"Humour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before Dempster returned from Rotherby. He had evidently drunk a great deal, and was in an angry humour; but Janet, who had gathered some little courage and forbearance from the consciousness that she had done her best to-day, was determined to speak pleasantly ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... now proceeded to avail himself, with his hat just a shade aslant on his head, his hands in his pockets, a suspicion of a smile on his lips and a glint of the devil in his eyes—in all an expression accurately reflecting the latest phase of his humour, which was become largely one of contemptuous toleration, thanks to what he chose to consider an exhibition of insipid stupidity on ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... rude of Rollo, and it may be plainly seen that he was in an ill-humour, but Jonas only smiled pleasantly, which made Rollo ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... smile, "though I believe her illness is more fanciful than real. But she is very good and kind, and we humour her fancies." ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... perspective. But he was young, he was made of the flesh that fights, and the spirit that will not down. He looked up from the black view that had held his attention so long, and smiled. It was not a gay smile but one in which there was defiant humour. After all, why shouldn't he smile? These villagers smiled cheerfully, and what had they in their narrow lives to cause them to see the world brightly? He was no worse off than they. If they could be content to live outside the world, why shouldn't he be ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... out of the cracks in the stone flagging—and, of course, he needn't have done this, unless he had an abnormal sense of humour—he handed me the tattered, disreputable-looking copy of 'A Modern Circe,' with a bow that wouldn't have disgraced a Chesterfield, and then went back to his easel, while I fled after Aunt Celia ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... character, the God, on whom you lavish your incense? Are not the descriptions given you of the divinity, visibly borrowed from the implacable, jealous, revengeful, sanguinary, capricious inconsiderate humour of man, who has not cultivated his reason? O men! You adore only a great savage, whom you regard, however, as a model to imitate, as an amiable master, as ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... I doe here omit the Siluer mines whereof there are great numbers in China, albeit there is much circumspection vsed in digging the siluer thereout: for the king standeth much in feare least it may bee an occasion to stirre vp the couetous and greedie humour of many. Nowe their siluer which they put to vses is for the most part passing fine, and purified from all drosse, and therefore in trying it they vse great diligence. What should I speake of their iron, copper, lead, tinne, and other mettals, and also of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... wide-brimmed cabbage tree hat, encircled by a narrow leather strap. He swung himself along rapidly, unabashed by the stares of the women or the impudent comment of the children. Nellie, suddenly, felt all her ill-humour turn against him. He was so satisfied with himself. He had talked unionism to her when she met him two weeks before, on his way to visit a brother who had taken up a selection in the Hawkesbury district. He had laughed when she hinted at the possibilities of the unionism ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... self-reproaches at rest! I do not recollect having ever repented giving a letter to the postman, or wishing to retrieve it after he had once deposited it in his bag. What I have once set my hand to, I take the consequences of, and have been always pretty much of the same humour in this respect. I am not like the person who, having sent off a letter to his mistress, who resided a hundred and twenty miles in the country, and disapproving, on second thoughts, of some expressions contained in it, took a post-chaise and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... noticed that the prodigal son of real life, in nineteen cases out of twenty, speaks spontaneously and feelingly of his father, with, perhaps, a dash of reverent humour; whereas, to quote Menenius, he no more remembers his mother than an eight-year-old horse? This is cruel beyond measure, and unjust beyond comment; but, sad to say, it is true; and the platitudinous tract-liar, for the sake of verisimilitude, as well as of novelty, should ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... aloof till called, and then approached with an air of sullen reluctance, as if summoned to receive a reprimand rather than a favour. Not a little amused, I affected displeasure in my turn, till the window of her chamber closed behind us, and her ill-humour was forgotten in wondering alarm. Offered in private, the kiss and smile given and not demanded, the present was accepted with frank affectionate gratitude. Eive took her share in pettish shyness, waiting the moment when ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... the sardonic humour of everything if he had not been too overcome with passionate desire ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... from its peg, and, in as ill humour as can well be imagined, went out to search for his ball. He took what revenge he could on his formidable uncle, while amusing himself that afternoon by looking over his "Robinson Crusoe." Johnny was fond of his pencil, though ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... except in the humour of their masters, to whom their whole destiny was entrusted. We might perhaps flatter ourselves with saying, that they were subject to the will of Englishmen. But Englishmen were not better than others, when in possession of arbitrary power. