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More "Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pen. The senior partner had been amusing himself at his expense for some time, and in the hope of a favour at his hands he had ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... into his ear that sounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with by the hour together. At all events, if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. The elvish ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... enjoy the air or the sunshine, and that they have a right to each when they do not trespass upon the larger rights of humanity. I was something of a boy when it first came over me that it was not as amusing to animals to be shot and killed as it was to me to shoot and kill them. From the time I was able to lift a gun I had always carried one; but I soon learned that for me there was no pleasure in taking needlessly the life of anything that lived. ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... a bird out of the belfry, had one been there to listen; but Aaron, on his knees within his study, praying for the gift of healing, that he might restore sick souls, would hear. Once more I drew the rope, with a tiny persistence that was childish, amusing. A baby-tone came to me from the bell, accustomed to other things. I had gained courage from the two attempts; it grew rapidly; and soon, out into the people's homes, the sounding strokes were ringing, clear, sonorous, and true. I had never noticed how long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... Father's willingness to undertake in what some might term the minor details of everyday life. Missionaries, especially we missionary women, know only too well how we are criticized in the matter of dress, when in the homeland and when traveling. I have had, through the years, not only many amusing but trying experiences in this connection, and I resolved to make the question of dress a definite matter of prayer. And I rejoice to testify that the result of this decision became a constant source of wonder and praise. Yes, I found the Lord could guide me ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... nowadays, even among those who know the Fairchild Family, know anything of its writer, Mrs. Sherwood. Yet her life, as told by herself, is as amusing as a story, and as full of incidents as a life could well be. When she was a very old woman she wrote her autobiography, helped by her daughter; and from this book, which has been long out of print, I will put together ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... little older, and lessons and play alternated with each other, she was taught to attend to the thing in hand, and finish what she had begun, both in her studies and games. One day she was amusing herself making a little haycock when some other mimic occupation caught her volatile fancy, and she flung down her small rake ready to rush off to the fresh attraction. "No, no, Princess; you must always complete what you have commenced," said ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... he left with the rank of "effective student,"[B] made acquaintance with several young people of distinction, and gained access into the best houses. He was cordially received everywhere, for he was very good looking, easy in manner, amusing, always in good health, and ready for every thing. Where he was obliged, he was respectful; where he could, he was overbearing. Altogether, an excellent companion, un charmant garcon. The Promised Land lay before him. Panshine soon fathomed ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... routed the little adventurer so easily. He had discovered that the name "Yaller Top" was an infallible weapon of rebuff, as Rosy-Lilly considered it a term of indignity. To his evil humour there was something amusing in abashing Rosy-Lilly with the title she most disliked. Moreover, it was an indirect rebuke to the "saft" way ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... my affinity, I shall settle down in this beautiful country for life. But I am not thinking much about that just now, for the girls are not much in love with the Union soldiers. The ladies here wear secesh cockades in their bonnets and it is really amusing to see the curl of the lip and the contempt of countenance with which they sweep by us. Of course it is no wonder, when we take into consideration the way they have always lived, and thought that they were ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... many crazy old ballads, that children gathered round her, as a Sibylline oracle, and mothers, who were not troubled with a superfluity of servants, were glad to welcome one to their household who had such a wondrous talent for amusing them, and keeping them still. In spite of all her oddities, she was respected for her industry and simplicity, and a certain quaint, old-fashioned, superstitious piety, that made a streak of light ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... fun which he saw carried out by the clown to a pitch of perfection which at once enchanted and humbled him. Till that harlequinade, he had thought himself a funny boy in his way, and it had surprised him that his family had not found him more amusing than they did; but now he felt all at once that he was only a very humble beginner, and had never ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... columns. Along the face of such crumbling rocks, swallows' nests are clustered, thick as cities, and eagles and deer do not disdain their summits. One morning, out in the boat along the base of these rocks, it was amusing, and affecting too, to see these swallows put their heads out to look at us. There was something very hospitable about it, as if man had never shown himself a tyrant near them. What a morning that was! Every sight is worth twice ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... everyone said they were glad to see me, except General Thacker, who remarked dryly that my return had upset all the cherished plans of well-ordered minds. The A.D.M.S. had told them that he had thought I was in for an attack of pneumonia. It was really a very amusing situation, but I was determined to avoid the Base, especially now that we felt