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More "Amuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gentleman's steam had gone down a little I replied, 'Really, general, I hardly know how to answer you. Your daughter and I are very good friends, the place is most detestably dull, there is nothing to do, and if we amuse ourselves with a little love-making, surely there can be no great harm.' This rejoinder of mine made things worse; I thought the old boy would have had a fit. At last he said, 'The mail steamer leaves for England to-morrow; you shall ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... intervention of a superior had a healing effect. In nowise did Lieutenant Trevelyan receive so many taunts from his fellow officers as for habits of moderation. They often dubbed him "Saint Guy, the cold water man," which only served to amuse the young Lieutenant. The attention of the American was often directed to Mr. Trevelyan, listening with deep interest to the history of the young man and his distinguished father. "Lieutenant Trevelyan is a ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a conscious caricature of himself. He is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, etc. and yet we are not offended but delighted with him; for he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all these characters to shew the humourous part of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience, has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... true culture without acquirements, and that philosophy presupposes knowledge. It requires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious subject; and without such learning the most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful result or any trustworthy conclusion. There are indeed persons who profess a different view of the matter, and even act upon it. Every now and then you will find a person of vigorous or fertile mind, who relies upon his own resources, despises ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... It is fair that I should amuse myself a little at her expense before I take leave. I must get something out of ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... pretty poor one by the by, has practically been destroyed. Only a single picture remains perfectly intact, and that is the Portrait of Philippe Egalite. Was it purposely respected by the riot or is its preservation an irony of chance? The National Guards amused, and still amuse, themselves by cutting out of the canvases that were not entirely destroyed by fire faces to which they ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... the other, and, as I made out from Sadie's description, they must have been havin' an awful time, livin' in one of them eighteen-room cottages built on a point juttin' a mile or so out into the ocean, with nothin' but yachts and motor boats and saddle horses and tennis courts and so on to amuse themselves with. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... made every one's heart ache to see his long sharp face, and his wasted hands, and his limbs, so shrunk and feeble that he could not walk. His tutor could not endure the duchess, his governess, and taught the poor fretful child to be rude to her, and even to his mother. When the duchess came near to amuse him, he told her to go away, for he could not bear the perfumes that she was so dreadfully fond of. This was put into his head, for she used no perfumes. When the queen carried to her poor boy some lozenges ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... and whose plots are virtuous. This insistence on decorum and virtue indicates a concession to Collier and to the public. Thus in the preface to Love's Contrivance (1703), she reiterates her belief that comedy should amuse but adds that she strove for a "modest stile" which might not "disoblige the nicest ear." This modest style, not practiced in early plays, is achieved admirably in The Busie Body. Yet, as she says in the epilogue, she has not followed the ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... their departure would have been an impossibility: for they were firmly convinced that their presence was necessary to the welfare of their charges. And then, too, judging from the way in which they managed to amuse themselves, they liked being in Petershof, though they never owned that to the invalids. On the contrary, it was the custom for the caretakers to depreciate the place, and to deplore the necessity which obliged them to continue there month after month. They were fond, ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... among them who has not learnt to accompany the name of Pitt with an execration. When I went to bed, there was no sleep to be had on account of the sentinels thinking fit to amuse me the whole night through with the revenge they meant to take on him when they got him to Paris. Next morning I went on board the 'Experiment.' The Commodore and all his officers messed together, and I was admitted among them. They are truly the poorest-looking people I ever saw. Even the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... bubbling of merriment that had seemed one of her chief graces in the early days. It occurred to him that he had not given her enough things to laugh about lately. But then she needed such very elementary things: it was as difficult to amuse her as a savage. He concluded that he was not ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... they think. I know what I think, and I'll bet I know her through and through. She is reckless to the point of doing anything on earth that will amuse her. She is so badly spoiled she is rotten. I know how you are fixed—oh, I know! You can't kill him; you don't love her enough for that; and besides, you know you can't prove anything serious against her. Her married women friends go about with ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... vividness of your description, the love of Jew above the love of Palestine, all these combine to render your volumes valuable additions to the small stock of good Jewish literature in English. It is not only that you teach, while talking so pleasantly; that you instruct while you interest and amuse; that you have your own personality in the stories; that you convey the charm of Eretz Israel, and the beauty of holiday spirit; but because your stories help us to feel the depth of faith and the height of ideal as the self-evident, normal ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... her Majesty's subjects are more miserable than another, it is that of gentlemen's servants. One of these oppressed persons is revealed to us in the next act. Poor fellow! he has nothing to do but to sit in the hall, and nothing to amuse him but the newspaper. But his misfortunes do not end here: as if to add insult to injury, the family governess presumes to upbraid him, and actually insists upon his taking a letter to the post. Mr. Nibble declines performing so undignified a service, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... not calling themselves Socialists have done—we should still doubt the soundness of their economic theories as applied to society in general, but we should respect their disinterestedness. But with very few exceptions Socialist Intellectuals dine and sup, feast and amuse themselves with as few scruples of conscience as ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... top. By the time that this happened and the princess was safely out, the uppermost pool was uncovered, and Eyebright clambered down the wet rocks and took another long look at it, "making believe" that it was a garden which a good fairy had planted to amuse the princess; and, indeed, no fairy could have invented a prettier one. So, little by little, and following the receding sea, she was able at last, with a jump and a long step, to reach the rocky pathway by which she had come down, and two minutes later she was on top of ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... poet took to building; he planned a new staircase and an Italian terrace: but even this did not amuse him. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... other. All your faculties, all that is in you of greatest and best, must be awake in you, or I have no reward. The painter is not to cast the entire treasure of his human nature into his labor, merely to please a part of the beholder: not merely to delight his senses, not merely to amuse his fancy, not merely to beguile him into emotion, not merely to lead him into thought, but to do all this. Senses, fancy, feeling, reason, the whole of the beholding spirit, must be stilled in attention or stirred with delight; else the laboring spirit has not ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... that these 'Yankees' always 'whittle' everything. We are afraid they will spoil the furniture to-night; so tell one of the servants to cut a hundred pine slugs, and you go down to the store and buy a box of penknives. Then they will have plenty to amuse themselves with and will ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... amuse, if not instruct; whilst I add a short detail of uncommon facts, recorded in antient history, and tending to shew clearly, that we are not without precedents of similar events having happened, in the early ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... dressing for dinner. "Caroline will manage Doltimore, and I shall manage one vote in the Lords and three in the Commons. I have already talked him into proper politics; a trifle all this, to be sure: but I had nothing else to amuse me, and one must never lose an occasion. Besides, Doltimore is rich, and rich friends are always useful. I have Caroline, too, in my power, and she may be of service with respect to this Evelyn, who, instead of loving, I half hate: she has crossed my path, robbed me of wealth; and now, if ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... should reasonably satisfy the expectations excited by his lighter books, and lay for him the basis of enduring reputation. All that he had done before was the play of careless genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, which might amuse and perhaps win an affectionate regard for the author, but could not justify a high respect or secure a permanent place in literature. For this, some work of ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... each successive exhaustion of his exchequer he is fain to write for the taste of a corrupt mob. [26] But at last Statius began to see the folly of all this. He grew tired of hiring himself out to amuse, of practising the affectation of a modesty, an inspiration, an emotion he did not feel, of hearing the false plaudits of rivals who he knew carped at his verses in his absence and libelled his character, of running hither and thither over Parnassus ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... by the stage for Augusta. George, seated on the box with the driver, found much to amuse him; and the driver's merry chat and great admiration of George's new and gaily-bedizened suit, went a great way towards reconciling that young gentleman ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... are things that puzzle me more and more about him,—things that used to amuse me at first, because I didn't actually believe that they could be, and that I felt like defying afterwards. But now I can't bear up against them. They frighten me, and seem to deny me the right to be what I ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... them to the remarkable association we have been considering. It would not be very difficult to intimate how this might have happened, but the length of our note, the reader may think, is much greater than its importance, and he may prefer to amuse himself at another time, by following out the investigation. Let it be our apology for entering on it at all, that it is only by diligent reflection on such mysterious trains of thought, we can hope to acquire any just ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... to amuse the King. One had to captivate him by some piquant detail; without that, he would escape you, give you no time to speak. The success generally began by the first words, no matter how vague, of any conversation; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... you give up your purse with a pistol at your head. This is no time for sentimentalisms about the empty chair at the national hearth; all the chairs would be empty soon enough, if one of the children is to amuse itself with setting the house on fire, whenever it can find a match. Since the election of Mr. Lincoln, not one of the arguments has lost its force, not a cipher of the statistics has been proved mistaken, on which the judgment of the people was made up. Nobody proposes, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... rest houses were interesting. Most of them have furniture made from trees "to amuse us and pass the time." Both officers and men use the same type of house, though discipline forbids that the same house be used by both officers and men. The light in these houses is bad and the ventilation not all that it should be, but they are extremely careful about sanitation, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... who, on the other hand, proposes to give us an accurate picture of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse us, or to appeal to our feelings, but to compel us to reflect, and to understand the occult and deeper meaning of events. By dint of seeing and meditating he has come to regard the world, facts, men, and things in a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... came. Yet I could hardly believe that even you would commit yourself to that finishing touch of impudence! Certainly it is an opportunity, his being out of the way. You were not long in making use of it, were you? It will amuse him when he comes down, though it may open his eyes. I shall tell him everything, so I give you warning. Every single thing, that you have had the insolence to ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... wisely fearful of the trampling hoof, to carry aside his oyster with its possible pearl before he opened it. In earnest about everything, he must work out his liberty before he could gambol. A slave will amuse himself in his dungeon; a free man must file through his chains and dig through his prison-walls before he can frolic. Sunlight and air came through his open windows enough to keep Richard alive and strong, but not enough yet to make him merry. He was too solemn, thus, for most of those he met, ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... fiend hath possest thee, Nosing and snuffling so round the door? Go behind the stove there and rest thee, There's my best pillow—what wouldst thou more? As, out on the mountain-paths, frisking and leaping, Thou, to amuse us, hast done thy best, So now in return lie still in my keeping, A quiet, contented, and ...
— Faust • Goethe
... sirs, The player's art is to amuse, Instruct, or to confuse By too much good advice, But poorly given: That no one follows, because, forsooth, 'Tis thrown at him, neck and heels. The drama, pure and simple, is forgot In tugging in ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before, Till tired he sleeps, and life's ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... gentleman, it seems, only shot at his legs, merely to 'disable'—and it must be expected that every gentleman will amuse himself in shooting at his own property whenever the notion takes him, and if he should happen to hit a little higher and go through the small of the back instead of the legs, why every body says it is 'unfortunate,' and the whole of the editorial corps, instead of branding him as a barbarous ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... revels. Secret desires were excited, and but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about in consecrated and unconsecrated places, and the ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... possess that liveliness of disposition which renders some children such excellent companions. She seldom laughed, and had not the faculty of making many words about small matters. But the love and earnestness of her heart taught her how to amuse poor Edward in his darkness. She put her knitting-work into ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... started with the resolution that every task shall be taken up in its turn, without doubts and without forebodings, that bridges shall not be crossed until they are reached, that the vagaries of others shall amuse and interest, not distress us, and that we will live in the present, not in the past or the future. We must avoid undertaking too much, and whatever we do undertake we must try not to worry as to whether we shall succeed. This only prevents ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... people, and I have a glimmering suspicion in me that labouring people of whatever condition were made—by a higher intelligence than yours, as I poorly understand it—to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. See what we fall into, when we rest without it. Come! Amuse me harmlessly, show me ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... probable, that the souls of eminent men, such as the Tyndaridae, are divine and immortal, rather than that those bodies which had been reduced to ashes should mount on horses, and fight in an army? If you say that was possible, you ought to show how it is so, and not amuse us with fabulous old ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with an exaggerated drawl, "we who are not of an age to look upon them in a motherly light may not appreciate all those feelings. They amuse me, to be sure, but I had scarcely thought ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... me this fine story, monsieur? Who should it be but he who watches while I sleep, who labors while I amuse myself, who conducts everything at home and abroad—in ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... were in the outer circle, the latter having walked from a direction opposite to that from which Frank and Reginald came, but whose dignity did not prevent a certain desire to purchase if he saw fit, and if not, to amuse himself with those who did so. He stood watching the old man with an imperturbable air of gravity, and, hanging on his arm in a state of listless apathy, stood Trevannion, another ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... on the person who "infawrrrums" one, and is rarely complete. Almost everybody seems to think that an inquirer has some object to serve, and they either tell him what they think will amuse him or advance their own interest if it be repeated; but there are notable exceptions to