the cave for her husband who was working on the construction of their house. But on returning to her cave she found that her cat ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... while in the midst of his morning's mail, Jimmy was informed that it was now time for him to conduct Aggie and Zoie to the Babies' Home to select the last, but most important, detail for their coming campaign. According to instructions, Jimmy had been in communication with the amused Superintendent of the Home, and he now led the two women forth with the proud consciousness that he, at least, had attended properly to his part of the business. By the time they reached the Children's Home, several babies were on ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... the seriousness of his tone, but he did not quite succeed. Hitherto I had been amused at his singular plight and his fatalistic acceptance of it. But ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... amused by this direct storming of his opinion that he could hardly keep his laughter within bounds. "I've heard one other criticism," he said, "that you were all pretty and all had small feet and hands! I am now able to declare that to be a base calumny and to hope that all the ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... next to him Irene, then Bosinney, then Winifred. There was hardly room for four, and the man of the world could feel Irene's arm crushed against his own; he knew that she could not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this amused him; he devised every now and again a movement that would bring her closer still. He thought: 'That Buccaneer Johnny shan't have it all to himself! It's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... further on the particulars of this evening,—nor describe how Madame de Frontignac reconnoitred Miss Prissy with keen, amused eyes,—nor how Miss Prissy assured Mary, in the confidential solitude of her chamber, that her fingers just itched to get hold of that trimming on Madame de Frog—something's dress, because she was pretty nigh sure she could make some just like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Indian of the Wild West bounding with uplifted tomahawk upon a defenceless foe. The doctor involuntarily pushed back his chair, but before he could make up his mind whether he ought to be frightened or amused, Miss Panney sat down as promptly as she had risen, and a grim smile appeared upon ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... it, let us prove the strength of our understanding by getting quietly away." During this colloquy between the general and Mr. Tickler, Glanmoregain had been a quiet listener; but he was not a little amused at the singular innocence of the man he was about to entrust with the important office of overthrowing a kingdom. And although he would have remained to the end of the opera, which, so far as the principals were concerned, was really being performed in a very ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... haunches with the catastrophic remark: "Strachey, remember this. If there are angels, they have edges." Here was the whole man. The idler or the fool will think, or pretend to think, that this was simply ridiculous nonsense, and will pass on with the comment, "We are not amused." As a matter of fact, there was a great deal of good sense packed under a kind of semi- humorous hydraulic pressure in this amazing dictum. What he meant was that if there were angels, they were not vague, fluid, evanescent creatures, some ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... which most amused the three little girls and their friend, Grace, they enjoyed dressing up at dusk, and, in their queer costumes, going around from cottage to cottage to call. Uncle Dick was very clever in painting ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... amused on hearing of Charlie's mishap, but when his merriment had subsided he gave the brothers a ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the hill-sides, carrying like a lance that venerable weapon, which seemed indeed to me of the most dangerous kind. I went to take a seat on the heather, and I carefully laid down the long gun by me; then I amused myself driving away, by throwing stones at them, the young rabbits that ventured imprudently in the vicinity of an engine of war for the effects of which I could not be responsible. Thanks to these precautions, for over an hour that this hunt lasted, no accident ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... household of the Prince of Cleves?" said the father of Helen, laughing, and not a little amused at the haughtiness ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... apiece; but after a sharp struggle selfishness prevailed and he carried us with him to the mainland. There for a week or two, in an elegant palace behind the Darsena, we solaced his retirement and amused a select circle of his friends, till (wearying perchance of Badcock's minstrelsy) he dismissed us with a purse of sequins and bade us go to the devil, at the same time explaining that only the ingratitude he had experienced at the hands of his countrymen prevented his offering ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... was frequently asked, who was going to be the auctioneer. I would reply that I thought of trying it myself. This amused the questioners and I had a large crowd in attendance, many of whom no doubt came to hear me in my first effort at auctioneering. The evening after the sale I called at of the grocery stores in the ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... employed in the manner most advantageous to the whole society. The profits of agriculture, however, seem to have no superiority over those of other employments in any part of Europe. Projectors, indeed, in every corner of it, have, within these few years, amused the public with most magnificent accounts of the profits to be made by the cultivation and improvement of land. Without