the great and glorious end of our long campaign ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... however, brought him to full cognition. Her face being reflected towards him as she sat, he could perceive that she was amusing herself by artificially producing in each cheek the dimple before alluded to, a curious accomplishment of which she was mistress, effecting it by a momentary suction. It seemed to him for the first time that the dimples were far oftener absent ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... stop reading a book as soon as he finds that he does not like it, just as you are not expected to eat more mutton than you want to eat. Lesson books are another thing; you have to read them, and if you do not you will get into trouble. They are not meant to be amusing, but to teach Latin grammar, or geography, or arithmetic, which are not gay. As to this book of Romances, if you do not like one story, give it up and try another. If you do not like any of them, read something else that ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... and substantial ground for their faith, will not bear to be put off with such shadows. The arguments (he continues) which we use must be such as are likely to convince serious and earnest minds, which are really seeking for the truth, not amusing themselves with intellectual combats, or desiring to support an existing opinion anyhow. However popular these latter methods may be, of however long standing, however easy both to find and to ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... interested, there was something amusing in the manner in which Scarfe took his new and unexpected glory. At first he seemed to regard it doubtfully, and combated it by one or two modest protestations. Then, becoming more used to the idea, it pleased him to talk a little about the adventure, ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Make them understand that you will not interfere with or harm them, and they will go about their own affairs unafraid in your presence. Then you may silently watch their manner of living, their often amusing habits, and their frank portrayal of character. As a guest in the wild, conducting yourself as a courteous guest should, you will be well treated by your wild hosts, some of whom, in time, may even permit ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... MacNairne was whisked away before the breaking-up of the house-party, and that is the last I have seen of her, but not the last I've heard. Once in a while I get a letter, amusing, erratic, like herself; and in such communications she doesn't scruple to chronicle other flirtations which have followed hard on mine. Only a short time before the making of this plot in a Rotterdam garden, a letter from her gave startling news: consequently ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... "Certainly, you amusing beggar," said Ingram. "You wrote it during your last crisis and you want to compare your feelings then ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... against each other; or, as they call it, "play fight." I wondered that so moral a people could enjoy these brutal sports. My landlord noticed my surprise, and said, that throughout the kingdom it was the custom to vary their lives with a due mixture of earnest duties and amusing pleasures. Theatrical plays are very much in vogue with them. I was vexed, however, to hear that disputations are reckoned suitable for the stage, while with us they ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... habits, to become some one else than myself, through an intoxication of the moral faculties, and to play this game at will, such was my way of amusing myself. To what do I owe this gift? Is it a form of second sight? Is it one of those qualities, the abuse of which might lead to madness? I have never sought the sources of this power; I possess it and make use of ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... the international character of civilization which had existed throughout the Middle Ages because of Latin and of the Church. If they thought they were really making Latin a vehicle for daily international use, they overrated their power. It was, no doubt, an amusing fancy and a witty exercise to plan, in such an international milieu as the Parisian student world, such models of sports and games in Latin as the Colloquiorum formulae offered. But can Erasmus have seriously thought that the ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the Confessional Club came into being, with no fixed membership, no dues or constitution, no regular place or time of meeting, and added one more to those amusing (sometimes inspiring) little groups that have flourished in Greenwich Village. It certainly had a real idea behind it. "We are loaded with human dynamite. We tell the truth that is never told," became the watchword ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... An amusing reminiscence, illustrative of the same common tendency, was told me by General Howard. I had the pleasure of meeting Howard, then in command of one wing of Sherman's army, at Savannah, just after the conclusion of the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... brain, but an actual manifestation, whether through sense or apart from sense, to consciousness, of a divine outpouring and communication. Enough for us that the voice which spoke was God's, and that that which descended was the Spirit of God. As to all other questions, they may be amusing and interesting, but they ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... this is, my friends! which was a jest many of them could not relish, as they had before tasted of the whipping; looking on the other side, he saw a fine house, and demanding whose it was, they told him it was the assembly-house. While he was thus amusing himself, reflecting on the variety of his fate, fortune was preparing a more agreeable scene for him. A person coming up to the window, asked where the runaway was, who had been brought in that day, Mr. Carew composedly told him he was the man; they then entered ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... paid our tribute-money? Yes, gold is the passport to society; a chimney sweep, with pots of gold, would find a glad welcome where the