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... British Public possess that "taste for Art" and that "sense of humour" which some claim for and others deny to it, it (the B.P.) will throng the comfortable and well-lighted Gallery in New Bond Street, where hang some hundreds of specimens of the later work of the most unaffected humorist, and most masterly "Black-and-White" artist of his time. Walk up, Ladies and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the ceaseless banter of Burley's two comrades—a banter entirely American, and which at first she was unable to understand. But now all things American, including accent and odd, perverted humour, had become very dear to her. The clink-clank of the muleteer's big spurs always set her heart beating; the sight of an arriving convoy from the Channel port thrilled her, and to her the trample of mules, the shouts of foreign negroes, the drawling, ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... Opera on gala night rising to its feet to salute one's mere entry into the royal or imperial box, while the national anthem bursts forth with adulatory and triumphant strains, only a keen and subtle sense of humour, surely, could curb errors of judgment arising from naturally mistaken views of one's own importance and value to the entire Universe. Still there remained the fact that a number of them WERE well-behaved and could ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dear Howells, an admirable study of life, and as it was read to me my chief pleasure in listening was in your sympathetic, creative imagination, your insight, your humour, and all your other gifts, which make your stories, I believe, the most faithful representations of actual life that were ever written. Other stories seem unreal after them, and so when we had finished "The Kentons," nothing would do for entertainment ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Reist stepped out. He looked about him at the bare walls, the stone floor, and shrugged his shoulders. Erlito was none too well lodged then—soldiering had brought him some brief fame, but little else. Then he suddenly smiled. The incongruity of the thing was ridiculous. His sense of humour, by no means a characteristic trait of the man, was touched. The smile lingered upon his lips. He had come to offer a kingdom ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... for, although they had never seen his face. A few days before the formal opening of the yashiki the chu[u]gen Isuke and the workmen stood with puzzled faces before a hole discovered underneath the flooring of the shrine. It led to some passage or cave. None were in humour to investigate, perhaps to the annoyance of the O'Inari Sama. At Isuke's direction, and with difficulty in the cramped space, it was found possible to shove into place the massive granite slab which fitted tightly into ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... He formed a peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he supposed to consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers; but that which he endeavoured, he seldom failed of performing. His scenes exhibit not much of humour, imagery, or passion: his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiators; every sentence is to ward or strike; the contest of smartness is never intermitted; his wit is a meteor playing to and fro with alternate coruscations. His comedies have, therefore, in some degree, the operation of tragedies, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... journeys. All is ready, board and lodging. Never was a better opportunity for allowing one's self a good time. There is nothing against it. The others, the workers, are imperturbable in their good-humour. Their outraged cells leave them profoundly indifferent. There are no brawls to fear, no protests. Now or never is the moment to ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... impoverishable. What a lion he stalks in a country town! How he stilts himself upon his jokes over the sleek, unsuspecting heads of his astonished hearers! He tells a story; and, for the remainder of the night, sits embosomed in the ineffable lustre of his humour.—Monthly Mag. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... clothes I stood up in—and Jermyn's duds would be about as useful to me as a suit of reach-me-downs off the line. Persuasion? Shucks! Jermyn thought it was kind of funny to start right off on an ocean trip at a moment's notice and show Nina he didn't care a durn. Crazy notion of humour." He lay back languidly and covered his face with a ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... little ill—a sort of feeling that sometimes is rather nice, sometimes "very extremely" much the reverse! She felt in the humour for being petted, and having beef-tea, and jelly, and sponge cake with her tea, and for a day or two this was all very well. She was petted, and she had lots of beef-tea, and jelly, and grapes, and ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... all. We philosophers have merely learned to practice humour in the presence of what is commonplace. But what is it you do ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... inhabitants of the country who pronounce it with ease—even with great fluency. They can make jokes in it too, for the pleasant sound of laughter is often heard in