entering into any particular discussion of their calculations, a very simple observation may satisfy ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... happened sixty years before. He understood music, and could sing agreeably; in short, for a magistrate, he had many pleasing talents. By flattering the ladies of Annecy, he became fashionable among them, appearing continually in their train. He even pretended to favors, at which they were much amused. A Madam D'Epigny used to say "The greatest favor he could aspire to, was to kiss a lady ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... EMINENT DRAMATIST (amused by my innocence). My dear fellow, you needn't complain. I published an unproduced play a little while ago, and it didn't get ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... a sharp menacing sound, and with clenched hands rose on his knees. But Philadelphus looked at him steadily, half-amused at the implied threat, half-inviting its fulfilment, and under his gaze, Julian rose slowly and drew away. Philadelphus tossed the coin after him. His cousin picked it up and put it in ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... themselves presented to the wife of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, with whom they certainly had nothing in common, neither birth, breeding, nor mode of life. I was talking to Casimir Perier (late President of the Republic) and it amused us very much to see the various introductions and the great empressement of the ladies, all of whom were asking to be presented to Madame R. "What can all those women want?" I asked him. He replied promptly, "Embassies ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... made me many fair promises as usual, but without any intention of paying me. He had likewise bought goods from some more of our people, whom he intended to serve in the same manner; but he still amused us with promises. However, when our ship was loaded, and near sailing, this honest buyer discovered no intention or sign of paying for any thing he had bought of us; but on the contrary, when I asked him for my money he threatened me and another ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... playing and experimenting with these he learned to tie rude knots, and make sliding nooses; and with these he and the younger apes amused themselves. What Tarzan did they tried to do also, but he alone originated ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... came down, and we got ready to go off. They had a good deal of baggage, which we put into the bows of the boat, and then two of us took the senora in our arms, and waded with her through the water, and put her down safely in the stern. She appeared much amused with the transaction, and her husband was perfectly satisfied, thinking any arrangement good which saved his wetting his feet. I pulled the after oar, so that I heard the conversation, and learned that one of the men, who, as well ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... that a woman was not pretty, she ceased to interest him. His exacting taste required no small degree of outward perfection crowned by ready wit and society polish. With those so endowed he had frequently amused himself in New York and Paris by a passing flirtation since the politic Miss Bently had made him a sceptic in regard to women. All his intercourse with society had confirmed his cynicism. The most beautiful and brilliant in the drawing-rooms were seldom the best. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... ayash tyucotz Shotaye left her cave in quest of vegetable medicaments. We have seen how she met Okoya, and how they greeted one another. The boy's sullen manner amused her; she attributed his morose ways to the effects of an over-lively night. Onward she went, down to the edge of the brook, then turned to the right up the course of the streamlet. That the skies threatened to become overcast and that rain might ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... whom I had first encountered suffered his face to become excessively amused. "Say, stranger, do you take me for a pack-mule?" he replied good-naturedly. "I already have about as much as I want to handle. Never mind; we'll come along with you, and Mr. Kong shall carry ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... to prevent it. The young Emperor refused to withdraw a word of the provocative despatch; and in his letter to Thugut at Brussels, he declared he was weary of the state of things in France and had decided to act and put an end to it; "that he should march his troops at once, and the French must be amused for two months until the troops arrived; then, whether the French attacked him or not, he should attack them."[67] Keith also wrote from Vienna to Grenville on 2nd May, that the French declaration of war had come in the nick of time ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... devoured by wild beasts or merely annoyed by aunts and chafing-dishes, they continued to embrace each other with magnificent heartiness whenever they had a moment to spare. In short, Miss POPE'S high spirits never flag; and, even if you fail to be amused by all the incidents in the T. T.'s career, you will be glad to make the acquaintance—under a new aspect, for Miss POPE'S talent as a maker of light verse is established—of a writer so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband, tugging at the clothes basket, and making the most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), would have amused you almost as much as it amused him. It may have entertained the Cricket, too, for anything I know; but, certainly, it now ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... Pakoo, threw them into the greatest confusion. They fled in all directions, without provoking us by firing a shot, although we found the guns loaded. Seriff Jaffer and his Dyaks were gratified by having all the fighting to themselves, and by some very pretty hand-to-hand encounters. We were