beggared son of a belted earl would be driven forth. But, after all, 'tis an amusing age, and one must adapt oneself to one's time. I own there are some unpleasantnesses, as when one meets, as Mrs. Ross-Hatton did, a maid-servant from her mother's household; one would grow used to these mongrels in time, I suppose, as this is the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... that ensued is by far the most minute and amusing: see pages 258-261. Bishop Lesley is much more concise. After mentioning the circumstance that several persons had been accused of heresy at a Convocation or Provincial Council of the whole Prelates and Clergy assembled at Edinburgh, at the end ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... has been in the habit of going to this mela, and I have been happy to help him and his brethren when opportunity has been given to me. A colporteur has been present with his wares, and succeeds in selling at a small price portions of the Scriptures and tracts. An amusing instance of indecision occurred at the bookstall the last time I was present. A man had purchased a Gospel. He came back saying he was told by his people that he would certainly become a Christian if he took that book to his village, and he laid down the book on the stall and asked for his ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... humor, I think you would be amused if you could see his smile of placid self-satisfaction as he listens to our discussion of questions and problems which no more enter his daily life than they enter the daily life of an Eskimo; but I do not find it altogether amusing myself, and I could not well forgive it, if I did not know that he was at heart so simple and good, in spite of his commerciality. But he is sweet and kind, as the American men so often are, and he thinks his wife is the delightfulest ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... age he had been in the habit of amusing himself by writing. Some wretched lines of his on the Restoration are still extant. Had he devoted himself to the making of verses, he would have been nearly as far below Tate and Blackmore as Tate and Blackmore are below Dryden. His only chance for renown would have been that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... intended to signify the dowry which that Constantine gave to the Roman Church. In this scene Giulio painted many women kneeling there to see that ceremony, who are very beautiful; a beggar asking for alms; a little boy amusing himself by riding on a dog; and the Lancers of the Papal Guard, who are making the people give way and stand back, as is the custom. And among many portraits that are in this work may be seen portraits from life of Giulio himself, the painter; of Count ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... cried she carelessly, "for it's the dullest thing in the world. I always thought it was owing to that you were so little amusing;—really I beg your pardon, Sir, I meant to ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... spirit of the parliamentary address. It was of no use to pass laws and make declarations and proclamations for the reform of the common plebeii, the poor man pleaded, so long as the mentors of the laws were themselves corrupt. His argument was spiced with amusing anecdotes to show the prevalence of swearing and drunkenness among members of the judicial bench. Defoe appeared several times afterwards in the character of a reformer of manners, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose. When the ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... rout the like of which was never before seen. For twenty-six miles this wild stampede kept up, with our troopers close at the enemy's heels; and the ludicrous incidents of the chase never ceased to be amusing topics around the camp-fires of Merritt and Custer. In the fight and pursuit Torbert took eleven pieces of artillery, with their caissons, all the wagons and ambulances the enemy had on the ground, and three hundred prisoners. Some of Rosser's troopers fled to the mountains ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... fortunes and lost them with marvelous regularity. He had a faculty for finding gold, but his speculations were invariably unwise, so his constant transitions from affluence to poverty, and vice versa, were the subject of many amusing tales, many no doubt grossly exaggerated. And the last venture of Captain Bob Seaver, before he died, was to buy the discredited "Ten-Spot" mine and start ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... railroad waiting-room. It may perhaps, indeed, seem to you that, in the difficulties thus presented by it, bas-relief involves more direct exertion of intellect than finished solid sculpture. It is not so, however. The questions involved by bas-relief are of a more curious and amusing kind, requiring great variety of expedients; though none except such as a true workmanly instinct delights in inventing, and invents easily; but design in solid sculpture involves considerations of ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... substitute stimuli. Amusement can be aroused in an older child by situations that were not at all amusing to the baby. New objects arouse fear, anger, rivalry or curiosity. The emotions of the adult—with the exception of sex attraction, which is usually very weak in the child—are the emotions of the child, but they are aroused ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... the amusing ghost story was that it brought about a reconciliation between father and son, and the former, as a matter of fact, felt such deep respect for priests and their ghosts in consequence of the apparition that a short time after his wife had left purgatory for the last time in ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... "Isn't it amusing?" said Mrs. Challice benignantly, over a glass of lager. "I'm so glad you brought me here. I've ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... Parliament, was mad drunk with GLORY. The House manifested its intoxication by a profligate and extravagant grant of the public money to Wellington, who was also created a Duke. While this was going on within the walls of Parliament, the farmers were drunk and mad without, and were amusing