this "City Beautiful." I have never tackled a Czech joke, but am quite prepared to give it credit for all the wit and humour required of a joke, and as long as somebody is happy over it all is well, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... Reform was broken. Nothing more was asked by the Parliamentary Opposition or by the middle-class of Paris. The victory seemed to be won, the crisis at an end. In the western part of the capital congratulation and good-humour succeeded to the fear of conflict. The troops fraternised with the citizens and the National Guard; and when darkness came on, the boulevards were illuminated as ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... not suffer a poet to be fettered by the rigid shackles of unbending facts; but from a disinclination also to interfere, even in appearance, with the full and free enjoyment of those exquisite scenes of humour, wit, and nature, in which Henry is the hero, and his "riotous, reckless companions" are subordinate in dramatical excellence only to himself. The Author may also not unwillingly grant, that (with the majority of those who give a tone to the "form and pressure" of the age) Shakspeare ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... A and Q also, as well as correctors of B, have an additional clause in v. 24, which pre-supposes the former portion of the piece, a clause given in A.V. and R.V. The καί of μὴ καὶ τοῦτον in Ο´ answers the same purpose. Daniel's mocking tone at the end of v. 27 agrees well with his sense of humour in v. 7. Cyrus' ready compliance, too, in v. 26 is only accounted for fully by the shock given to his idolatrous beliefs in the Bel part of the story. And so far the internal evidence argues for the unity of the ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... Carlile. Philip Sidney had wished to make one also in the glory; but Philip Sidney was needed elsewhere. The Queen's consent had been won from her at a bold interval in her shifting moods. The hot fit might pass away, and Burghley sent Drake a hint to be off before her humour changed. No word was said. On the morning of the 14th of September the signal flag was flying from Drake's maintop to up anchor and away. Drake, as he admitted after, 'was not the most assured of her Majesty's perseverance to let them go forward.' Past Ushant he would ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... of mood and mood, Mine ancient humour saves him whole — The cynic devil in his blood That bids him mock ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... alone. A cloud of annoyance swept across the face of the Colonel's niece, whilst the Colonel himself was too absorbed in the consideration of this bargain to heed the Governor's humour. He twisted his lip a little, stroking his chin with his hand the while. Jeremy Pitt ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... with which they had penetrated to the place evinced how great an error had been formerly committed by subjecting Barreto to the direction of Monclaros, who had led him by a tedious and dangerous way merely to gratify his own extravagant humour. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... greater soul than Shaughnessy to be cynical about C.P.R. It often needed his latent Irish humour to appreciate the larger cynicism which it expressed concerning the country. The pap-fed infants of Mackenzie and Hays served but to illustrate by contrast the perfection and the well-oiled technique of the dynamo operated by Shaughnessy. It became an obsession with him, as it ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... saw seemed to comfort Boyd prodigiously, which was always the case; and as here and there a woman smiled faintly at him the last vestige of sober humour left him and he was more like the reckless, handsome young man I had come to care for a great deal, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... to discuss the subject with his friend, he could not dismiss it from his mind. The sparkling wit, the wild, extravagant humour, for which he had been famous, seemed to have withered up in the furnace of his terrible grief. He lunched with Prescott in almost dead silence, and as soon as it was over got up hurriedly ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... sickness, and tenderly and carefully were they nursed by me and fed with delicate portions from the king's table. I later learned with much chagrin that "chewing tobacco" (strictly forbidden) was the cause of this sudden onset. My sense of humour alone ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... you very kindly, and our little club at the Q. Arms never fail to devote a bumper to you, except when they are in the humour of drinking none but scoundrels. I send my best compliments to Mrs. Smollett and two other ladies, and beg you'll write me as soon as suits you: and with black ink. I am always, my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... wife ought to do. This is all he asks of her; he is as far as can be from wishing to be unkind to her or to cross her wishes. He only wants her to live with him on reasonable and ordinary terms. But she—and here the Earl's irrepressible humour breaks out; he must see the comical side even of his own sorest trouble, and certainly this had its comical side—she will not sit next to him at table, but insists on putting her confessor between; she will not answer Yes or No to his simplest question, but invariably returns the ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... certainly loved her husband better than any thing upon earth, except power. When she came to her senses, and perceived that she was