this as ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... contemporaneous with the facts about which they write. Homer composes a romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as such; for nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than did the golden apple. Accordingly he did not think of making a history, but solely a book to amuse; he is the only writer of his time; the beauty of the work has made it last, every one learns it and talks of it, it is necessary to know it, and each one knows it by heart. Four hundred years afterwards the witnesses of these facts are no longer alive, no one knows of his own knowledge ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... am going back to his place; he said I might amuse myself with his books till he came in. I haven't had dinner yet,' and Cecil felt a momentary importance ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... conversation, Emma, to amuse herself, took a rifle and vent out with Percival. She fired several shots at a mark, and by degrees acquired some dexterity; gradually she became fond of the exercise, and not a day passed that she and Percival ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... that the Gothic king retreated towards the banks of the Danube; and reenforced his army with fresh swarms of Barbarians, before he again attempted to penetrate into the heart of Italy. Since the public and important events escape the diligence of the historian, he may amuse himself with contemplating, for a moment, the influence of the arms of Alaric on the fortunes of two obscure individuals, a presbyter of Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was summoned by his enemies to appear ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... grown up with our habits and customs, and increased in the number of packs, number of hunting days, and number of horsemen, in full proportion with wealth and population, one cannot help being amused at the simplicity with which Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who comes from a country where people seldom amuse themselves out of doors (except in making money), tells in her "Sunny Memories," how, when she dined with Lord John Russell, at Richmond, the conversation turned on hunting; and she expressed her astonishment "that, in the height of English civilisation, ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... husband," she said, "is always increasingly absorbed in his legal duties, of which I understand nothing, and which so do not interest me. My children are all growing up and at school. I have servants enough to attend to my house. When he comes home in the evening, if I try to amuse him by telling him of the things I have been doing during the day, of the bazaars I am working for, the shopping I have done, the visits I have paid, he is bored. He is anxious to get away to his study, his books, and his men friends, and I am left utterly alone. If it were not ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... the North American Indians, known to-day, as it was in 1636, by the name of "lacrosse," was potent among them as a remedial exercise or superstitious rite to cure diseases and avert disaster; that it formed part of stately ceremonials which were intended to entertain and amuse distinguished guests; and that it was made use of as a stratagem of war, by means of which to lull the suspicions of the enemy and to gain ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... her character as circumstances have given me in a few brief hours. But what a miserable revelation she has made of herself—cowardice this morning—fraud this afternoon, and cold selfishness, that can amuse itself with the mortification and misfortunes of others, this evening. This is the moral side of the picture. But when I came to 'speer' around to see whether she had any mind or real culture, the exhibition was still more pitiable. Ye gods! that a girl can ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... book, and then shut it with a snap. "Now I'm ready to begin. Are you going to amuse me, or am I going ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... favour to lay themselves out for the satisfaction of others: they preserve an austere silence when it is unnecessary, and at other times talk incessantly of the things of God. A wife has scruples about pleasing her husband, entertaining him, walking with him, or seeking to amuse him, but has none about speaking uselessly for two hours with religious devotees. This is a horrible abuse. We ought to be diligent in the discharge of all duties, whatever their nature may be; and even if they do cause us inconvenience, ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... country quite familiar, in the rapid movement of the rail-road car! Nay, the most wonted objects, (make a very slight change in the point of vision,) please us most. In a camera obscura, the butcher's cart, and the figure of one of our own family amuse us. So a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us. Turn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... wouldn't touch a hair of your head," Thorn ran on, following a vein which seemed to amuse him, for he smiled, a horrible, face-drawing contortion of a smile, "for if you and me ever had a fallin' out over money I might git so hard up I couldn't travel, and one of them sheriff fellers might slip up ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... need trouble himself to understand the merits of any question before the house. He may, therefore, amuse himself at Bellamy's until five minutes before the Speaker's bell rings ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... o' 'number one,' are a hard workin set as a rule, but even they have to amuse thersen a bit sometimes, an' they find it a nice change to luk after 'number two.' To a chap o' this sooart, iverybody's 'number two,' 'at's a bit better awther i' luks, position, or pocket. Nah if yo want ony fun o' this sooart aw'll tell yo ha to ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... are a very merry nation, and for their fete or festival days have many jolly games to amuse both the children and older people. In one of these a weighted string is hung up at one end of a tent, and the children, starting from the other end, try to cut it with a pair of scissors. This would be easy enough, were it not that each player is blindfolded ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... grovelling admiration had not yet Imagined of the great man-miracle; And France recounted with her comic smile Duplicities of Court and Cabinet, The silky female of his male in guile, Wherewith her two-faced Master could amuse A dupe he charmed in sunny beams to bask, Before his feint for camisado struck The lightning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which they have been produced. Unless they are founded on fact, so far as customs, localities, and mode of life are concerned, they would possess no interest; and their principal object is to interest. Without some degree of poetic improbabilities as to events, they could scarcely amuse; and their object is also to amuse. Hence, the element of truth is easily separated from the element of fiction, and each is available in its measure for historic research. The most ancient of this ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... himself,—"Whether he would give up the Substantial Forms of the Schoolmen." Strange matter for boyish deliberation! Yes, good youth, by all means, give them up! They have had their day. They served to amuse the imprisoned intellect of Christendom in times of ecclesiastical thraldom, when learning knew no other vocation. But the age into which you are born has its own problems, of nearer interest and more commanding import. The measuring-reed of science is to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... with which they can be accurately classed. I do not forget Horace Walpole, and Swift's 'Journal to Stella.' But Lockhart's wit was more playful and more natural. The great charm of his letters is, that he thought, so far, of nothing but simply to relate what was likely to amuse his daughter, whether the matter in itself was of the least consequence or not. Such, however, were not the only topics of which he had to tell. Mr. Lockhart, who, with his somewhat haughty self-possession, might have been described, as the late Lord ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... of its transcendentalism, my novel may serve to interest and amuse your public for a couple of hours, and may obtain some favor with it; for it is a public that reads a great deal, that is indulgent, and that differs from the English public—which is eminently exclusive in its tastes—by its ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... make a dandy, and one that no nigger could steal from. I'm buying it to sell for at least twice as much as I've paid for it, and I want you to watch me. I've been tickled mighty nigh to death over your late deals, and I want to amuse you. I know you'd like to see me make some money, and I'm going to do it as sure as I'm knee-high ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Sittings, a many months' run, Witnesses Two Hundred, Ninety and One: Clergymen, guardians, factors, physicians, Middlemen, labourers, smart statisticians, Journalists, managers, Gentiles and Jews, And this is the issue! A thing to amuse A cynic, the chat of this precious Committee, But moving kind hearts to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... life. He was never common or ridiculous, but she saw that he would never acquire the small social facilities. He was fond of exercise, but it bored him to talk of it. The men's smoking-room anecdotes did not amuse him, he was unmoved by the fluctuations of the stock-market, he could not tell one card from another, and his perfunctory attempts at billiards had once caused Mr. Langhope to murmur, in his daughter's hearing: "Ah, that's ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... and we wish to express our great pleasure at the thought that thousands and thousands of children who one year ago were strangers to us are now our little friends, and, we might say, seem to us like one large family. We have done our best to amuse and instruct them, and to make them happy; and by giving them weekly a rich fund of beautiful pictures, stories, poems, and instructive reading, to awaken in them noble thoughts and impulses, a desire for information, and also to teach ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... miss. I had a very good reason for asking you, but one doesn't always tell his reasons. However, I expect to see you every night at the dinner table, and for an hour or so afterward in the drawing room. The rest of the time you must amuse yourselves. Have you any friends in New York, ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... pent in trackless tracts, and pressed together by perpetual peril, every body's manners had been growing free and easy. Every man had been compelled to tell, as truly as he could, the story of his life thus far, to amuse his fellow-creatures—every man, I mean, of course, except my own poor father. Some told their stories every evening, until we were quite tired—although they were never the same twice over; but my father could never be ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... never hope for companionship, nor—certainly not—for school advantages, nor yet marriage; how then? She must amuse herself, fill in the time, be always occupied. Maman Archambault and you will sew for her, cook for her, and watch over her, and if at any time the money comes to an end——Artemise, listen, I tell you! Collect your wits and keep looking at me." For the girl's attention ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... accomplished was a mere feeling of the other's lines by either force. Hooker vainly endeavored to ascertain Lee's strength at various places in his front. Lee, to good purpose, strove to amuse Hooker by his bustle and stir, to deceive him as to the weakness of his force, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... been described by previous authors. The giraffe being endowed with an organ so exquisitely formed for prehension, instinctively puts it to use in a variety of ways, while in a state of confinement. The female in the Garden of Plants, at Paris, for example, may frequently be observed to amuse itself by stretching upward its neck and head, and, with the slender tongue, pulling out the straws which are plaited into the partition separating it from the contiguous compartment of its inclosure. In our own menagerie, many a fair lady has been robbed of the artificial flower ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... concern the deeper things of speculative philosophy and religion, rather than the wisdom of daily life, and, besides, though aphoristic in form, they are in substance systematic. "I blame equally," he said, "those who take sides for praising man, those who are for blaming him, and those who amuse themselves with him: the only wise part is search for truth—search with many sighs." On man, as he exists in society, he said little; and what he said does not make us hopeful. He saw the darker side. "If everybody knew what one says of the other, there would not be four friends left in ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... is a good counsel; but mind your idleness also. It's a tragic thing to make a business of your mind. Save your mind to amuse yourself with. ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... rolling on, threatening to overwhelm the tall ship, and bury her in the fathomless abyss of the ocean—the laugh of the gallant tars, when a sea sweeps the deck and drenches them to the skin—all these incidents, united, rather amuse the voyager, and tend to dispel the inanity with which he is afflicted. During these periods, I have been for hours watching the motions of the "stormy petrel" (procellaria pelagica), called by sailors, "mother Carey's chickens." These birds are seldom seen ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... buckling a shawl-strap around it. Then I heard the old gentleman say to Doctor Tremont, "Tom, I don't want to add to the inconveniences of your journey, but I should like to send these monkeys along to help amuse the boys. Maybe they'll be some comfort to them. Dago is for Stuart, and Matches is for Phil. It would be a good idea to keep them in their boxes to-night on the sleeping-car. They are unusually well behaved little animals, but it would be safer to keep them shut ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... another matter when one acts in self-defence; but would it not be better to kill all the kings, seeing that they make war just to amuse themselves?" ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... diligence. Some man sat on the little walnut table and broke it; but no other damage worth mentioning has been done. The table was absurdly repaired with a piece of twine, and pushed into the recess between the organ and the front window, whence I sometimes amuse myself by the experiment of pulling it into broad daylight. It is always pushed back again before I return ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... around its neck—at such times the monkey would scamper from shoulder to shoulder of the small boy, with occasional excursions up in the woolly kinks of the heights above. It was a funny picture and one that never failed to amuse those who ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... that for 'em; and as for us blue-jackets, every man Jack of us would have jumped overboard only to please her, when once we knew how it was. But she was too weak to talk or read much, and the chief thing she had to amuse her was a little grey Java sparrow, which she had with her in a cage. Whenever she came on deck, the bird's cage was brought up too, and put close beside her; and it was Bob Wilkins, the pantry-boy, who always had ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... dingo dog. From the moment after the phrase's utterance to that of the slapping of my knee, it had been altogether absent from my mind. Now it haunts me. It reiterates itself after the manner of a glib phrase. I am glad I am not in a railway carriage; the cranks would amuse the wheels with it all night long. As it is, the surf tries to thunder it out on the shingle just a few yards away from my window. I keep asking myself: why a dingo dog? If I am mad it is in a gentle, Jaquesian, melancholy manner. I do not dash at life, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... were at eleven!—but a very proper, grown-up girl, who could reach the sugar when it is upon the sideboard! Surely you remember! That was the place, the firm fortress, where it was safe from us even without being locked up. We used to amuse ourselves by slapping flies, when it stood there, because we could not endure to see them flying around happily and enjoying what we ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... making the signs of the gods and speaking with Their hands lest the silence of Pegana should blush; then said the gods to one another, speaking with Their hands; "Let Us make worlds to amuse Ourselves while MANA rests. Let Us make worlds and Life and Death, and colours in the sky; only let Us not break the silence ...