themselves by burning and hanging Napoleon in effigy. Deputies had already arrived in England, to invite Louis the Eighteenth to return to France. He entered London on the 20th of April, with great ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... produce, sowing, and planting. Athos replied complacently, as he always did. His idea was that D'Artagnan wished to become a land-owner, only he could not help regretting, more than once, the absence of the lively humor and amusing sallies of the cheerful companion of former days. In fact, D'Artagnan was so absorbed, that, with his knife, he took advantage of the grease left at the bottom of his plate, to trace ciphers and make additions ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... prone to misjudge between amusing and convincing copy. A humorous picture may catch the eyes of every reader, but it won't pay as well as an illustration of some piece of merchandise which will strike the eye of every buyer. Merchants secure varying results from ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... to the conversation of his employers, whose language was apt to be "painful and frequent and free" on slight provocation, Kameel had picked up some stock expressions which were very amusing. I cannot, unfortunately, bowdlerize the best of these without spoiling them, so I will endeavor to give a few examples of the less forceful. If, for instance, Kameel wanted to indicate size, importance, force, or greatness ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... Mather took her into his own family, to see whether he could not exorcise her. His account of her conduct, while there, is highly amusing for its credulous simplicity. The cunning and ingenious child seems to have taken great delight in perplexing and playing off her tricks upon the learned man. Once he wished to say something in her presence, to a third person, which he did not intend she should understand. He accordingly spoke ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... she said. "We got back all right the last time. What I want to know is what are we to do next? I see no way out of this hall, and though it's rather nice, it's not very amusing. Dudu, I wish you would sit still—you keep giving little juggles on my head that are very uncomfortable, and make me feel as if I had a hat on that was always ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... ferocity, coupled with ingenuous delight, of his expression, which was like that of a mischievous boy amusing himself by breaking a bird's wings and legs. Nor shall I ever forget the man's stupefaction when he saw that his dagger no longer consisted of anything but the pommel and a harmless and ridiculously small stump of the blade, just long enough to keep it in its sheath. His fury was revealed ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... tell stories, that one evening, at the hour of the Ave Maria, when a painter of Bologna, after buying cabbages in the Piazza, came upon Amico, the latter kept him under the Loggia del Podesta with his talk and his amusing stories, without the poor man being able to break away from him, almost till daylight, when Amico said: "Now go and boil your cabbages, for the time is ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... his own vegetable-gardening at Boscobel, his Peekskill home, was very amusing. One day Edward was having a hurried dinner, preparatory to catching the New York train. Mr. Beecher sat beside the boy, telling him of some things he wished done ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... hill, Eleanore told Daniel that there was where she had taken leave of Eberhard von Auffenberg. She could recall everything he said, and she confessed with marked candour what she had said in reply. The story about the old herb woman Daniel did not find amusing. He stopped, and said: "Child, don't have anything to do with spirits! Never interfere with ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... to dive into a tube station or board a motor-bus she couldn't stop me; and she can't go on watching me and intercepting my letters indefinitely. I suppose she will get tired of it after a while." But meanwhile she found the spying rather amusing. Avice popped up unexpectedly if she went near the front door; Wilfred's bullet head peeped in through the window whenever she fancied herself alone in the schoolroom. Only her attic was safe—since to spy upon it would ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... motive in its mind, and thus attain what they think knowledge of human nature. They will encourage themselves to live among dramatic fictions, as when absorbed in a novel; and having made themselves at home in this upper story of their universe, they will find it amusing to deny that it has a ground floor. The chance of conceiving, by these partial reversals of science, a world composed entirely without troublesome machinery is too tempting not to be taken up, whatever ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... there are brooding lovers of knowledge in this world who are fonder of their own than of any other company. But most people can only think half thoughts and need other people to complete them. It is amusing enough to knock a ball against a wall, and a wonderful help in the perfection of strokes, but it is far more amusing to face somebody across a net ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... perpetually circulating bad news from America, and assert with confidence, that several States and many individuals in others, are negotiating to make their peace with Great Britain. Spain may possibly be amusing his employers, as he is employed to amuse the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... was over. To their eyes the fool was a necessary servant, because there had always been a fool at court; he was as indispensable as a chief butler, a chief cook, or a state coachman, and much more amusing. But he was not a man, he had no name, he had no place among men, he was not supposed to have a mother, a wife, a home, anything that belonged to humanity. He was well lodged, indeed, where the ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... thwarted by Chamberlaine's patent, as above described,—and offered sundry queries as to the