alone, she felt as if she was abandoned by all the world. The dreadful words "for ever," still sounded in her ears. She was tempted to yield her humour to her affection. It was but a momentary struggle; the love of sway prevailed. When she came more fully to herself, she recurred to the belief that her husband could not be in earnest, or at least that he would never persist, if ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... to these allusions that, whatever I then thought of myself as a holder of the scales I had never scrupled to laugh out at the humour of Mrs. Highmore's pursuit of quality at any price. It had never rescued her even for a day from the hard doom of popularity, and though I never gave her my word for it there was no reason at all why it should. The public would have her, as her husband used roguishly to remark; not indeed that, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... Russia said to Hogarth: "Recently dispossessed, they cling dyingly now to their lands, so I will buy the land from them, and you will lend me the money"; to which Hogarth virtually replied: "It is too childish to talk of buying part of a heavenly body from a Russian: have you no sense of humour? You may give the Russian 'nobles' some money, if that pleases you: but without my help. If His Majesty the Tsar is more afraid of them than of me, my only way will be to prove myself more truly ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... Trojan humour was saved. With a final oath the Admiral dashed through his front gate and into the house. The volgus infidum formed in procession again, and marched back with shouts of merriment; the popularis aura of the five-and-twenty fifers ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... atmosphere above the earth, and breathed only in a visionary world. He was conversant with nothing else, and this must have been the secret by which he produced compositions so entirely spiritual. He who has daily intercourse with the world, and feels the vulgar human passions, cannot be in a humour to write poems which do not partake ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... He had been in the sunniest humour throughout; had made his first appearance at Verner's Pride in bursts of laughter, heartily grasping the hands of Lionel, of Sibylla, and boasting of the "fun" he had had in playing the ghost. Captain Cannonby, the only one of the guests who remained, grew charmed with ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in sports, how in war, how in peace, how a fugitive, how victorious, how besieged, how besieging, how to strangers, how to allies, how to enemies; how to his own, lastly, how in his inward self, and how in his outward government; and I think, in a mind most prejudiced with a prejudicating humour, he will be found in excellency fruitful. Yea, as Horace saith, "Melius Chrysippo et Crantore:" {57} but, truly, I imagine it falleth out with these poet-whippers as with some good women who often are sick, but in faith they cannot tell where. So the ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... long, but went away somewhat dazed to find himself the possessor of a ring he did not want and out of pocket just thirty dollars, American. Having come to the conclusion that knight-errantry of that kind was not only profligate but distinctly irritating to his sense of humour, he looked up Mr. Hobbs and arranged for a ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... land by the clergyman; while Tim takes up Dolly in his strong arms and places her safely on the shore. And then they all make for the cottage, Bee lingering in the rear with Claude, and winning him back to good-humour with a pleading look ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... answered, thinking it no harm to humour him. "If you want to know about lodgings you must wait till my mother comes in. Just now she's away up the street—she'll be ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... Even then he had an evil fame, though he was scarcely more than a lad, but he was handsome in person, set high in birth, and of a pleasing manner. It chanced that he won of me at the dice, and being in a good humour, he took me to visit at the house of his aunt, his uncle's widow, a lady of Seville. This aunt had one child, a daughter, and that daughter was your mother. Now your mother, Luisa de Garcia, was affianced to ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... H should always be sounded except in the following words:—heir, herb, honest, honour, hospital, hostler, hour, humour, and humble, and all their derivatives,—such as humorously, derived ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... from a sense of duty, not of pleasure. Virgil and Horace he learned to construe accurately; but is said to have taken no deep interest in their poetry. The tenderness and meek beauty of the first, the humour and sagacity and capricious pathos of the last, the matchless elegance of both, would of course escape his inexperienced perception; while the matter of their writings must have appeared frigid and shallow to a mind so susceptible. He loved rather to meditate on the splendour of the Ludwigsburg ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... due course, and every fresh dish seemed to increase the good-humour of the Baron: but all efforts, to get him to express his opinion as to Uggug's cleverness, were in vain, until that interesting youth had left the room, and was seen from the open window, prowling about the lawn with a little basket, which ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... behalf; and immediately after