— The Gods of Pegana • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... in person, with small eyes and a ruddy face. I gather this from the caricature of him in the poetical paper-war carried on between him and his friend Matteo Franco, a Florentine canon, which is understood to have been all in good humour—sport to amuse their friends—a perilous speculation. Besides his share in these verses, he is supposed to have had a hand in his brother's romance, and was certainly the author of some devout poems, and of a burlesque panegyric on ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... add to the hilarity of nations, and amuse himself by hanging a few rebels," he went on, "but we will address ourselves to serious work. All men have their price, including the present company, with due apologies to ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... and that marked [III.] mine in reply to his) will (at the same time that they may convince your ladyship that I will conceal nothing from you in the course of this correspondence, which may in the least amuse and divert you, or better explain our grateful sentiments), in a great measure, answer what your ladyship expects from me, as to the happy fortnight we ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... are only half real, a vain effort to prolong the imaginative loves of the middle age beyond their natural lifetime. They write love-poems for hire. Like that party of people who tell the tales in Boccaccio's Decameron, they form a circle which in an age of great troubles, losses, anxieties, can amuse itself with art, poetry, intrigue. But they amuse themselves with wonderful elegance. And sometimes their gaiety becomes satiric, for, as they play, real passions insinuate themselves, and at least the reality of death. Their dejection at the ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... ciphers which I would read as easily as I do the apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices amuse the intelligence without fatiguing it. But this is different. It is clearly a reference to the words in a page of some book. Until I am told which page and ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the doggerel verse of the earlier drama, and "clownage" to the crude horseplay intended to amuse the crowd. For the doggerel is substituted blank verse, "Marlowe's mighty line" as it has ever since been called, since he was the first to use it with power; and for the "clownage" he promises a play of human interest revolving around a man whose sole ambition is for world power,—such ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... large, so sometimes more than one was needed for a play. At other times the players overflowed, as it were, into the audience. "Here Herod rages on the pageant and in the street also" is one stage direction. The devils, too, often ran among the people, partly to amuse them and partly to frighten and show them what might happen if they remained wicked. At the Creation, animals of all kinds which had been kept chained up were let loose suddenly, and ran among the people, while ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... way, you will not be at work till to-morrow. I'll leave you this to amuse you. It has not been out long. Thirteen thousand copies were sold the first day. It is the Corsair—Byron's Corsair. My God, it IS poetry and no mistake! Not exactly, perhaps, in your line; but you are a man of sense, and if that doesn't make your heart leap ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... ruffled perception, no more adventured a look than if advised by his constitutional kindness that to notice her in any degree would perforce be ungraciously to glower. He talked after a fashion with the woman as to whose power to please and amuse and serve him, as to whose really quite organised and indicated fitness for lighting up his autumn afternoon of life his conviction had lately strained itself so clear; but he was all the while carrying on an intenser exchange ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... evil of him, mamma," said Violet. "I only meant that he does not care for anything very much, except to amuse himself. I think he is rather foolish, but I would ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... "Amuse me? For fifteen years I have sat in this room and amused myself by taking in what I would and shutting out the rest of the world. I have made the walls thick and padded them to keep out all sound. You observe that there is ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... friend, cannot e'en this arouse you? Still bending with the weight of shoulder'd Cupid? Fie! throw away that bauble, love, my friend: That glist'ning toy of listless laziness, Fit only for green girls and growing boys T' amuse themselves withal. Can an inconstant, A fickle changeling, move a man ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... Mr. Lovelace! Mr. Lovelace!—And very loud—and that shall quicken me more than it shall those you call to.—If it be Betty, and only Betty, I shall think worse of your art of making love* than of your fidelity, if you can't find a way to amuse her, and put her upon a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... adopt her husband's nationality whether she wants to or not. It's the law, and it's the custom besides. If you wanted to amuse yourself with your Nouveau Luxe friends you oughtn't to have married Raymond—but of course I say that only in joke. As if any woman would have hesitated who'd had your chance! Take my advice—keep out of Lili's set just ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... this point and shipped the bear away to a summer hotel, where they wanted something to amuse the visitors. She soon tired of the company and escaped ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... see the body of the unfortunate man. Indeed, the day which followed a massacre was always kept as a holiday, everyone leaving his work undone and coming out to stare at the slaughtered victims. In this case, a man wishing to amuse the crowd took his pipe out of his mouth and put it between the teeth of the corpse—a joke which had a marvellous success, those present shrieking ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I shall go. Is this a trap? What am I to think? In a minute he'll unloose his bees to amuse me. ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... minute, running his fingers through his hair, until it stood on end like porcupine quills. "Ha! I have it," said he. "Some rascally tramp has taken my umbrella from these innocent children, and given them this trumpery music-box to amuse them while he escaped." ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... ask and to answer the innumerable questions which were naturally called forth by his unexpected return; much had he to hear and much to tell, even leaving, as he said he would, the history of his adventures in Algiers to amuse two or three winter evenings, when all his family were ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... Sophia began to think what would become of her when the boy should be czar. She had styled herself Autocrat of all the Russias and did not like the idea of surrendering the title. For some time she was appeased when her courtiers told her that the boy cared for nothing except to amuse himself. ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... fire on our bomb vessels, which were well conducted, and threw shells briskly into the town; but, from their situation, they were very much exposed, and in great danger of being sunk. I accordingly ran within them with the Constitution, to draw off the enemy's attention and amuse them whilst the bombardment was kept up. We brought to within reach of grape, and fired eleven broadsides into the Bashaw's castle, town and batteries, in a situation where more than seventy guns ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... quite capable of appreciating the recondite. Miss Buchanan's appearance is striking, and she is an independent creature; but, essentially, she is the most commonplace type of English girl—well-bred, poor, idle, uneducated, and with no object in life except to amuse herself and find a husband with money. And under that air of sleepy indifference she has a very sharp eye to the main chance, you may take ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... sometimes to amuse his neighbors, often to soothe their sorrow under domestic calamity, or to give expression to his own. With little of that delicacy of taste which results from the attrition of fastidious and refined society, and altogether too truthful and matter-of-fact to call in the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Bukta, and the villagers dutifully drove out a cow to amuse him, that he might lie ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... ago, when he was not wearing his discontented expression. Seated beside her is a tall pallid woman with a cold face, but very velvety eyes and a smile rare but handsome. Every now and then this smile betrays itself, as her companion says anything that chances to amuse her. She is a Mrs. Herrick, a cousin of Olga Bohun's, and is now on a visit with her ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... playing at sovereignty with a vengeance. Sovereignty was a rattle for the States to amuse themselves with, until the royal infants, French and Spanish, should be grown old enough to take the sovereignty for good. Truly this was indeed keeping the republic under the king's heel to be crushed at his pleasure, as Aerssens, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... part in their sports, little do the simple children think that the gentle old man who can so amuse them and himself, has spent most of his life amidst scenes of wild adventure and deadly peril; and yet ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... the fine house he was having built for us two. It was I alone who would have it so. He was so elegant, so charming, so eager. I thought, however, he meddled a little too much about my dress, and the arrangement of my hair: "Do your hair like this; so," and he would amuse himself by placing a flower in the midst of my curls with far greater skill than any one of our milliners. So much experience in a man was alarming, wasn't it? I ought to have distrusted him. Well, you will ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... Thisby is then introduced to the palace audience, when Bottom and his Athenian mechanics amuse Theseus and Hippolyta with their crude, ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... I who made a song about the 'Cats of Clairville'. To amuse myself only, m'sieu, I ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Philip's prolonged absence, Dolores would have been perfectly happy at this period of her life. Separated from their son, the Marquis and his wife seemed to regard her with redoubled tenderness. Her wishes were their law. To amuse her, they took her to Nimes, to Montpellier and to Avignon; and she was everywhere welcomed as the daughter of the great house of Chamondrin, whose glory had been veiled in obscurity for a quarter of a century, only to emerge ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... "I hardly knew I was in town myself. I only ran up last night. I thought it would amuse me to have a look round—but things ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... families, and assign to every man a satisfactory function in life. The vivid realisation of history goes naturally with a love—excessive or reasonable—of the old order; and Scott, though writing carelessly to amuse idle readers, was stimulating the historical conceptions, which, for whatever reason, were most uncongenial to the Utilitarian as to ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... frequently amuse themselves with racing matches between the boys and girls; and here, again, they wager with great spirit. I saw a man in a most violent rage, tearing his hair, and beating his breast, after losing three hatchets at one of these races, which he had just before purchased from us with half ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... ordering all persons who should have the merchandise in their possession to return it immediately, so that it could be sold freely, and imposing severe penalties, they did not comply with it; as has been evident from its results, that edict must have been only to caution or amuse, for they only sold openly those goods that they were unable to sell privately without these being taken from them. And then—when, with the delay of the ships from Nueva Espana, and the fear of the danger that they ran of being captured by the Dutch; and the city, with having invested its share, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... nature, who disclaims all such. Hence the witty and intellectual ladies of our comedies and novels are all in the fashion of some particular time; they are like some old portraits which can still amuse and please by the beauty of the workmanship, in spite of the graceless costume or grotesque accompaniments, but from which we turn to worship with ever new delight the Floras and goddesses of Titian—the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... time there had been anything of the atmosphere of family frolic and fun. The lighting up of Sophy was one great ingredient; hitherto mirth had been merely endured by her, whereas now, improved health and spirits had made her take her share, amuse others and be amused, and cease to be hurt by the jarring of chance words. Lucy was lively as usual, but rather more excited than Albinia altogether liked; she was doubly particular about her dress; more disdainful of the common herd, and had a general air of exaltation that made Albinia rejoice ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thoroughly. My interference of course was imputed to the goodness of my heart, that could imagine nothing wrong &c. Such it is if Ladies will go gadding about with other people's husbands at watering places. How careful we should be to avoid the appearance of Evil. I thought this Anecdote might amuse you. It is not worth resenting seriously; only I give it as a specimen of orthodox candour. O Southey, Southey, how long would it be before you would find one of us Unitarians propagating such unwarrantable Scandal! Providence keep you all from the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... was now over, and the attention of our companions therefore free to observe all our proceedings in the ship. Some of them thought to amuse us by making leaps into the air, and then begged for a reward. We did not disappoint them, and the tricks were reiterated, till a sudden gust of wind changed their merriment into consternation. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... and autumn of that year, Mrs. Goddard contracted a habit of watching the park gate from the window of the cottage, particularly at certain hours of the day. It was only a habit, but it seemed to amuse her. She used to sit in the small bay window with her books, reading to herself or teaching Nellie, and it was quite natural that from time to time she should look out across the road. But it rarely happened, ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... resting in the coppice, unafraid of either sportsmen or children. At such times of waiting she never joined the Abbe de Sponde without asking him some ridiculous question, in order to draw the old man into a discussion which might serve to amuse him. And her reason was this,—which will serve to complete our picture of this excellent ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... no opportunity of talking to his customers, and of exhibiting his wonderful son. All are alleged to have been charmed with him. Mr. and Mrs. Garrick passing through the town, would retire to a summer-house in the garden of the Black Bear, and amuse themselves for some time with the recitations of the little fellow. 'Tommy has learned one or two new speeches since you were here, Mr. Garrick,' the father would exclaim, bringing forward his precocious boy. 'There was ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... to be your legger, grandma," she announced, "and I'll read to you, or amuse you, or play dominos or halma with you, or anything you like. Or we might play go-bang. ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... when the man, rather to his wonder, had obeyed: 'You should understand, sir,' he added, 'that while I might be glad to ride with you as one person of sagacity with another, and so receive your true opinions, it would amuse me very little to hear the empty compliments you would address ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fine view of the capital. Here the queen lived in royal state. She had, however, other palaces besides, and she often went to and fro among her different residences. She contrived a great many entertainments to amuse her court, such as comedies, games, revels, and celebrations of all sorts. The king joined with her in these schemes of pleasure. One of the historians of the time gives a curious account of the appearance of the king and the court in their excursions. "When the king sets out of ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to hang you, Mademoiselle! It was only a joke. The girls asked me to amuse them, and we think it fine sport to lasso one another at home. How was I to know it would be you, when I gave my word I would catch the first one that came upstairs? I didn't mean ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... temples we see a theatrical performance in progress, which seems rather incongruous, but upon inquiry the object of this is found to be a desire to appease the special gods of this individual temple; in fact, to entertain and amuse them so that they will receive the prayers of the people with favor. The exhibition consists of dancing and posturing by professionals of both sexes, accompanied by the noise of whistles, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... and boys. Hardly one able-bodied man was to be seen, the contrast with England in this respect at that time being very marked. A crowd of schoolboys pleading for souvenirs were made to earn them and amuse us by running races while we had ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... and examining the wonders of a whaleman's cabin. Morton had attached himself to Isabella, and, as he spoke the Spanish language fluently, and, what was more to the purpose, was impelled by an irresistible feeling to entertain and amuse her, soon drew her into conversation, and was astonished and delighted with her good sense. He had visited different parts of South America before, and had seen enough of the women to perceive that they were ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... loss hanging over them the Rover boys were in no mood to amuse themselves. Had it been otherwise, they might have gone to the theater or some concert, or possibly to some moving picture show. But, as it was, they spent most of their time at the offices and the hotel, and in looking ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... "thrice welcome! What a lovely day we have! Mrs. Clavering, I hope to have the privilege of taking you round my gardens, which are just in their autumn prime, and as to you three girls, will you amuse yourselves exactly as you please ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... that Annixter had noted in her upon the occasion of the barn dance, Hilma remained in many things a young child. She was never at loss for enjoyment, and could always amuse herself when left alone. Just now, she chose to drink from the creek, lying prone on the ground, her face half-buried in the water, and this, not because she was thirsty, but because it was a new way to drink. She imagined herself a belated traveller, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... renders a man indifferent to the conveniences of life. A furious wind arose after midnight, lightnings flashed over the horizon, thunder rolled, and we were wet to the skin. During this storm a whimsical incident served to amuse us for a moment. Dona Isabella's cat had perched upon the tamarind-tree, at the foot of which we lay. It fell into the hammock of one of our companions, who, being hurt by the claws of the cat, and suddenly aroused from a profound sleep, imagined he was attacked by some wild beast of the forest. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Perch-hole, where Lary Miller was to meet us with a punt and casting-net, and we were to fish our way down the river, towards Datchet. While awaiting him at the water's edge, among other inventions to amuse ourselves, Kennedy thoughtlessly snatching off my hat, set it floating on the water; so taking him by the collar, ere I had time to reflect, I swung him well into Perch-hole. The moment he scrambled out, there seemed to be no doubt on either side as to what was to be done. Indeed, it would be ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... and carriages, pushing his way with untiring zeal, he shows a reckless daring and a dauntless energy which are unmatched among any other people. His duties done, he is a gentleman of leisure. He may amuse himself now as he pleases, and his recreations show the same versatility displayed in his business enterprises. Possessed of a lively imagination and a keen sense of humor, he is never at a loss for a source of fun. He is as generous as he is mischievous, always willing to share his good things ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... instruments well selected produce a combination of delightful melody; and this progress of harmony is equally evident with respect to vocalists, who frequently posting themselves opposite some well frequented tavern or coffee-house, amuse the inmates with catches, glees, duets, &c. and trust to the liberal feelings which the "concord of sweet sounds may have inspired, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... wanting, and internal evidence be fatal to the truthfulness of the writings, then it will become our duty to remove them from the temple of history, and to place them in the fairy gardens of fancy and of myth, where they may amuse and instruct the student, without misleading him as ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... wonder how so many people (and the boys in particular) contrived to amuse themselves on that little island for a whole long summer day? I could write a volume about it, and still leave something to tell. Perhaps, some day, we shall hear what each person said and did and discovered on that occasion, but at present we must ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... Doctor came, he, too, was an old gray man, with a scalp-lock strangely divided like two horns. But the Wild Cat had become a little suspicious, having been so often deceived, for much abuse will cease to amuse even the most innocent; and truly he was none of these. And, looking grimly at the Doctor, [Footnote: This cross-examination of the Doctor is taken from an Abenaki version, narrated by a St. Francis Indian ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... "I wish I had an acrobatic conscience such as yours, Bruce," says he. "I could amuse myself for hours watching it ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... because she was a virgin in mind, and in marriage she saw only that which is visible to the eyes of young girls—namely dresses, banquets, horses, to be a lady and mistress, to have a country seat, to amuse oneself and give orders; so, like the child that she was, she played with the gold tassels on the bed, and marvelled at the richness of the shrine in which her innocence should be interred. Feeling, a little later in the day, his culpability, and relying on the future, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... present condition; but the idea of converting them into fashionable new garments is too funny altogether. You might as well try to cut up an oak-tree into fancy borderings. Leave them as they are, dear, and lend them to me, so that I may dress up and amuse my people. Then they will be doing ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... and eke of railway companies, must be taken without question," he answered. "No, I shall keep your pieces of silver. I mean to invest them. It will amuse me to learn how much I can make on an initial capital of twelve francs, fifty centimes. Will you allow that? I shall be scrupulously accurate, and submit an audited account at Christmas. Even my worst enemies have never alleged dishonesty against ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... time his conceit would have brought upon himself a fine snubbing, but today I was in high feather, and accordingly very pleasant, and resolved to amuse ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... object which Will stated to himself as a reason for coming down. He had meant to confide in Lydgate, and discuss the money question with him, and he had meant to amuse himself for the few evenings of his stay by having a great deal of music and badinage with fair Rosamond, without neglecting his friends at Lowick Parsonage:—if the Parsonage was close to the Manor, that was no fault of his. He had neglected the Farebrothers before his departure, from a proud ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... spot on which the sunshine fell, on the south side of one of the great stones; here Allie made a couch, and the child rested on it in perfect content. Some of the little ones were tired also, and fell asleep, and were well happed by Allison and the mistress, and the rest went away to amuse themselves for a while. ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... sufficient amount to discharge the debt thus wantonly incurred, but, as he adds, with a self-gratulation worthy of a better cause, "also a diamond-hilted sword of the value of five thousand crowns, and five or six thousand more with which to amuse myself." [135] ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... warm as we come into southern latitudes. We reckon that we have done two-thirds of our voyage. How glad we shall be to see the green banks of the Tagus, and leave this unlucky ship for ever! I was endeavouring to amuse Harton to-day and to while away the time by telling him some of the experiences of my past life. Among others I related to him how I came into the possession of my black stone, and as a finale I rummaged in the side pocket of my old shooting coat and produced the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the hostel had the hour between four and five o'clock at their own disposal. They were not allowed to leave the College bounds, but they might amuse themselves as they pleased in the garden, playground, or gymnasium. In turns, according to the practising list, they had to devote the time to the piano, and a few even began their prep., though this was not greatly encouraged by Miss Burd, who thought a short brain rest ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... seen the same thing in pre-Puritan England," he concluded, at the end of a long exposition. "And now, if you like, we will have a look at that Club. It may amuse you. There is still time ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... briskly said the fair narrator. "But I know that the ladies of the court did not. As the king retired, and we remained in the opera boxes to amuse ourselves a little with the display, we heard, to our astonishment, a proposal that the tables should be cleared away, and the ladies invited to a dance upon the spot. The proposal was instantly followed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... corruption through the whole mass of society! As a class of mankind they have the strongest claim to pity! the education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character. They only live to amuse themselves, and by the same law which in nature invariably produces certain effects, they soon only afford ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... on a pole erected in the centre of the green, and then they set to work to amuse themselves with twenty different games. The games, however, did not flourish—the men were too eager to talk of what they had done, and the girls were too willing to listen—they divided themselves into fifty little parties, in which ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... pleasure, not a desire that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... perceiving the bizarre effects produced by the roundness of the mirror, which twists the beams of a ceiling into strange curves, and makes the doors and other parts of buildings recede in an extraordinary manner, the idea came to him to amuse himself by counterfeiting everything. Thereupon he had a ball of wood made by a turner, and, dividing it in half so as to make it the same in size and shape as the mirror, set to work to counterfeit on it with supreme art all that he saw in the glass, and particularly ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... her stateliness she had a keen appreciation of the ridiculous, and it was from her that Ted derived his excess of humor and his love of mischief. Passionately as she scorned Mr. Hand, she could forget herself so far as to let him amuse her. Her large face melted into a smile. She struggled to keep from ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the floor, eating, with wooden spoons, meat and rice stewed together, called pilau. They are not allowed to drink wine, or eat pork. A favourite diversion with them is playing on a kind of lute, and sometimes they amuse themselves with chess, draughts, and other games; but their principal amusement, like some of my little friends, is to sit and listen to stories, told by men who earn their livelihood by relating entertaining tales ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... of snapping his fingers. On the stone base was an inscription in Assyrian characters, of which they believed the sense to run as follows:—"Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, built Tarsus and Anchialus in one day. Do thou, O stranger, eat, and drink, and amuse thyself; for all the rest of human life is not worth so much as this"—"this" meaning the sound which the king was supposed to be making with his fingers. It appears probable that there was some figure of this kind, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Paris gardens, only here, instead of children, grown men and women rode the hobby-horses, and seemed delighted with the sport. In the general Babel, everybody was good-natured and jolly. Little things suffice to amuse the lower classes, who do not have to bother their heads ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Antwerp is derived from Hand-werpen or Hand-thrown: so called from a legend, which informs us that on the site of the present city once stood the castle of a giant, who held the neighbouring country in thraldom, and who was accustomed to amuse himself by cutting off, and casting into the river, the right hands of the unfortunate wights that fell into his power; but that being at last conquered himself, his own immense hand was disposed of, with poetical justice, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... at Vienna endeavoured to amuse the queen with the strongest assurances of his master's friendship, a body of five-and-thirty thousand men began their march for Germany, in order to join the elector of Bavaria; another French army was assembled upon the Rhine; and the count de Belleisle being provided with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... requires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious subject; and without such learning the most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful result or any trustworthy conclusion. There are indeed persons who profess a different view of the matter, and even act upon it. Every now and ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... philosopher myself? And do you think to satisfy me with some rags, torn by ignorant men from the purple garment of AEmilius, when AEmilius, Porphyry, and Plato, in all their glory, did not satisfy me! The systems devised by the sages are but tales imagined to amuse the eternal childishness of men. We divert ourselves with them, as we do with the stories of The Ass, The Tub, and The Ephesian Matron, or ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... deal of society among the Greek families at Athens for a few weeks before the Carnival. They meet together in the evenings, and amuse themselves in a very agreeable way. At one of these parties the discourse fell on the existence of ghosts and spirits; Michael, who was present, declared that he had no faith in their existence. With what groans did he assure me his opinion was changed, and conjured me never to express a doubt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... would be careful where he took her, and not let her be witness of any of the vile pastimes of cock fighting, bull or bear baiting, or the hearer of scurrilous or blasphemous language, he might have her companionship and welcome; and it would doubtless amuse her to go into Lord Andover's kitchen, where messengers generally waited who had brought notes or messages for members of the family, being treated to cups of sack and other hospitality; and as he was a good man, his household would be well ordered, and the maid would be ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares; they cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears, and cry, "Turn away mine ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... consisted in making the King of France the greatest of princes at home and abroad. To make anything great of Louis XIII., who was feeble alike in mind and body, was beyond any one's power, and Richelieu kept him in absolute subjection, allowing him a favourite with whom to hunt, talk, and amuse himself, but if the friend attempted to rouse the king to shake off the yoke, crushing him ruthlessly. It was the crown rather than the king that the cardinal exalted, putting down whatever resisted. Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's only brother, made ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... soon despatched, and the question as to the day's operations asked. Don Luis was the only one who, on the score of its being Sunday, would not go to the diggings. He had no objection to amuse himself on Sunday, but he would not work. To get over the difficulty, we agreed to go upon the principle of every man keeping his own findings, our bonds of unity as a party to extend merely to mutual protection and defence. Leaving Don Luis, then, smoking in the tent, we proceeded ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... she were much better and happier with "Sister" always at her service, and Paula and Thekla were delighted to amuse her. Paula was in a state of delight with Sister Angela, only a little puzzled by the irregularity of her course, though it was carefully explained that she had never been under any vows. To hear of her doings among the Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Secret desires were excited, and but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate to the life the gestures and convulsions of those really affected, roved from place to place seeking maintenance and adventures, and thus, wherever ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... him; for, like other Zulu chiefs, he was utterly regardless of human life. Denis therefore feared that should he say anything to excite his anger, he might order his guards to cut him and his companions to pieces, or might give them leave to amuse themselves by throwing their assegais at them. He therefore assumed as humble a manner as he could, and replied, "When Umbulazi is king, all Englishmen who come into this country will pay him reverence, and abide by his laws, as I and my friends now wish to ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... positively, on his way up the incline leading into Salle I., and would be upon us any minute. Sometimes the General lingered unnecessarily long on the incline, the wooden slope leading up to the ward, in which case he was not visible from the window, and Erard would amuse us by regretting that he had no periscope for the transom ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... to Taylor's Hotel was Miss Helen Josephine Mansfield. 