utility of patents generally, which, says he, "have the tendency to drive trade out of the kingdom." Appended to the chapter on Tin is an exceedingly amusing dialogue between a tin-miner of Cornwall, an iron-miner of Dean Forest, and a traveller (himself). From this we gather that Yarranton's business continued to be that of an iron-manufacturer at his works at Ashley ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... her father was beautiful to behold. Her eyes sparkled with delight as he related several amusing incidents of his visit to a sick ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... and marked with little black spots, are the proofs of its maternity. The woodcock, as I have before remarked, has only the gift of talking in the spring season, when soft breezes fan the air, and they educate their young. Nevertheless, it is in this season that woodcock-shooting is the most amusing. Then is the time for gentlemen to shoot; the braconnier despises it. From the middle of April to that of May is the important epoch at which the generality of animals marry, and the woodcocks are not behindhand in this respect; they leave ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... together, Lackaday, Bakkus and myself taking it in turns to be hosts at our respective hotels. Now and then Elodie insisted on breaking the routine and acting as hostess at a restaurant in Clermont-Ferrand. It was all very pleasant. The only woman to three men, Elodie preened herself with amusing obviousness and set out to make herself agreeable. She did it with a Frenchwoman's natural grace. But as soon as the talk drifted into anything allusive to war or books or art or politics, she manifested ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... of the volume one would suppose that it was made up exclusively of funny anecdotes and amusing stories. Such, however, is not the fact. Many incidents narrated in the book, will be read with other feelings than those inspired by the perusal of laughable anecdotes. But they, as well as the real ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... do I care about tiresome Society? I am laughing at something quite different, something extremely amusing. Tell me, Doctor Rank, are all the people who are employed in the Bank dependent on ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... Tacna, where I had the luck to be quartered on a wealthy Spanish merchant. It was most amusing to be in his company, as he hated us like poison, and, in spite of himself, could hardly prevent his real sentiments from popping out at inconvenient times. However, either from fear or from policy, he treated me well, and during our stay in the ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... beginning and an end; and in which animals of the same family are always grouped side by side. Were I to mention all the divisions of this immense classification at once, you would find the account a little long, and not very amusing. We will go through them by degrees therefore, and, to simplify matters, will, throughout the whole, only consider those particular characters which are connected with our special study, the nourishment ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... old lady by a careless remark instilled into the mind of little Ursula a jealousy and distrust, which, but for the good sense maturer years brought to bear against such early impressions, would have rendered her unhappy for life. Propped up by pillows, she sat at a small table amusing herself by building little card houses, and then seeing them tumble down with all the kings and queens of her little city, when she heard her name mentioned in accents of pity by an old lady who had come to pay her ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... to find you so well," Sally announced as she shook hands. It was difficult to confuse Sally. She had a great deal of poise of her own kind and a little superior air of detachment which was oddly amusing. ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... all then she had not opened to him the door to her friendship. She was merely amusing herself with him as ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... It was amusing to be engaged to him for a time, but now I am tired. You can give him what excuse you like, but ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... rapid strides toward recovery that they were not only able to walk about with something like an approach to their former strength, but that they also expressed their conviction that they would be perfectly able to begin work on the morrow. It appeared that they had been amusing themselves by prowling about the camp and investigating the condition of affairs generally. It was only natural that their chief interest should centre in the cutter, and the probable amount of work that lay before them all ere she would ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... case of mistaken identity, Aunt Clarissa," interposed Myra. "Senor de Ruiz has made the amazing and amusing suggestion that I am the woman! Did you ever hear anything ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... in spite of himself in this gay, humorous young outlaw, who was so evidently superior to his brutal companions, and he would have liked to let him come to the point in his own amusing way, but the sun was getting low, and he feared to waste more time. "Cut out your nonsense and come to the point," he said curtly. "What ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... house in the world can show the like. Entrance was given to masks only, and no persons presented themselves without being disguised, unless they were of very high rank. . . . People invent grotesque disguises, they revive old fashions, they choose the most ridiculous things, and seek to make them as amusing as possible. . . . Mgr. le Dauphin changed his disguise eight or ten times each evening. M. Berain had need of all his wit to furnish these disguises, and of all his ingenuity to get them made up, since there was so little time between one ball and another. The prince did not ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... same. Therefore, each family is quite well satisfied with his share of the land and is not looking for more trouble and