their departure, she commanded him, of her own accord to deliver her the warrant for the execution of that princess. She signed it readily, and ordered it to be sealed with the great seal of England. She appeared in such good humour on the occasion, that she said to him in a jocular manner, "Go, tell all this to Walsingham, who is now sick; though I fear he will die of sorrow when he hears of it." She added, that though she had so long delayed the execution, lest she should seem to be actuated ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... was so amusing from the first. I am thankful, Susan, that I too have a sense of humour. I am exceedingly funny at ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... perhaps the best, most accurate picture of character and manners that are quite gone by: in it the meaning and significance of old buildings, old inns, old churches, and old towns are reached, and interpreted in most interesting fashion; the humour, bubbling over, and never forced, and always fresh, is sustained through some six hundred closely-printed pages; all which, in itself, is a marvel and unapproached. It is easy, however, to talk of the boisterousness, the "caricature," ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... agree upon a sign between them, by which David may know Saul's humour without his bow-bearer finding out David. He will shoot three arrows toward the place where David is in hiding; and if he says to his bow-bearer, The arrows are on this side of thee, David is to ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... with any spark of wit, his satire tends towards the obvious, and his humour is mild, almost unconscious, as if he could depict for us what of the humorous came under his observation without himself seeing the fun in it. Where he sets forth with intent to be humorous he sometimes attains almost to the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... believed that many more were concealed in the bushes...They were all perfectly naked except one young fellow who had a bunch of grass fastened round his waist which came up behind like the tail of a kangaroo. He was very merry, and from his gestures, possessed a keen sense of humour. "He would throw himself into a thousand antic shapes, and ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... taste the French have for the country, and I believe all my companions, except Mr. de , who took (as one always does) an interest in surveying his property, were heartily ennuyes with our little excursion.—Mad. De , on her arrival, took her post by the farmer's fire-side, and was out of humour the whole day, inasmuch as our fare was homely, and there was nothing but rustics to see or be seen by. That a plain dinner should be a serious affair, you may not wonder; but the last cause of distress, perhaps you will not conclude quite so natural at her years. All that ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... In like humour, William of Malmesbury, writing in the first half of the twelfth century, speaks of Thorney Abbey and isle. 'It represents,' he says, 'a very Paradise, for that in pleasure and delight it resembles heaven itself. These marshes abound in trees, whose length without a knot doth emulate the stars. ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... perverse humour," the queen said in a tone of much vexation to Sir Thomas Tresham, when Gervaise had left the room. "However, I know he will bear himself well when the hour of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... the afternoon, everything was quiet; but upon mounting the side we found four or five sailors lounging about the forecastle, under an awning. They gave us no very cordial reception; and though otherwise quite hearty in appearance, seemed to assume a look of ill-humour on purpose to honour our arrival. There was much eagerness to learn whether we wanted to "ship"; and by the unpleasant accounts they gave of the vessel, they seemed desirous to prevent such a thing ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... non-existent shell fire, capturing positions held by no enemy, and enacting the part of a "casualty" without having received a scratch, telephoning without a telephone is a comparatively simple operation. All you require is a ball of string and no sense of humour. Second Lieutenant ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... least may be said, that in these early essays contributed to the Monthly Review there is much more of Goldsmith the critic than of Goldsmith the author. They are somewhat laboured performances. They are almost devoid of the sly and delicate humour that afterwards marked Goldsmith's best prose work. We find throughout his trick of antithesis; but here it is forced and formal, whereas afterwards he lent to this habit of writing the subtle surprise of epigram. They have the ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... head-nodding emphasis. And then, feeling no doubt that he had done his chivalrous duty, he tossed off his liquor, stretched his thick arms high over his head, squared his shoulders comfortably in his blue flannel shirt and grinned in wide good humour. "This here campoody of yours ain't a terrible bad place to be right bow, Poke, old scout. Not a bad ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... little huts twice already, during the last half-hour. Only, last time you had seen one called 'Runnymead,' and another called 'The Limes.' Presently, if you like, we will walk along and read all the names. It is just the kind of thing which would appeal to our joint sense of humour. But first you must answer a few more questions. Helen—where is ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... and Tiburcio to ride side by side, but for all this few words had passed between them. Although Cuchillo had not the slightest idea of renouncing his dire design, he continued to hide his thoughts under an air of good-humour—which when need be he knew how to assume. He had made several attempts to read the thoughts of the young gambusino, but the latter was on his guard, seeking in his turn to identify Cuchillo with the assassin of his father. No ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Ruth, whose sense of humour needed no developing. That she possessed any sense of humour was in itself one of those human miracles which metaphysicians are always pothering over without arriving anywhere; for her previous environment had been particularly humourless. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... a place in this department. Inoffensive ignorance, benignant stupidity, and unostentatious imbecility will always be welcomed and cheerfully accorded a corner, and even the feeblest humour will be admitted, when we can do no better; but no circumstances, however dismal, will ever be considered a sufficient excuse for the admission of that last—and saddest evidence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... had had with herself before she could make up her mind to give up her own way; she only thought how pleased her husband would be when he saw the child come running towards him, and that a fit of ill-humour, from which they would probably all have suffered, had been warded off by the little girl's conquest ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... forehead: the personification of the successful business man. "My dear Emmie," he said, in a loud voice, with a North Country accent, "the cooks have got to live. They've got to live like the rest of us. I can never persuade you that the hands must always be humoured. If you don't humour 'em, they won't work for you. It's a poor tale when the hands won't work. Even with galleys on deck, the life of a sea-cook is not generally thowt an enviable position. Is not a happy one—not a happy one, as the fellah says in the opera. You must humour your ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... very serious in his humour; this morning, however, he was rather disposed that way, and so I took the opportunity to question him about Italy, a country where he has lived long, and whose people he certainly understands better ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... men carried anything resembling a weapon. Also I was unable to detect any sign of hostility or excitement on the faces of the natives; on the contrary, they all appeared to be smiling with the utmost good humour, and as Cunningham stepped out of the boat I saw one cafe au lait coloured young minx dart forward and laughingly throw a garland of gay-tinted flowers round his neck. The screech of delight with which this achievement was greeted reached my ears even ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... I heare, he will earnestly invite guests to his house, of purpose to make his wife dronke, and then dotes on her humour most prophanely. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... friend Athalbrand, why did you not stop away?" asked my father, firing up, then adding quickly: "Nay, no offence; you are welcome here, whatever your humour, and you too, my daughter that is to be, and you, Steinar, my fosterling, who, as it chances, are come ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... but when that unusual flood of blood-red light came at sunset, giving an unearthly look to a land which was well enough accustomed to bright sunsets of a more ordinary sort, Ann's courage and good humour failed her; she yielded to the common influence of marvels ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... gracious good-humour, so untameable her high spirits, that it was only by remembering the little spitfire of twelve or fourteen years ago that it was credible that she had a temper at all; the temper erst wont to exhale in chamois bounds and dervish pirouettes, had ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her cantankerous husband when she yields to their capriciousness. By going hack a step further in history, to the late fourteenth century, we met Chaucer's physician who knew "the cause of everye maladye, and where engendered and of what humour" and find that Chaucer is not speaking of a mental state at all, but is referring to those physiological humours of which, according to Hippocrates, the human body contained four: blood, phlegm, bile, and black bile, and by which ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the summer of 1793 Burns drew up before the Selkirk manor-house in company with John Syme of Ryedale. The two friends were making a tour of Galloway on horseback. The poet was in bad humour. {6} The night before, during a wild storm of rain and thunder, he had been inspired to the rousing measures of 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.' But now he was drenched to the skin, and the rain had damaged a new pair of jemmy boots which he was wearing. The passionate appeal of ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... words, the knight forgot the ill-humour he had but lately felt, and willingly he agreed to wait until she herself wished to tell ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... better," admitted Walters a little reluctantly, "but he hasn't got that tremendous shove off the stretcher that makes the other so useful a man to follow. Besides, he has too much temper to be able to nurse and humour the lame ducks and bring them on ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... humour to talk at the table. Mother sat silently at the end and poured out the tea while Dad, at the head, served the pumpkin and divided what cold meat there was. Mother would n't have any meat—one of us would have to go without if she had ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... companions. Madame Sagittarius threw herself suddenly forward with a most vivacious snort, and her husband's face was immediately overcast by a threatening gloom that seemed to portend some very disagreeable expression of adverse humour. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... standing by the door, leaning against the lintel, dressed in his working clothes, pipe in hand, looking straightforwardly out of the picture at her and smiling a little. The figure was that of a strong, well-built, outdoors man, the face full of character and purpose, lighted by humour. The steady eyes seemed very intent upon her, and it was a little difficult for her to remind herself that it was undoubtedly his fellow engineer and friend, Hackett, at whom he was gazing with so much friendliness of aspect rather than at ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... manifestations of one underlying spiritual energy, which is indeed beyond our perception.[6] When Comte said that the universe could not rest upon will, because then it would be arbitrary, incalculable, subject to caprice, one feels the humour and pathos of it. Comte's experience with will, his own and that of others, had evidently been too largely of that sad sort. Real freedom consists in conformity to what ought to be. In God, whom we conceive as perfect, this ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... cause to blush at such an innocent proposal, nevertheless a richer colour than usual mantled on her modest little face as she fell in with the Doctor's humour and stepped out into the small piece of ground behind ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... these by way of specimen. I could give you two or three dozen of the like and yet have abundance left behind. 'Tis sufficient from these to apprise any one of the humour of those times, and how a set of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations; some with mercury, and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pretended to, ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... his pen and emptying his glass, 'which seems to bring him before my eyes like the Ghost of Hamlet's father, in the very clothes that he wore on work-a-days. His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before me like visions of my youth. His linen!' said Mr Brass smiling fondly at the wall, 'his linen which was always of a particular colour, for such was his whim and fancy—how plain I ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... 'Entirely. And the humour is, that Lachen has persuaded her that Lachen herself is on the best possible terms with my confidential valet, and can make herself at all times mistress of her master's secrets. So it is always in my power, apparently without taking the slightest interest in Afy's conduct, to regulate ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... rollicking bachelors, Beaumont and Fletcher, at the "Mermaid," or going with them to the Globe Theatre to see two Warwickshire brothers, Edmund and Will Shakspeare, who are on the boards there,—the latter taking the part of Old Knowell, in Ben Jonson's play of "Every Man in his Humour." His friends say that this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... in a better humour, a sip of the smoking coffee, which apparently was just to his taste, adding to his content at the scrubbing operations having been ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... so here it is. And look at the "Lapps of Luxury"! You know that "Lap of Luxury" is a proverbial phrase; and, as you told me to make some comic sketches of the manners and customs of the country, why, I've done so; and, if they ain't funny, I don't know what humour is. Voila! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... seen her. She hath promised to protect her, and sends her down to Dunstanwolde with her mother this very week. Would all fine ladies were of her kind. To hear such things of her puts a man in the humour ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... accept the hospital with abject submission, or else refuse it altogether; and had calculated that he would probably be more quick to do the latter, if he could be got to enter upon the subject in all ill-humour. Perhaps Mr Slope was not ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... study of philosophy also is evident in this comment in a letter written after a prolonged absence from her plantation home for the purpose of attending some social function: "I began to consider what attraction there was in this place that used so agreeably to soothe my pensive humour, and made me indifferent to everything the gay world could boast; but I found the change not in the place but in myself.... and I was forced to consult Mr. Locke over and over, to see wherein personal Identity consisted, and if I was ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... he said to himself, "Heaton has gone mad! stark staring mad, as I expected he would. He is armed. The situation is becoming dangerous. I must humour him." ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... many hours to yourself while you are staying with me, brother," he said—this form of address borrowed from the speech of our peasants being the usual expression of the highest good humour in a moment of affectionate elation. "I shall be always coming in ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... attracted the public, sale bete, to their works. The genial disdain of Michel Rollin, who called them impostors, was answered by him with vituperation, of which crapule and canaille were the least violent items; he amused himself with abuse of their private lives, and with sardonic humour, with blasphemous and obscene detail, attacked the legitimacy of their births and the purity of their conjugal relations: he used an Oriental imagery and an Oriental emphasis to accentuate his ribald scorn. Nor did he conceal his contempt for the students whose work he examined. By ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him. Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine; over he went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot it was, though I ought not to say it. This little incident put me into rather a better humour, especially as the buck had rolled over right against the after-part of the waggon, so I had only to gut him, fix a reim round his legs, and haul him up. By the time I had done this the sun was down, and the full moon was ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... any better than creditably others know better than myself. I have still ten to read." This second course followed immediately on the first, and, under the general head of "Taste," discussed topics so various as "Wit and Humour," "The Beautiful," "The Sublime," "The Faculties of Animals as compared with those of Man," and "The Faculties of Beasts." By this time the lectures had become ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... big and strong and disgustingly healthy, the envy of all in Ruhleben camp, the suspected of every German guard in the place—for how could a fellow retain such proportions with such attenuated diet?—but, boasting of an excellent digestion, the fellow was seldom in an ill humour. Even when he grumbled and said scathing things of the Germans, he was half laughing, and it required a very great deal of annoyance indeed to rouse his passions. Yet the smallest hint of disloyalty to Great Britain, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... before they began to keep exact accounts of Time, have been prone to raise their Antiquities; and this humour has been promoted, by the Contentions between Nations about their Originals. Herodotus [3] tells us, that the Priests of Egypt reckoned from the Reign of Menes to that of Sethon, who put Sennacherib to flight, three hundred forty ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... that prolific writer of the same period, Samuel Rowlands. The severity of his satire, and the obviousness of the allusions, caused two of his works to be burnt, first publicly, and then in the hall kitchen of the Stationers' Company, in October 1600. These were: The Letting Humour's Blood in the Headvein, and, A Merry Meeting; or, 'tis Merry when Knaves meet; both of which subsequently reappeared under the titles respectively of Humour's Ordinarie, where a man may be verie merrie and exceeding well ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... these assurances, my father recovered his good-humour, and trusted to my promise that I would commence my great work the ensuing day. I was fully in earnest. I went to my canvass bag to prepare my materials. Alas! I found them in a terrible condition. The sea-water, somehow or other, had got ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... scrubbed with the mullet he had brought, a sentence that the imperial minions performed without delay. The intrepid fisherman might have congratulated himself on so mild a punishment for having disturbed a tyrant's repose, had he not been possessed of an unusually strong sense of humour. For at the close of the mullet-scrubbing episode, the foolish fellow remarked by way of a jest to the officer on duty, that he was thankful he had not also offered the emperor a large crab which he had likewise brought in his ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... for Barry Pain's 'Eliza' I question if anything more d e l i c i o u s l y humourous, and of a humour so restrained, has been written since the time ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... consequent narrow escape, of the preceding day. Finding him thus uncommunicative, and not comprehending the change in his manner, they rallied him; and, as the bottle circulated, he seemed more and more disposed to meet their raillery with a cheerfulness and good humour that brought even the color into his sunken cheeks; but when, finally, some of them proceeded to ask him, in their taunting manner, what he had done with his old flame and fascinating prisoner, Miss Montgomerie, a deadly ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... itself obliged to chronicle the fact that Mr. Gladstone, with his wife and daughter, was visiting Abbeyleix, gracefully observed that he "had been entrapped into going there!" Some one lamenting the lack of Irish humour and spirit in the present Nationalist movement, as compared with the earlier movements, Lord de Vesci cited as a solitary but refreshing instance of it, the incident which occurred the other day at an eviction in Kerry,[18] ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... in the midst of his council. Next, as there was nothing in the world so dear to him, after the sultan, as the princess Nouronnihar, he wished to see her; and instantly beheld her laughing, and in a gay humour, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon. |