'I went to Jersey,' testified this fair creature some weeks ago, in the suit which has just come to so tragical a termination, 'with the officers of the Erie Company, and the railroad paid all the expense.' Mr. Fisk could afford to amuse himself. He had made fifty or sixty thousand dollars by his day's work in Broad street, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had not only beaten Vanderbilt and Barnard, but outwitted even his particular ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... boy. Clarissa is a masterpiece, there are fourteen volumes of her, and the most wooden-headed playwright would give you the whole of Clarissa in a single act. So long as I amuse you, what have you to complain of? That costume was positively lovely. Don't you like camillias? Would you rather have dahlias? No? Very good, chestnuts then, here's for you." (And probably Bixiou flung a chestnut across the table, for we heard ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... brain, you will see that I am obliged to leave phrenology sub Jove,—out in the cold,—as not one of the household of science. I am not one of its haters; on the contrary, I am grateful for the incidental good it has done. I love to amuse myself in its plaster Golgothas, and listen to the glib professor, as he ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... only the idle men have the time to amuse us," retorted Miss Keene. "But," she added, with a laugh, "I suppose I'm getting nervous and fidgety myself; for I find myself every now and then watching the officers and men, and listening to the orders as if something were going to happen again. I never felt so before; I never used ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... months, into the southern parts of France and northern of Italy, has prevented my writing to you. In the mean time, you have changed your ground, and engaged in different occupations, so that I know not whether the news of this side the water will even amuse you. However, it is all I have for you. The storm which seemed to be raised suddenly in Brabant, will probably blow over. The Emperor, on his return to Vienna, pretended to revoke all the concessions which had been made by his Governors General, to his Brabantine ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... "I thought so. But you had best go and amuse yourself in places proper for you; you are not coming to walk over my flowerbeds ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... the novelist, my dear Professor," he had once been heard to say at his club, "is not to amuse merely; his work is that of an historian, and he should be quite as careful to write truthfully as is the historian. How is the future to know what manner of lives we nineteenth century people have lived unless our novelists ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... charge in this month's "Nineteenth" will amuse you. The heavy artillery and the bayonets will be brought into ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... for his part, "would have been heartily glad to have been penniless at Poitiers or Paris." Daily deaths made the camp a scene of continued mourning, and all the minstrels that had come across the sea to amuse their victor countrymen, like the poet who went with Edward II. to Bannockburn to celebrate the conquest of the Scots, found their gay imaginings turned to a ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... disposition to renew the afternoon's conversation with Annie Hart, so she went quietly upstairs to their private parlor and sat down to amuse herself with a book until Chloe came in from eating her supper. Then the little girl brought a stool, and seating herself in the old posture with her head in her nurse's lap, she drew her mother's miniature from her bosom, and fixing her eyes lovingly upon it, said, as ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... days before the fire when you went to a restaurant and ordered fish or oysters the waiter invariably put before you either a plate of crab salad or a dish of shrimps, with which you were supposed to amuse yourself while the meal was being prepared. Shrimps and crabs were then so plentiful that their price was never considered. Under our new conditions these always appear on the bill when ordered, and if they be not ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... agreed to it, that it was very hard to know what it was that the Parliament would call conformity at this time, and so it stopped, which I only observe to see how the Parliament's present temper do amuse them all. Thence to several places to buy a hat, and books, and neckcloths, and several errands I did before I got home, and, among others, bought me two new pair of spectacles of Turlington, who, it seems, is famous for them; and his daughter, he being out of the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the tactless impulse to say that he preferred a rope on the wrists to one about his neck, realising that the jest could only shock and not amuse ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... "But it does—it must amuse you. It's all down here in black and white. Listen. The reason a pun amuses you is as follows: 'It impels the mind to identify objects quite disconnected. This obstructs the flow of thought; but this is too transient to give ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... interesting allusion to the fact. "You know," he says, "that my wife's idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind. If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for one. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... very interesting, and even amusing. On an ordinary careless glance one would hardly detect much difference—the artist, who seemed to wish to have a certain freedom, made these changes either to amuse himself or as if resenting the monotony of copying. In any case they represent an amount of patient labour that is quite unique in ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... that they should wait for an hour to see if any orders arrived, and after that they would consider themselves at liberty to amuse themselves for the remainder of the day. But, alas for Dulce's hopes! long before the appointed hour had expired, the gate-bell rang, and Miss Drummond made her appearance with a large paper parcel, which she deposited on the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... a story to make the class laugh. Then to increase the hilarity and justify the epithet he asked several questions, at the same time winking to his favorites, as if to say to them, "You'll see how we're going to amuse ourselves." ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... rough, heady, strong, Dangerous to disquiet: let him bide! He needs some bone to mumble, help amuse The darkness of his den with: so, the fawn Which limps up bleeding to my foot and lies, —Come to me daughter!—thus ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... account for this as being naughty chance. Youth has been separated from the sober influence of its English home, is away from the mild and tranquil light of Oxford Street feminity, is given to death, and therefore snatches in abandon at amusement which otherwise would not amuse. Do not believe it. La Vie Parisienne, it is true, is certainly not a paper for the English family. I should be embarrassed if my respected aunts found it on my table, pointed to its drawings, and asked me what I saw in them. What makes it popular ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... staying at a commercial hotel at Savannah. Whenever she went to lie down, which was frequently, he played poker and drank highballs. He tried in his sincerest way to amuse her. He took her to theaters, restaurants, road-houses. He arranged a three days' hunting-trip, with a darky cook. He hired motor-boats and motor-cars and told her every "here's a new one," that he heard. But she dreaded his casual-seeming suggestions that she drink plenty of champagne; ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the opera or the theatre is only the prologue to the evening. Our little party supped at Delgardo's. The play then begins. New York is quite awake by that time, and ready to amuse itself. After the public duty, the public attitudinizing, after assisting at the artificial comedy and tragedy which imitate life under a mask, and suggest without satisfying, comes the actual experience. My gentle girl—God bless your sweet face and pure heart!—who looked down from the sky-parlor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and inexperience of Almagro, and that he was willing to distinguish between him and the principal conspirators, provided he could detach him from their interests. But it is more probable that he intended only to amuse his enemy by a show of negotiation, while he gained time for tampering with the fidelity of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Muses;—I shall say to my friend Brutus, when he mounts the Rostra, as he frequently does,— Play to me and the people;—that those who hear him may be sensible of the effect of his Eloquence, while I can likewise amuse myself with remarking the causes which produce it. When a Citizen hears an able Orator, he readily credits what is said;—he imagines every thing to be true, he believes and relishes the force of it; and, in short, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... really be made interesting. It is a story, with a regular development, and for telling it I have the advantage that I happened to know about it from the first, and was more or less in the confidence of every one concerned. Then it will amuse me to write it, and I shall do so as carefully and as cleverly as possible The first winter days in London are not madly gay, so that I have plenty of time; and if the fog is brown outside, the fire is red within. I like the quiet of this season; the glowing chimney-corner, in the midst ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... nieces had been unwell. They were not very ill, but they were shut up in one room for a time, and they found it rather difficult to amuse themselves all day long, without having their lessons to do or their brothers to play with. I told them a tale every afternoon, when the light was getting dim, and the fire was poked into a bright blaze; but I came to the end of my ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... of magic and card tricks, containing full instruction of all the leading card tricks of the day, also the most popular magical illusions as performed by our leading magicians; every boy should obtain a copy of this book, as it will both amuse and instruct. ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... sincerity, without the slightest hypocrisy)—"I instantly, without the slightest delay ... ein, zwei, drei! Ha-ha! I let it go cheap, the rascally thing! Such a scoundrel turned up.—Well, never mind! At all events, I shall live at my ease—and amuse others.—But why do you stare at me so?—Do you really think that I ought to have spun the affair out indefinitely?... My dear relative, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of apprehension at the prospect of spending a month on board ship with a person so devoted to science as to go down the West Coast in its pursuit. During the earlier days of our voyage she would attract my attention to all sorts of marine objects overboard, so as to amuse me. I used to look at them, and think it would be the death of me if I had to work like this, explaining meanwhile aloud that "they were very interesting, but Haeckel had done them, and I was out after fresh- water fishes from a river north of the Congo this time," fearing all ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... they listen with open ears to the tales of Golden-hair and the three Bears, of Cinderella and the Prince, and of the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. As the boys and girls grow up, the stories fade gradually from their minds. But a time comes when they have children of their own. And then, to amuse the children, they can find no tales more thrilling than those which fascinated them in their own childhood. Thus the old nursery tales are handed down for centuries from generation to generation. Exactly the same process goes on in India, There, too, when little ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... 47: It may amuse my reader to recall, by the side of Scott's early definition of "a virtuoso," the lines in which Akenside has painted that character—lines which might have been written for a description of the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... us have a shot or two at the rabbits; the walk will be beautiful, and not fatiguing. The whole island is but a league and a half in length, with the breadth of a league; a real park. Let us try to amuse ourselves." ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... following him up, continued his aggressive advance. Early took prompt measures to seize the bridge over the Susquehanna at Wrightsville. If successful, he intended to cross over and amuse himself by destroying all direct connection between Philadelphia and the West, by railroad and telegraph. This done, he proposed to march along the north side of the river, capture Harrisburg and rejoin Ewell at Carlisle. As Gordon's brigade approached the ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... desired as a servant, he is captured in various ways. Sometimes he is driven into great pens; sometimes he tumbles into pitfalls, and sometimes tame Elephants coax him into traps, and fondle and amuse him while their masters tie up his legs with strong ropes. The pitfalls are not favorite methods of capturing Elephants. Besides the injury that may be done to the animal, other beasts may fall into and disturb the trap, and even men may find themselves at the ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... sphere so much more limited. Be that as it may, I will indulge the hope, so long as you do not forbid it. In the meantime, could you not take a leave of absence for a few weeks during the coming Autumn Assizes, and amuse yourself with holding some briefs on some of them here? We have now five Circuits—the Eastern, Midland, Home, Niagara, and Western. Mr. Justice Jones takes the Eastern, Mr. Justice McLean the Midland, the Chief Justice the Niagara, and Mr. Justice Hagerman the Western. Nothing ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... our place to amuse our lawyer. He might go and smoke in the Justice-room, and then Welldrum ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... fatherland! dear German people! I am thy Conrad von der Rosen. The man whose proper business was to amuse thee, and who in good times should have catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy prison in time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy sceptre and crown; dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser? If ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... glad of the interruption. If the youngsters and amateurs wanted to amuse themselves plotting hypothetical attacks on unclimbable sierras, that was all very well, but it was, if nothing worse, a great waste of time. I showed Kendricks a notch in the ridge, thousands of feet lower ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... reading the Bible; ay, but those days were long gone by. However, I did not see what else I could well do on the present occasion; so I determined to read the Bible; it was in Welsh—at any rate it might amuse me; so I took the Bible out of the sack in which it was lying in the cart, and began to read at the place where I chanced to open it. I opened it at that part where the history of Saul commences. At first I read with ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... on the villa lawn, not as an interloper, but by implied permission. Though she made for herself no argument on the matter,—not having much time just now for arguing,—she felt that it was her undoubted privilege to be made love to by Ralph Newton, if he and she pleased so to amuse themselves. She had never been told not to be made love to by him. Of course she would not engage herself without her father's permission. Of course she would tell Patience if Ralph should say anything very special to her. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... we know, miracles may have occurred a thousand times, and may as often occur again. Hume," he said, "was amusing himself; but I am not: nor can any one really feel—many pretend to do so without feeling at all—the pressure of such doubts as envelop me, and be content to amuse themselves with them." ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the dramatic interest, the pleasing gloom, the curiosity, of the thing itself. Certainly, amid the living world in Germany, especially in old, sleepy Rosenmold, death made great parade of itself. Youth even, in its sentimental mood, was ready to indulge in the luxury of decay, and amuse itself with fancies of the tomb; as in periods of decadence or suspended progress, when the world seems to nap for a time, artifices for the arrest or disguise of old age are adopted as a fashion, and become the fopperies of the young. ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... go somewhere, where she expects to amuse herself and then, at the last moment, no longer feels in the mood for it, she calls it off. Or if in the meantime, something else turns up that she would prefer to do, she does not hesitate to switch to ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... mythologists, (authorities always quotable, and nobody knows why,) the Curetes or Corybantes, a people of Crete, who were produced from rain, first invented the dance to amuse the infant Jupiter—with what success he danced we know not, for when a year old he waged war against the Titans, and then his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... forgotten. Owney was too wise to leave his collar behind him, so putting his nose through it and rubbing his head against a post, he slipped it on for himself. After this he was often made to put on his collar to amuse his visitors. ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... languages. It was thought to be a choice idea to get Trumbull to supply a lingual medley of quotations to precede the chapters in the new book, the purpose being to excite interest and possibly to amuse the reader—a purpose which to some ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... martial music, and the band (of his regiment of militia) marches round the terrace, awakening or quickening the guests with lively airs. All the men hunt or shoot. At dinner there is a different display of plate every day, and in the evening some play at whist or amuse themselves as they please, and some walk about the staircases and corridors to hear the band, which plays the whole evening in the hall. On the Duke's birthday there was a great feast in the Castle; 200 people dined in the servants' hall alone, without counting the other tables. We were about forty ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... or two sketches. It used to amuse me to guess at the profession of a captive from outward signs, and, after a little practice, one is ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... insist on any large Encomiums of this Recreation, only that it is a most Princely and serious Pleasure; nor shall I amuse you with subtle and nice Distinctions, and things no way material; But will inform you with what is meerly necessary for the right Understanding and Use of this Noble Art. I shall begin then with ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... prescription of a soothing nature to make up for Mrs. Yatman. The day after, Mr. Yatman purchased some smelling-salts at the shop, and afterward appeared at the circulating library to ask for a novel descriptive of high life that would amuse an invalid lady. It has been inferred from these circumstances that he has not thought it desirable to carry out his threat of separating from his wife, at least in the present (presumed) condition of that lady's sensitive ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... adventurous undertaking would be finally crowned with complete success, the gay girl shook her black locks, in infinite mirth, and tossed the mimic flags gaily around her person, as she was busied in forming new combinations, in order to amuse herself with her lover's disastrous situation. But the features of her cousin clouded with the thoughts that were excited by her remarks, and she replied, in a tone that bore some little of the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the vast regions through which it flows, and suffered my imagination to expatiate as far as its source. A red, variegated sky, reflected from the stream, the woods trembling on its banks, and the spires of Nuys rising beyond them, helped to amuse my fancy. Not being able to brook the confinement of the carriage, I left it to come over at its leisure; and, stepping into a boat, rowed