much amused, afterward, by their own account of the heroic deeds they had performed. Lives were lost on both sides, and heads taken. This Rembas was by far the largest and strongest place we had assaulted. We found some very large war-boats, both fitted ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... dignified without haughtiness, affectionate, and most gracious and polite; his fancy was quick and fertile; his conversation was animated though kindly and always in good taste; he was continually saying clever things which amused but gave no pain, and was full of good stories and interesting reminiscences. His face was handsome, his expression noble, and he was very tall. Every one began with loving him, and ended with loving him ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Cesarine had not seemed so amused; and, in a half whisper, she was humming the famous tune, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... suggestions, moods and (as I hinted above) rather too many words. It is a. tribute to Mr. BERESFORD'S art that out of all this we do eventually emerge with some definite idea of the characters and a pleasantly-amused interest in their fate. There is, of course, plenty of distinction in the writing. But I could have wished more or earlier movement. Even the motor-car, whose appearance promised a hint, the merest far-off possibility, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... that the people of Shetland or the inhabitants of Burra are liable to panics of that kind?-There was no panic that I was aware of at that time. Some of the people, when I read over the letter to them, were very much amused to hear what had been said, and they attributed the statements to two or three persons who were usually dissatisfied ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... came back, and towards the end of October, Donald. He was greatly improved externally by his trip and his associations—more manly and more handsome—while his manners had acquired a slight touch of hauteur that both amused and pleased his uncle. It had been decided that he should remain in Glasgow another winter, and then select his future profession. But at present Donald troubled himself little about the future. He had returned ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... nuts, fruit and water they started for the little beach, Lady Tennys vastly excited. Her exclamations on seeing the sea monster amused Hugh beyond measure. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... statues, all the glorious souvenirs of the poet-laureate, came to Barcelona to adorn the sailor's home. The little Telemachus amused himself pulling apart the old wreaths of the troubador, and tearing out the old prints from his volumes with the inconsequence of a lively child whose father is very far away and who knows that he is idolized by two indulgent ladies. Besides his trophies, the poet ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... immediately after having given you that advice, I should have added,—'Louise, it is very dangerous to pass whole days with your head drooping, your hands unoccupied, your eyes restless and full of thought; it is dangerous to prefer the least frequented paths, and no longer be amused with such diversions as gladden young girls' hearts; it is dangerous, Louise, to scrawl with the point of your foot, as you do, upon the gravel, certain letters it is useless for you to efface, but which appear again under your heel, particularly when ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is, most manifestly, a disciple of Apollo," cried the amused Alice, "and I take him under my own especial protection. Nay, throw aside that frown, Heyward, and in pity to my longing ears, suffer him to journey in our train. Besides," she added, in a low and hurried voice, casting a glance at the distant Cora, who slowly followed the footsteps ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... mountains. we also exchanged 2 of our indeferent horses for Sound back horses. in the evening Several foot races were run by the men of our party and the Indians; after which our party divided and played at prisoners base untill night. after dark the fiddle was played and the party amused themselves in danceing. one of those Indians informed us that we could not cross the mountains untill the full of the next moon, or about the 1st of July. if we attempted it Sooner our horses would be three ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... compensations. For several days when Ellis called him at seven, he would answer him and thank fortune that he was not required at the bank that morning. The luxury of another hour of sleep seemed the greatest perquisite of wealth. His morning mail amused him at first, for since the newspapers had published his prosperity to the world he was deluged with letters. Requests for public or private charity were abundant, but most of his correspondents were generous and thought only ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... corners with quaint buildings. The tourist, fortified with his red-backed Baedecker, is a common sight to Chester people, and his "dollar-distributing" propensity, as described by the English writer I have quoted, is not unknown even to the smallest fry of the town. Few things during our trip amused me more than the antics of a brown, bare-foot, dirt-begrimed little mite not more than two or three years old, who seized my wife's skirts and hung on for dear life, pouring out earnestly and volubly her unintelligible jargon. We were at first at a loss to understand what our new associate ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... greatly amused with the new line of business chalked out for them, of "getting bills" from other countries when short in this. There are two descriptions of "bill brokers," but the class bearing that designation purely deal with domestic bills only. The other class ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various |