labor if they can avoid it, and at the assembly meetings, when the land is distributed each year, it is amusing to hear the thousand-and-one excuses for not taking more land, as the following brief description ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... horror and amaze tickled Miss Brooke immensely. It was evident that this girl, with her foreign, aristocratic, and Catholic training knew nothing at all of the strides that have of late been made in the direction of female emancipation; and her ignorance was amusing to Miss Brooke, who was one of the foremost champions of the woman's cause. Miss Sophia Brooke, whose name was on every committee under the sun, who spoke at meetings and wrote half a dozen letters after her name, to have a niece who had never met a lady doctor in her life before, and probably ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "he thinks I don't need amusing, now that the fine days are come and I can play in the garden; and certainly, if I had any one to play with, the garden ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... 'of the hearable and the heard', i.e., "what you may or will hear, and what you have heard." European translators of the Gita view in these words a rejection of the Vedas by the author. It is amusing to see how confidently they dogmatise upon this point, rejecting the authority of Sankara, Sreedhara, Anandagiri, and the whole host of Indian commentators. As K. T. Telang, however, has answered the point elaborately, nothing more ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... flowed on, easy, careless, unperturbed. His stories were amusing Pasquale, and the old ruffian had a fondness for anybody that could entertain him. But back of his debonair gayety Steve nursed a growing unease. He was no longer dressed in the outfit of a cowpuncher, but wore a gray ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... dandelions are in bloom, I would like to describe a very amusing little trick which may be performed with a long dandelion stem, a pin, and a small green currant. Stick the pin half its length through the centre of the currant; then place the currant on the end of the ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... saw the sacristan of the Pantheon that evening, and ascertained from his little almanac—which has all kinds of wonderful astrological predictions, as well as the calendar—when it would be full moon. And perhaps what Nino said to the sacristan, and what the sacristan said to Nino, might be amusing. I am very fond of these little things, and fond of talking too. For since it is talking that distinguishes us from other animals, I do not see why I should not make the most of it. But you who are listening to me have ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... the jailer had tired of sticking pins in the General, and was amusing himself by carefully pulling the Nome's whiskers out by the roots, one at a time. This enjoyment was interrupted by the Grand Gallipoot sending for ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... look after your own wife a little closer, I fancy it would be a better employment for you. She is at present probably amusing herself with Captain ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... train," how they boarded it for "any place"—all seemed very funny when they were old enough to look back upon it. It even seemed funny, a day or two afterward, to their alarmed elders. But at the time it was not amusing to anybody. David was gloomy at being obliged to marry Nannie; "I pretty near wish I'd stayed with Elizabeth," he said, crossly. Nannie was frightened, because, she declared, "Mamma'll be mad;—now I tell you, Blair, she'll be mad!" And Blair was sulky because he had no wife. Yet, in spite of these ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... lived at Bass Cove, where he shot wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... word!" said Quennebert behind the arras, "'tis as amusing as a play! Is the commander also going to offer to make an honest woman of her? But what do ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you are in funds, you will, of course, get out of debt. If only that you may run into it again at need, you will draw a cheque. Now, you had eight years of it at Wanless, you tell me? Very well, my dear, that must be written off Society's books. Meanwhile, the more you see of amusing, emancipated people like Alexis ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... mind largely stored with border legends, chiefly derived from the recitations of his grandmother, a person of a romantic inclination and sprightly intelligence. At this period, Pope's translation of Homer, and the more amusing songs in Ramsay's "Evergreen," were his favourite studies; and he took delight in reading aloud, with suitable emphasis, the more striking passages, or verses, to his mother, who sought every incentive to stimulate his native propensity. In 1778 he was sent to the High School, where ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... 15. "It is very amusing to see them search the pockets of those they know: diving into them, sniffing at every portion, and climbing ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... joke by being cold blooded about it. I saw it all right when he said it. It was something—something really very amusing—about the Home Secretary and the Irish Secretary. At all events, he's evidently the very man to take with me to Ireland to break the ice for me. He can gain the confidence of the people there, and make them friendly to me. Eh? [He seats himself on ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... the "Mona Lisa" a portrait, and we have been told how La Gioconda sat for the picture, and how the artist invented ways of amusing her, by stories, recitations, the luring strain of hidden lutes, and strange flowers and rare pictures brought in as surprises to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... no, not that I can remember. He is always nice, and amusing. He doesn't like carrying a basket, or skates, and things; but of course, where there are younger boys one couldn't expect him to do that; and he hates plain girls and old women; but I suppose that ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... of the dilapidated Temple home was amusing herself with a pair of field-glasses. Her big wolf-hound had just temporarily laid aside his customary dignity and was chasing a rabbit. Terry had her binoculars focussed on a distant field, curious ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... the original French bears the title of L'Oeuvre, is a strikingly accurate story of artistic life in Paris during the latter years of the Second Empire. Amusing at times, extremely pathetic and even painful at others, it not only contributes a necessary element to the Rougon-Macquart series of novels—a series illustrative of all phases of life in France within certain dates—but it also represents a particular ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... She was only amusing herself. It was a case of "Horse, horse, play with me!"