along, at first, by the quivering osiers; then, launching out into the ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... the natural man takes a hand, but he is seen through civilized spectacles, not, as in your delightful books, with the eyes of the sympathetic sportsman. If Why-Why and Mr. Gowles amuse you a little, let this be my Diomedean exchange of bronze for gold—of the new Phaeacia for Kukuana land, or for that haunted city of Kor, in which your fair Ayesha dwells undying, as yet unknown to ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... She therefore very soon began to regret that she had not accepted Lieutenant Schank's invitation to visit his family. Pat Brady made himself very agreeable to his cousins, and had such wonderful stories to tell them that he was a great favourite. I had plenty to amuse me; but there seemed very little probability of my getting the education which Captain Oliver had recommended. The castle also was not over well provisioned, potatoes and buttermilk forming the staple of our meals, with an over-abundance ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... I write now merely to ask, if you have Naravelia (666/1. Ranunculaceae.) (the Clematis-like plant told me by Oliver), to try and propagate me a plant at once. Have you Clematis cirrhosa? It will amuse me to tell you why Clematis interests me, and why I should so very much like to have Naravelia. The leaves of Clematis have no spontaneous movement, nor have the internodes; but when by growth the peduncles ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... joke among the friends that the bachelor brother had the largest family and was the most domestic man of the remaining four, though Uncle Mac did his part manfully and kept Aunt Jane in a constant fidget by his rash propositions to adopt the heartiest boys and prettiest girls to amuse him and ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... was not in the mood to amuse himself. Whatever the reason, the big man was no longer at his ease in Mercier's company. Some unpleasant thought, some suspicion, born of the incident at the "Bible and Hand," seemed to rankle in his mind, and, strive as he would, betrayed its presence in the tone ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Wizard went to sleep he would take the nine tiny piglets from his pocket and let them run around on the floor of his room to amuse themselves and get some exercise; and one time they found his glass door ajar and wandered into the hall and then into the bottom part of the great dome, walking through the air as easily as Eureka could. They knew the kitten, ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... the Saracens embraced every topic that can amuse or edify the mind. In later times, it was their boast that they had produced more poets than all other nations combined. In science their great merit consists in this, that they cultivated it after the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... lecturer of Rome, in 1767; by Odier, a Geneva physicist, in 1773, who states in a letter to a lady, that he conceived the idea on hearing a casual remark, while dining at Sir John Pringle's, with Franklin, Priestley, and other great geniuses. 'I shall amuse you, perhaps, in telling you,' he says,'that I have in my head certain experiments by which to enter into conversation with the Emperor of Mogol or of China, the English, the French, or any other people of Europe... You may intercommunicate all that you wish at a distance of four or five thousands ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... performed in the theatre; and when those performances are closed, the company who are assembled, whilst they are under the same roof, are ushered into an elegant and well-furnished ball room, where they amuse themselves for the remainder of the evening; refreshments being provided upon the spot. These performances are conducted in such a superior style, that great numbers of the nobility and gentry who reside at a considerable ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... implies no imagination, no real envisaging of its object. It does not illuminate a subject, it extinguishes it, clamping upon every topic the same grotesque mould. That is why it does not really much amuse the English. For the English are accustomed to Shakespeare, and to the ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... impulse to which she had given no second thought till too late. She ought to have ignored it. But since she had taken the first step she might as well take the second. She was lonely; the people she knew were out of town; and the jest might amuse her. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... Marie," said the other, argumentatively, "as to my good duke regent, that is otherwise. It goes about that he will change all things. One is to amuse one's self now and then, and not to work forever for the taxes and the conscription. Long live the regent, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... go up-stairs? You might easily imagine that the sound of your steps would alarm those below, who would be puzzled to guess who it was that had thought proper to amuse himself in this manner." ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... or wrote or sewed or embroidered if she could avoid it, and had nothing on earth else to occupy or amuse her; so her passion for dress had to be gratified with the sight of jewels, shawls and mantles, laces, silks and satins, even though she durst ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... happen to you is to be excluded from the councils of the great family of despots. Besides, what is to be done to amuse these 400,000 bayonets, his masters as well as ours? Crosses, promotions, honours, gratuities, are already showered on the army of Paris. It has already received a thing unheard of in our history—the honours ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... men who look upon psychology as "blue-sky" theorizing or "new thought." There are others who have a hazy idea that it is a sort of unfathomable mystery intended to amuse long-haired scientists. The truth is that every one of these same business men, if he is getting ahead, is unconsciously using psychological principles to the profit of his own business ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the Hunter Cats! I am coming to them just the way Mr. Connor did,—by degrees. I want you to know about the place he lived in, and how he used to amuse himself, before he decided to build his house; and then I must tell you about the house, and then about the children that came to live with him in it, and then about the Chinamen that came to do his work, and about his ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... surely she knows why I have come to her, and she was Milly's friend; yet she fawns upon me. I thought her a great person, but now I know she's eager to rise by hanging at my skirts, and I amuse myself with her joy that I've rejected Ned, as she thinks; with her talk of Strathay, her dismay at ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... hundred men were marched out, forced to seat themselves in rows along the top of the trenches, beheaded, and then tumbled into a long gaping grave. Meanwhile, the Prophet looked on until, tiring of the monotonous spectacle, he departed to amuse himself with a Jewess whose ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... ever been proved, nor perhaps even been charged, against him; but as one of his countrymen, from whom I have just now quoted, remarks, "He is fond of showing to demonstration that a man does not keep two hundred horses in training just to amuse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... for wit may sometimes appear masculine and flippant, but the cause must be sought elsewhere than in nature, who disclaims all such. Hence the witty and intellectual ladies of our comedies and novels are all in the fashion of some particular time; they are like some old portraits which can still amuse and please by the beauty of the workmanship, in spite of the graceless costume or grotesque accompaniments, but from which we turn to worship with ever new delight the Floras and goddesses of Titian—the saints and the virgins of Raffaelle and Domenichino. So the Millamants and Belindas, the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... continued to preach for half an hour. The alcalde snored, and Maria Clara nodded, for the poor child could no longer keep from sleeping, since she had no more paintings or images to study, nor anything else to amuse her. On Ibarra the words and allusions made no more impression, for he was thinking of a cottage on the top of a mountain and saw Maria Clara in the garden; let men crawl about in their miserable towns in the depths of ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... wrong-dealing." They thereupon carried their baggage forth, and built a hut, above the sea, on the bank of the lake, and put all in order about it; while Freydis caused wood to be felled, with which to load her ship. The winter now set in, and the brothers suggested, that they should amuse themselves by playing games. This they did for a time, until the folk began to disagree, when dissensions arose between them, and the games came to an end, and the visits between the houses ceased; ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... reason that you ought not to be bothered with them week days," observed Mr. Dyce. "Now why can't you sit down here and amuse me?" He pushed up an easy-chair into a cosy-corner, then drew up an ottoman, on ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... on the other hand, proposes to give us an accurate picture of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse us, or to appeal to our feelings, but to compel us to reflect, and to understand the occult and deeper meaning of events. By dint of seeing and meditating he has come to regard the world, facts, men, and things in a way peculiar to himself, which is the outcome of the sum total of his studious ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... description, the love of Jew above the love of Palestine, all these combine to render your volumes valuable additions to the small stock of good Jewish literature in English. It is not only that you teach, while talking so pleasantly; that you instruct while you interest and amuse; that you have your own personality in the stories; that you convey the charm of Eretz Israel, and the beauty of holiday spirit; but because your stories help us to feel the depth of faith and the height of ideal as the self-evident, normal ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... the tears from Clarissa's cheek, and shaking Anthony warmly by the hand, the young master of the mansion sprang to his saddle and was gone, leaving Anthony and Clary to amuse themselves in ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... very much perplexed, and at a loss how to act. At length he said, 'Miss Phoebe, I must go to the village for a couple of hours; I think Mr. Alfred will sleep until my return, but if not, will you try and amuse him?' ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... image to my memory, and amidst airy visions of the past, of my father, earlier days, and of youthful pleasures mixed with pain, fell asleep—BUT—with a determination. To carry it out,—on the morrow I began this sketch. You must judge how I have performed my self-imposed task, and wishing it may amuse you, and encourage young aspirants who shall chance to read it, not to give way under difficulties, but strenuously to persevere, seeing how much may be achieved by diligence and a determination not to yield, remembering ever the good advice ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... the tendency to exaggerate legislation and to neglect enforcement of law. Instead of harnessing the whole army of workingmen to the crusade and strengthening civic agencies such as factory, health, and tenement departments, houses are built and given to men, clubs are formed to amuse factory girls, amateur theatricals are organized. All this is called "welfare work." "What is welfare work?" reads the pamphlet of a large national association. "It is especial consideration on the part of the ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... belle Paris offers so many attractions, that I have decided not to make up my mind in the matter, for I always am seduced into staying a much longer time than I had previously intended; there is always so much to amuse one." ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... bartender. This good-looking chap was rather a puzzle to him. He wasn't waiting for anybody, and he wasn't trying to get drunk. Five ales in an hour and not a dozen words; just an ordinary Britisher who didn't know how to amuse himself in Gawd's ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... of M. Michelet's fury against us poor English, are four which will be likely to amuse the reader; and they are the more conspicuous in collision with the justice which he sometimes does us, and the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... about them. If a person is able to read some easy book, he is apt to suppose he has no more to learn respecting the letters; or he neglects the minute study of these elements, because he sees what words they make, and can amuse himself with stories of things more interesting. But merely to understand common English, is a very small qualification for him who aspires to scholarship, and especially for a teacher. For one may do this, and even be a great reader, without ever being able to name the letters properly, or ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... divided into two general classes: Those who worked because they needed to earn their living, and those who came to the factories to be more independent than at home, to exercise their coquetry and amuse themselves, to make pin money for luxuries. The men formed a united class. They had a purpose in common. The women were in a class with boys and with children. They had nothing in common but their physical inferiority to man. The children ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Knights of the Round Table; repeating historical poems of the great Emperor Charlemagne and his followers. These minstrels were always accompanied by jugglers and instrumentalists, who formed a travelling troop (Fig. 49), having no other mission than to amuse and instruct their feudal hosts. After singing a few fragments of epics, or after the lively recital of some ancient fable, the jugglers would display their art or skill in gymnastic feats or conjuring, which were the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... far-away countries there are many sheep, and they require shepherds. These shepherds, as they can rest while their sheep feed, sometimes amuse themselves by cutting oat straws and making them into little flutes. They cut holes in the straws, just as you see holes in flutes or in tin whistles. They learn to play very pretty tunes. David, king of Israel, was, in his ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... of me, and Nurse does not care about playing at things. Sometimes I try to persuade her; but if she is in a good temper she says she has got a bone in her leg, and if she isn't she says that when little boys can't amuse themselves it's a sure and certain sign they've got "the worrits," and the sooner they are put to bed with a Gregory's powder "the better for ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... apparently tired of Calprenede and Scuderi, of Cleopatre and Cyrus, and has turned to travels to amuse her. Fernando Mendez Pinto did, I believe, actually visit China, and is said to have landed in the Gulf of Pekin. What he writes of China seems to bear some resemblance to what later writers have said. It is hard to say how and where ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... rich marriage, a prosperous future would be assured to him. Old M. de Balzac did not specify the nature of the service which was to meet with so rich a reward; and as he was a gentleman with a distinct liking for talking of his own doings, we may amuse ourselves by supposing that it had to do with those Red Republican days which he was not fond ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... it to win the game, Miss van Huysman," he replied with a gentle smile; "I only desired to amuse you and the other guests of Professor Marmion. Now, it may be that some excellent but ignorant people here may think that that ball is bewitched, as they would call it, so if you will give it to me, I will ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... Hill was fired only when the burghers were in the mood, but occasionally the artillery youths desired to amuse themselves, and then they operated the gun as rapidly as its mechanism would allow. When the big gun had been discharged, the young Boers were wont to climb on the top of the sandbags behind which it was concealed, and ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... I will tear him out of my heart!" she exclaimed passionately. "He never deserved my love. He did not care. I was a little fool to let him amuse himself with me. He went away and forgot. I ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... John in vision, with all the redeemed in acts of solemn worship offered directly to the Lamb.—"Many angels," how many? Some divines have actually attempted, by arithmetical rules, to compute the number! Such employment may amuse, but it cannot edify. The definite here mentioned for indefinite numbers, may be easily computed; (as in Dan. vii. 10; Ps. lxviii. 17;) but still we would labor in vain "to find out the account;" for we are expressly told that they ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... man who dares to avow himself a Radical should be promptly branded as the bitter and malignant enemy of the South; every man who presumes to aspire to office through Republican votes should be saturated with stench. As for the negroes, let them amuse themselves, if they will, by voting the Radical ticket. We have the count. We have a thousand good and true men in Horsford whose brave ballots will be found equal to those of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... please the general public; the style is sometimes stilted, yet passages of great beauty may be found in it. Moreover the jealousy expressed by Don Garcia is neither sufficiently terrible to frighten, nor ridiculous enough to amuse the audience; he always speaks and acts as a prince, and hence, he sometimes ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... wrath at once. "It is well," he replied; "let the Pasha rest; to-morrow he shall have nothing more to ask." The Egyptian, and the few Mameluke officers of his staff, were tranquilly smoking towards evening, entertained by some dancing-girls, whom the Tiger had sent to amuse them; when they observed that a huge pile of dried stalks of Indian corn was rising rapidly round the tent. "What means this?" inquired Ismael angrily; "am not I Pasha?"—"It is but forage for your highness's horses," replied the Nubian; ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... such times, Christie's voice, singing or reading, had, now and then, a power to soothe, sometimes to quiet, sometimes even to put him to sleep. And, indeed, she grew very skilful in her efforts to soothe and amuse him; and at any hour of the night or day a movement of his would bring her to his side. A softly-spoken word, or the loving touch of his hand upon her head, was enough to make her forget all her weakness and weariness; and ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... sentences, and confound his pleasure! I don't go into a shop to give a shopman pleasure. But your ordinary shopman must needs pretend you delight and amuse him. I say, trying to display my dislike as plainly as possible, "Gloves." "Gloves, yessir," he says. Why should he? I suppose he thinks I require to be confirmed in my persuasion that I want gloves. "Calf—kid—dogskin?" ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... so happened that a couple of days later, Uncle Richard was going out on business in the nearest town, leaving Tom to amuse ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... down into the deep sea, where all sorts of queer and lovely things were to be seen. Great fishes came and looked at her; dolphins played near to amuse her; the pretty nautilus sailed by in its transparent boat; and porpoises made her laugh with their rough play. Mermaids brought her pearls and red coral to wear, sea-apples to eat, and at night sung her to sleep with their ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... calling of an extraordinary session of Congress], and, as every good citizen ought to do, conform to whatsoever the ruling powers shall decide. To make and sell a little flour annually, to repair houses (going fast to ruin), to build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, and to amuse myself in agricultural and rural pursuits, will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this terrestrial globe. If, also, I could now and then meet the friends I esteem, it would fill the measure and add zest to my enjoyments; but if ever this happens, it must be ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... of them rushed into the house one morning shouting that the boy was out in the barn swinging himself on the farm horses' tails and in momentary danger of being kicked to pieces; but Mrs. Grant received the announcement with perfect calmness, feeling sure that Ulysses would not amuse himself in that way unless he knew the animals thoroughly understood ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... kennel of his own, he would'nt have took it so coolly; and, whether it was their nature so to do or not, he wouldn't have let the little beggars, that he fork'd out thirteen bob a-year for to the government, amuse themselves by biting each other, or tearing out each other's eyes; he'd have turn'd them over, don't you see, to his neighbours' dogs, and have let them do the biting department on them. And, altogether, Giglamps, I'd advise you to let Filthy Lucre's Vermin alone, and have nothing ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... He advocated the simple reaffirmance of the Cincinnati platform. If it had suffered a double interpretation, so had the Bible and the Constitution of the United States. But beyond serving to consume time and amuse the convention, Mr. Butler's speech made no impression. The real tournament of debate followed, between William L. Yancey, of Alabama, and Senator ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... us fall on some jest to amuse people; for surely, brother Sigurd, all people are well pleased ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... descriptions and seen pictures of those sallow, flat-faced, narrow-eyed, round-headed hobgoblins who, under the name of Tartars (a wrong one, too, for it should be Tatare), used to amuse themselves by conquering Eastern Europe every now and then some hundreds of years ago. But it is not every one who has had the pleasure of travelling alone with one of these fellows over nearly a thousand miles of Asiatic desert in time of war—a pleasure which I enjoyed ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in the water?—When Wright and Vernon left the others, they walked along the coast, following the direction of the boat, and agreed to amuse themselves in collecting eggs. They were very successful, and, to their great delight, managed to secure some rather rare specimens. When they had tired themselves with this pursuit, they lay on the summit of one of the cliffs which ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... beard, and hooked nose; and yet she could hardly believe that this was the same man who once showed her such ruffianly manners on the wharf in Chicago. He was fondling and feeding the child, and talking to it, and drumming on the table with his knife to amuse it and still its ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... shady banks of the Madelina there grows a climbing plant which the botanists call Aristolochia, the flowers of which are four feet in circumference, and children amuse themselves with covering their heads with them ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... blamed her for not taking him. He liked music, singing, especially female singing; when there was so little to amuse him, he was surprised that Lady Maud had not been careful that he should have been present. His sister-in-law reminded him that she had particularly requested him to drive her over to Mowbray, and he had declined the honour ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... the car was taken out, and occasionally Deede Dawson would come into the garden and chat with him idly for a few minutes on indifferent subjects. When it was fine he would often bring out a little travelling set of chessmen and board and proceed to amuse himself, ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... sit in a row and the first begins by saying, "I am going on a journey to Athens," or any place beginning with A. The one sitting next asks, "What will you do there?" The verbs, adjectives, and nouns used in the reply must all begin with A; as "Amuse Ailing Authors with Anecdotes." If the player answers correctly, it is the next player's turn; he says perhaps: "I am going to Bradford." "What to do there?" "To Bring Back Bread and Butter." A third says: "I am going to Constantinople." "What ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... the phases of human nature which it touched. It is best to find that all men are of the same make, and that there are certain universal things which interest them as much as the supernal things, and amuse them even more. There was a saying of Lowell's which he was fond of repeating at the menace of any form of the transcendental, and he liked to warn himself and others with his homely, "Remember the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy and cloudy sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, I regard without fear, but not without meditation and study, and amuse myself in the remembrance of my ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... slept at my father's) he would pick up my books and amuse himself with talking to me about them, laugh at my crude enthusiasms, clear up some difficult passage, prune away remorselessly the trash that had crept into my little collection, until, one day, returning from Cincinnati, where business had called him, he brought with him a store of books inexhaustible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... the rooms were empty for some months, and the Lion and the Unicorn were forced to amuse themselves with the beautiful ladies and smart-looking men who came to Prentiss to buy flowers and "buttonholes," and the little round baskets of strawberries, and even the peaches at three shillings each, which looked so tempting as they lay in the window, wrapped up ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... appeared; no entreaties, however urgent, on the part of his subjects, could induce the Elector to risk the remainder of his army to the chances of a battle. Shut up in Ratisbon, he awaited the reinforcements which Wallenstein was bringing from Bohemia; and endeavoured, in the mean time, to amuse his enemy and keep him inactive, by reviving the negociation for a neutrality. But the King's distrust, too often and too justly excited by his previous conduct, frustrated this design; and the intentional delay of Wallenstein ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... We see in ordinary life how some great king, ruling this earth with its seven dvpas, and possessing perfect strength, valour, and so on, has a game at balls, or the like, from no other motive than to amuse himself; hence there is no objection to the view that sport only is the motive prompting Brahman to the creation, sustentation, and destruction of this world which is easily fashioned ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... to doubt that people were similarly affected to the fiction of the Renaissance and the seventeenth century, at least in its longer examples—for the smaller novelle could amuse in their own way sometimes, though they could hardly absorb. It is equally impossible to imagine any one being "enthralled" by Euphues. Admiration, of a kind, must have been the only passion excited by it. In the Arcadia there is a certain charm, but it belongs ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... new-found specimens to the workmen; but though they always took the trouble of looking at them, and wondered at times how the shells and plants had "got into the stones," they seemed to regard them as a sort of natural toys, which a mere lad might amuse himself in looking after, but which were rather below the notice of grown-up people like themselves. One workman, however, informed me, that things of a kind I had not yet found—genuine thunderbolts—which in his father's times were much sought for the cure of bewitched cattle—were to ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... as his gaze rested in turn on each of the four, and then travelled sharply round the room. "So you will not be thwarted by any man in Paris, to-night, eh? Have you considered, my dear Coadjutor, what a large number of people there are in Paris? It would amuse me very greatly now—and I'm sure it would the ladies too, who must pardon my abrupt entrance—to see you put to the test; pitted against—shall we say the Duke of Anjou? Or M. de Guise, our great man? Or the Admiral? Say the ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... boy who a little later was to light with rosy cheer the air which, as Wendell Phillips said, was still black with sermons; who was to give to our literature its first distinctly humorous strain, and innocently to amuse the world, was somehow or other, as he said, "taught to feel that everything pleasant ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... evoked them, and therefore not without many seemingly arbitrary transitions, many links of connexion to be supposed by the reader, constituting their characteristic difficulty, the Essays owed their actual publication at last to none of the usual literary motives—desire for fame, to instruct, to amuse, to sell—but to the sociable desire for a still wider range of conversation with others. [86] He wrote for companionship, "if but one sincere man would make his acquaintance"; speaking on paper, as he "did to the first person he met."—"If there be any ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... good master; the work is not hard," thought Yvon, when the giant was gone. "I have plenty of time to sweep the stable. What shall I do meanwhile to amuse myself? Shall I look about the house? Since I am forbidden to do so, it must be because there is ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... you," she replied. "Your invention may amuse if it does not edify. But, I pray you, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had some many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... come in perfectly satisfied, 'n' I may in confidence remark as I was satisfied too for I was n't overpleased to have him meddlin' with the porch-vine. I will remark, though, as his cuttin' Virginia creeper for grape-vines did amuse me some, for it's been a well-known fact for years as Mrs. Ely was Mr. Ely in everythin' but the clothes he wore, 'n' they say the way she managed to figger-head him through plantin' 'n' harvest, 'n' pasture 'n' punkins, was nothin' short of genius, bred in the bone 'n' bustin' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... afraid," he reiterated. "Eustace is too much of a sportsman to amuse himself at the expense of ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... cursed Alenka!" she cried. "No doubt she's gone off somewhere to amuse herself." Then she slipped in through the window, opened the door, and let in her guests. They all sat down to table, and the witch opened the oven, took out Alenka's baked body, and served it up. They all ate their fill and ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... shop was shut up at night, used to amuse himself with reading some little books which the schoolmaster who formerly taught him arithmetic was so good as to lend him. Amongst these he one evening met with a little book full of the history of birds and beasts; he looked immediately to see whether ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... tolerably good scenes can be had, it is almost better to content oneself with what served in the days of Shakespeare—a written placard of what the scene is supposed to be. Shakespeare scenery, as we may call it, will amuse people of itself, and a good piece and good actors will not suffer from its use. Thus, if The Barmecide is being played, Alnaschan and Ina will be "discovered" standing in an empty room, at the back of which a placard will bear ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... trait of taking a chance for possible gain led the colonists to amuse themselves at games and sports, in which they invariably added a wager to lend zest to the occasion. This practice, generally prevalent in England, quite naturally was extended to the Colony, as the English established themselves with all their customs and habits in the new land. Betting was general ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... went back to the French court, leaving Marguerite at Nerac, they could boast of a few Huguenot gentlemen won over to their designs, but I was not one of the few. I do not say that I did not amuse myself where charming women abounded, but I kept my heart to myself. I had not resolved to become invulnerable to woman, but I had determined that she by whom I would let myself be wounded should be one vastly unlike any in Catherine's train. When I should find the woman pure as beautiful, incapable ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... meant was, is this silence to be permanent, or are you going to begin shortly to amuse, elevate, and instruct? Something's happened to you, Jimmy. There was a time when you were a bright little chap, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... pools for the birds there are corridors and galleries to which Muteczuma resorts, and from which he can look out and amuse himself with the sight of them. There is an apartment in the same palace, in which are men, women, and children, whose faces, bodies, hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes are white from birth. The cacique has another very beautiful palace, with a large courtyard, paved ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares. They cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears, and cry, "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity," ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... be wanting for his diversion. When all was ready, his majesty embraced the prince, and having recommended the care of him to Marzavan, left them. Prince Camaralzaman and Marzavan were soon mounted, when, to amuse the two grooms who led the fresh horses, they made as if they would hunt, and so got as far from the city and out of the road as was possible. Night approaching, they alighted at a caravansera or inn, where they supped, and slept till ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... generous, good-natured friend of the dean's, whom she also much loved and honoured. There my informer often saw her; and, I have reason to believe, used his utmost endeavours to relieve, support, and amuse ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... religious associations, they made of it a secular drink to be sipped publicly in kaveh kanes, the first coffee houses. Here the idle congregated to drink coffee, to play chess and other games, to discuss the news of the day, and to amuse themselves with singing, dancing, and music, contrary to the manners of the rigid Mahommedans, who were very properly scandalized by such performances. In Medina and in Cairo, too, coffee became as common a drink ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... satisfy your wishes. We have much money, many ribbons for orders, and as for titles, they are the cheapest and most convenient of all, as they cost absolutely nothing. Ah, a jest just now occurs to me. We will amuse ourselves a little to-day. We will have a title-auction. Call our courtiers, attendants, and servants. We shall have a gay time of it! We will have a game at dice. Bring the dice! I will at each throw announce the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... I shall be quite happy with him," said Mrs. Howland. "I really do. He is awfully kind, and his funny little ways amuse me." ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... "To amuse Lady Monica, who's not pleased with him so far," explained the Cherub. "And as he's a good Catholic, at least in appearance, to-night or the night after will be his last chance to entertain till Semana Santa ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate to the life the gestures and convulsions of those really affected, roved from place to place ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... bunch uh men camped up the creek and the Pilgrim to close-herd 'em—and I'm busy wondering what he's going to do with that ditch. Brown don't do things just to amuse himself; yuh can gamble he aims to make that ditch pack dollars into his jeans—and if yuh can tell me how, I'll be a whole lot obliged." Dill shook his head, and Billy went on. "Did yuh happen to find out, when yuh was bargaining for the Double-Crank, how much ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... assumed by Eastern Virginia and Maryland was of consequence only so far as it might facilitate a sudden raid on Washington, and the policy of both these States was to amuse the Government by imaginary negotiations till the plans of the conspirators were ripe. In both States men were actively recruited and enrolled to assist in attacking the capital. With them, as with the more openly rebellious States, the new theory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... not only an excellent story-teller but naturally very jovial, and M. de Hanski suffered from ennui and wished to be amused, they became friends. On his return to Paris, they exchanged a few letters, and Balzac introduced stories to amuse him in his letters to Madame Hanska. He wrote most graciously to the Marechal, apologizing for the two love letters he had written his wife, and this letter was answered. The novelist was invited by him to visit them in Wierzchownia—an invitation ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... these that he intimated to me that I was pardoned, and reinstated—as the Fool of the Court of Pesaro. That was to be the sum of his clemency. We were precisely where we had been. Once before had he granted me my life on condition that I should amuse him; he did no more than repeat that mercy now. I stared at him in wonder, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... a night or two before, but I was wise enough not to talk too much and to behave myself. She promised to meet me again and made the appointment. She was a school-teacher and engaged to be married to some one else. She meant to amuse herself her own way before she married. The second night I met her she allowed me to kiss her as much as I liked and promised all her favors for the third night. We took a long walk, and in the dark she gave herself to me, but I hurt her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... life, when free to choose for herself, she was reconciled in the meantime to take things as they came, and to make herself happy and add to the happiness of her grandmother in the ordinary way. So we find her enjoying the visit of one of her school friends, getting up little plays to amuse the elders, practicing the harp, receiving from her brother Hippolyte—now a noisy hussar—during his brief visit home, her first initiation into the arts of riding—for the future her favorite exercise—and of pistol-shooting; ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... from an arena worthy of your great talents, to appropriate those talents to a sphere so much more limited. Be that as it may, I will indulge the hope, so long as you do not forbid it. In the meantime, could you not take a leave of absence for a few weeks during the coming Autumn Assizes, and amuse yourself with holding some briefs on some of them here? We have now five Circuits—the Eastern, Midland, Home, Niagara, and Western. Mr. Justice Jones takes the Eastern, Mr. Justice McLean the Midland, the Chief Justice the Niagara, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... wild and feeling quite as savage. Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd which an idle curiosity, easily excited and as soon satisfied, had gathered round us, she prefaced every introduction with a little exordium which seemed to amuse every one but its object: 'Lord Erskine, this is the Wild Irish Girl whom you are so anxious to know. I assure you she talks quite as well as she writes.—Now, my dear, do tell my Lord Erskine some of those Irish stories you told us the other evening. Fancy yourself among your own set, and take ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... repeat yourself; either by telling the same story again and again or by going back over details of your narrative that seemed especially to interest or amuse your hearer. Many things are of interest when briefly told and for the first time; nothing interests when too long dwelt upon; little interests that is told a second time. The exception is something very pleasant that you have heard about A. or more especially A.'s ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... grateful to God that he rescued you. This you have accomplished, you poor armless man, that hundreds, though they had two arms, perished, while you are privileged to appear on the stage this evening as if nothing had occurred. We must enjoy ourselves; and it is better that you who entertain and amuse us with your thousands of tricks should have been saved than any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Besides we want to reimburse you for all the troubles you have been through. What is more, because of your ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Parliament. Sir W. Coventry answered, and the Duke of York merrily agreed to it, that it was very hard to know what it was that the Parliament would call conformity at this time, and so it stopped, which I only observe to see how the Parliament's present temper do amuse them all. Thence to several places to buy a hat, and books, and neckcloths, and several errands I did before I got home, and, among others, bought me two new pair of spectacles of Turlington, who, it seems, is famous for them; ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... runaways and lubras, or collapsed, doubled up with uncontrollable laughter, at the squawk of amazement from fowls which, having gained their old haunt, had found Jimmy there waiting to receive them. As for ourselves, I doubt if we ever enjoyed anything better. A simple thing, perhaps, to amuse grown-up white folk—a fat, perspiring Chinaman, and eight or ten lubras chivying fowls; but it is this enjoyment of simple things that makes life in ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... which my old friend objected to, come in as something admissible.—I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows of winning amuse me. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... sacred, and not to be trodden upon, so the gods might by this let him know the city should not be taken. Pyrrhus replied, that all these things were but idle talk, full of uncertainty, and only fit to amuse the vulgar; their thought, with their swords in their hands, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... having come to see her, and he had above all hit on a happy thought for causing Waymarsh's tension to relax. Something might possibly be extracted for the latter from the idea of his success with that lady, whose quick apprehension of what might amuse her had given Strether a free hand. What had she meant if not to ask whether she couldn't help him with his splendid encumbrance, and mightn't the sacred rage at any rate be kept a little in abeyance ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... juggler of inferior dexterity while exhibiting his tricks in a public house in Botchergate, kept by a person named Purdy, actually accomplished the sad reality of one of those feats, with the semblance only of which he intended to amuse his audience. Having introduced into his throat a common table knife which he was intending to swallow, he accidentally slipped his hold, and the knife passed into his stomach. An alarm was immediately given, and surgical aid procured, but the knife had passed beyond the reach ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... its nearest neighbor on the boulevard side was an empty tenement, a despondent ghost to-day, though once it had rivaled the flaunting tankard. Its frayed finery told of gay sparks extinguished. A flamboyant legend declared, "Ici on chante, on boit, on s'amuse(?)" Joan always smirked a little at that suggestive note of interrogation, which lent a world of meaning to the half-obliterated statement that Madame Lucette would appear "tous les soirs ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... whether she was married or not, but have always regarded her action in relieving me from a silent dinner as the highest mark of politeness. She was bright and attractive, and I certainly did and said all I could to amuse her, so what I expected to be a dull dinner turned out to be a ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... very little going on in Mexico at present, I amuse myself very well; there is so much to see, and the people are so kind and friendly. Having got riding-horses we have been making excursions all round the country, especially early in the morning, before the sun is high, when the air is delightfully ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... which most of the dishonourable actions of politicians are to be ascribed. He valued power little and money less. Of fear he was utterly insensible. If he sometimes stooped to be a villain,—for no milder word will come up to the truth,—it was merely to amuse himself and to astonish other people. In civil as in military affairs, he loved ambuscades, surprises, night attacks. He now imagined that he had a glorious opportunity of making a sensation, of producing a great commotion; and the temptation was irresistible to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... playgrounds were thrown open to the children during the long vacation, with kindergarten teachers to amuse them, and vacation schools tempted the little ones from the street into the cool shade of the classrooms. They wrought in wood and iron, they sang and they played and studied nature,—out of a barrel, to be sure, that came twice a week from Long Island filled with "specimens"; but later on ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... story would amuse you so much, grandfather, I would have told it you three months ago; but I was afraid it would be disagreeable to you to hear ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... in the Pergottan river, this amiable prince and friend of Europeans, impatient to seize his prey, came immediately to the point from his country house, and sending for the nacodah of the proa, ordered him to land me and all my goods instantly. An invitation now came for me to go on shore and amuse myself with shooting, and look at some rare birds of beautiful plumage which the rajah would give me if I would accept of them; but knowing what were his intentions, and being well aware that I should be supported by all the Bugis' proas from Coti, I feigned sickness, and ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... a very little child, I used to amuse myself and my brothers with inventing stories, such as I read. Having, as I suppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this soon became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately, my brothers were always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... I appeal to you," Tom said, as Miss Carter entered the room. "Is this fair? These two Comanche Indians hold me helpless on the sofa, extract a promise that I will never go home, and now they want me to amuse them besides." ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... of the Doctor's appearance he had a tolerably respectable auditory, and the following incidents may amuse your readers, as they occasioned much laughter at the moment. Among the company was the Rev. Mr. P., a minor canon. The conjuror, in the course of his tricks, desired a card to be drawn from the pack, by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... immortal John in the character of the Great Vance; and that joy for ever, Uncle Joseph, with his deathless thirst for popular information and instruction—these personages, this "educated insolence," never cease to amuse. Uncle Joseph is no caricature. But the world likes its sensational novels to be written with becoming seriousness; in short, "The Wrong Box" is aimed at a small but devoted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... departure Beth had many a lonely hour, and the time hung heavy on her hands. Mildred, her senior by four years, was of a simpler disposition, and always able to amuse herself, playing with the Baby Bernadine, or with toys which were no distraction to Beth. Mildred, besides, was fond of reading; but books to be deciphered remained a wonder and a mystery ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... and I think, Maggie, you might find some better things to amuse yourself with than such fancies," said ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... would have saved the French Empire, and who seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man to whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by temperament; Caesar ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... well-founded alarm, there were some moments in which we sought to amuse ourselves, or, to use a common expression, to kill time. Cards afforded us a source of recreation, and even this frivolous amusement served to develop the character of Bonaparte. In general he was not fond of cards; but if he did play, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... thought I'd furnish a really interesting name for you to amuse yourself with. I'm sorry ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... wrath, they pass their time there, crowned with the fruition of every wish. Persons of righteous deeds, possessed of fame, sport there in happiness, moving from place to place, O Bharata, on delightful vehicles of great beauty. Auspicious deed, bands of Apsaras always amuse them there, with music and dance. Indeed O Yudhishthira, a person goes to such regions as the reward of his making gifts of kine. Those regions which have for their lords Pushan, and the Maruts of great puissance, are attained to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... stands around and tells each other that the old man must have a good heart at that, because look how he goes out of his way to amuse the baby. Father growls up at 'em and prays that they'll all go to bed, includin' the one that's just learnin' to walk, so's he can be let alone to ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... not get well as fast as she expected, and the little girl found it rather tiresome to lie on a lounge all day, although her mamma read to her, and tried to amuse her. Bubbles, too, was as obedient a nurse as could be, and, because she had been the cause of the accident, considered it her first and only duty ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... we assert the duty of the imagination to be that of following and finding out the work that God maketh. Her part is to understand God ere she attempts to utter man. Where is the room for being fanciful or riotous here? It is only the ill-bred, that is, the uncultivated imagination that will amuse itself where it ought to ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... whom he refurnished his castle at an expense of a hundred thousand crowns. His marriage was the signal for new extravagance, and he launched out more madly than ever he had done before; sending for fine singers or celebrated dancers from foreign countries to amuse him and his spouse; and instituting tilts and tournaments in his great court-yard almost every week for all the knights and nobles of the province of Brittany. The Duke of Brittany's court was not half so splendid as that of the Marechal de Rays. His utter disregard for ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... preparations as she made, and were the instruments in surprising her and her father by some tasteful decorations in their honour, unknown to them. Owen and Gladys worked very hard at floral and evergreen mottoes for the tent, whilst Rowland gave his advice as he sat with his mother, and tried to amuse her during the ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... all the publications for little boys and girls, GOLDEN DAYS stands most conspicuous to the front, while its columns abound with stories and tales well calculated to entertain, amuse and please the youthful reader. There is a moral in its articles well calculated to make the young reader better for having read its columns. The subscription price is $3 per year, two copies for $5. Send for specimen copy, and you will be sure to ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... to pass a great deal of time by himself; but, as if to make up for his coldness in one way, he was most indulgent in every other, and seemed to have made it a rule never to discountenance any thing which could amuse her. His behavior to her, in Mercy's eyes, seemed to resemble servility; "it was that of the most attentive courtier," and was carried so far as to treat with marked distinction persons whose character he was known to disapprove, solely ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... continued, nevertheless, to amuse itself at the expense of the cavalry, and either asserted or intimated, on every favorable occasion, that the real fighting was done by themselves. This flattering assumption might be natural under the circumstances, but it was now about to be shown to be wholly unfounded. A campaign was ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... mind again extricated him from danger. Under the pretence of sickness, he dismounted in the night, and was allowed to step aside from the troop: he planted in the ground his long staff, clothed it with his cap and upper garment; and, stealing into the wood, left a phantom to amuse, for some time, the eyes of the Walachians. From Halicz he was honorably conducted to Kiow, the residence of the great duke: the subtle Greek soon obtained the esteem and confidence of Ieroslaus; his character could assume the manners of every climate; and the Barbarians ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... up her cap this time—perhaps she had seen a little of that laughter before—but she claps her hands joyfully, and pats Rylton's arm afterwards in a bon camarade fashion that seems to amuse him. And is she tired? There is no sense of fatigue, certainly, in the way she runs up the slope again, and flings herself gracefully upon the rug beside Mr. Gower. Mr. Gower has not stirred from that rug since. ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... good lad, Jan," said he, "but ye've fagged yourself out. Take the dog with ye to-morrow for company, and your sketch- book, and amuse yourself. I'll not expect ye at school. And get away to your bed now. I told Master Lake I shouldn't let ye ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
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