—the other horses being otherwise occupied. She wasn't serious. He needn't have come. "I can't," he said. "I'm sorry, but I'm ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... self-possessed children; but knowing little more of the world than the black children their playmates, Cheon, in his turn, found them vastly amusing, and instructing them in the ways of the world—from his point of view—found ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... not generally known that the writer of Munchausen's Travels borrowed this amusing incident from Heylin's {263} Mikrokosmos. In the section ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... to facilitate me on my voyage in search of a white man gone in the interior of this country long ago. I went from there to Sabila and told him the same thing. Afterwards I went back to the guard-house, and laid myself down to sleep; while the guards were amusing themselves in dancing, singing, and drinking. My slumber being disturbed by my uneasy mind, I awoke and found ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... by which the great female principle in the Deity has been eliminated, and the subterfuges which have been and still are employed to construct and sustain a Creator who of himself is powerless to create, is as amusing as it is suggestive, and forcibly recalls to mind la couvade, in which, among certain tribes, the father, assuming all the duties of procreation, goes to bed when a ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... demerits, his serenely illogical demands of salvation in spite, or rather because, of them, his meek submission to the punishment of others, and the many similarly pleasing characteristics of this amusing work, being most imperfectly conveyed. By permitting myself a reasonable freedom of rendering—in many cases boldly supplying that "missing link" between the sublime and the ridiculous which the author, writing for the acute monkish apprehension ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... we visited were kept by Arabs who understood French but could speak only a few words of English. The prices named by these merchants were generally two or three times more than they expected customers to pay, and it was very amusing to watch the process of a sale. A price was named by the dealer; a bid was made by the customer; then figuring, explaining, and dickering went on in a mixture of languages and signs until finally, if the buyer's patience did not ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... opera is a humorous opera, the plot providing many amusing situations and the whole ending happily. It corresponds with the comedy ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... he said, brushing his sleeve with the deliberate will to offend. Then he turned and bowed to Auriole. "Your friends are amusing but I'm afraid they are going to waste a lot of time. Are you coming ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... the story sounds dull; but suggests the possibility of its containing an agreeable surprise. An amusing anecdote to this effect concludes ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... more quickly than snow beneath an April sun. She tortured him; but she had also the power to make him forget all by a smile, a tear, or a kiss. Away from the enchantress, reason returned at intervals, and, in his lucid moments, he said to himself, "She does not love me. She is amusing herself at my expense!" But the belief in her love had taken such deep root in his heart that he could not pluck it forth. He made himself a monster of jealousy, and then argued with himself respecting her fidelity. On several ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... excellently entertaining; though I cannot but think that to give both his leading lady and his soubrette, or Singing Chambermaid, the handicap of morally deficient young brothers, does look like laziness on the part of Mr. CAINE. Surely there exist other avenues to calamity. But it's an amusing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve in her interesting home. How types so widely apart react on each other's ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... escort she declared that it couldn't have hurt them to wait a jiffy; that she had had a most amusing conversation; that Mr. Banneker was as charming as he was good to look at; and that (in answer to sundry questions) she had found out little or nothing, though she hoped for better results ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... by this time threading in and out among the transports on our way to a vacant berth at no great distance from the "Victory," and in about five minutes afterwards the "Requin" and her prizes came to an anchor. It was amusing enough to see Master Bob strutting up and down the diminutive quarter-deck of the brig, his telescope tucked under one arm, and the cherished speaking-trumpet under the other, issuing his orders as to the stowing of the canvas and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become imbecile. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... merry crowd of cooks and pullers is working and frolicking in the kitchen, under Norah's watchful eye, a few of the company may be found in other parts of the old mansion, amusing themselves in their own fashion. Some of the very young guests are in the upper rooms playing childish games; and one or two older ones, who, as it happens, see quite enough of the kitchen in their own homes, prefer to enjoy themselves now in the ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... given a loud sigh, and burying his head once more in his hands had said no more. Then Jokisch had said good night. They could very well have gone home together—their roads only parted at the Bo[^z]a m[,e]ka[A] just before you come to the Przykop [Pg 135]—but Mr. Tiralla's company wasn't amusing enough. By Jove, the old man seemed ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... wearing anything on my head, and did not require it: these were, after a certain amount of haggling, surrendered, on condition that the sultan would exert himself a little more energetically on my account. The way he handled the musket was very amusing: he had never had one in his hands before, and could not get it to sit against his shoulder; and when his people placed it for him, he persisted in always cocking the wrong eye, which tickled Farhan's fancy so much, that he burst into loud roars of laughter. Nevertheless, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... glanced at my pistols. Fortunately, after a few minutes' conversation with the miller, the hunters withdrew, not without giving me to understand that, if they had formed a better opinion of my character, they went away with a most amusing idea of ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... pathetic. A fall on the ice which seemed to offer only a ludicrous contrast between the dignity and grace of the man erect and the ungainly attitude of the falling figure ceases utterly to be funny when it is seen to entail some physical injury; and wit which burns and sears is not amusing to its victim."[12] The ability to appreciate the humorous in life is a great gift and should be cultivated to a much greater extent than it is ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... secures this—a standard that might have satisfied Mark Pattison[C]—but also the painstaking love revealed in it, which, like every other true love, whether of men or books, will not give of that which costs it nothing. And, as a further title to our regard, Dr. Bliss is amusing at his own expense, and compares himself to Earle's "critic," who swells books into folios with his comments. Not that this humorous self-depreciation is to be pressed; for, unlike that critic, he is no ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither ill-temper nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even and constant flow of artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English affording Sofia considerable entertainment together with not a little food ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... performance has filled the stage with several large flags, a bouquet of flowers and, may be, a beautiful lady, all, possibly produced from a top hat. His performance is given to the accompaniment of amusing patter and is brightened with the colour of the articles ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... unreasonably gay almost immediately, though the beverage scarcely accounted for the delicate intoxication that seemed to creep into their veins. Yet it was sufficient for Siward to say an amusing thing wittily, for Sylvia to return his lead with all the delightful, unconscious brilliancy that he seemed to inspire in her—as though awaking into real life once more. All that had slumbered in her through the winter and spring, and the long, arid summer now crumbling ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... last show itself), and by other devices of what may be called Material Logic or Methodology. But only direct experience and personal manipulation of scientific processes, can give a just sense of their effectiveness; and to stand by, suggesting academic doubts, is easier and more amusing. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... palatable dinner. As it was, all I learned of her, to my sorrow, was a detestation of bad cookery, and a firm conviction that that which was exquisite was both wholesomer and more economical than any other. Dr. Kitchener, the clever and amiable author of that amusing book, "The Cook's Oracle" (his name was a bona fide appellation, and not a drolly devised appropriate nom de plume, and he was a doctor of physic), was a great friend and admirer of hers; and she is ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... realized that it was a kingfisher which had just crossed the pond. For a long time, standing quite still for fear a movement might betray her presence and cause the birds to fly away, she stood at the opening looking out at them. How pretty it all was in the morning light, gay, alive, amusing, something new to ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... Squire was born April 2, 1884, at Plymouth, of Devonian ancestry. He was educated at Blundell's and Cambridge University, and became known first as a remarkably adroit parodist. His Imaginary Speeches (1912) and Tricks of the Trade (1917) are amusing parodies and, what is more, excellent criticism. He edited The New Statesman for a while and founded The London Mercury (a monthly of which he is editor) in November, 1919. Under the pseudonym "Solomon Eagle" he wrote a page of literary criticism ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... (given to masturbation), studied by Macdonald in America, was similarly hyperaesthetic to the symbols of sexual emotion. "I like amusing myself with my comrades," he told Macdonald, "rolling ourselves into a ball, which gives one a funny kind of warmth. I have a special pleasure in talking about some things. It is the same when the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... what is the result? On the first occasion when Romayne presents himself I can place you in a position to become his daily companion. All due, Arthur, in the first instance, to my impatience of obstacles. Amusing, isn't it?" ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... father of one-half of the young men who now fill the middle and lower posts in the government of Japan." For the foreign side, see The Japanese in America, by Charles Lanman, New York, 1872, and in The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, London, 1894, and for an amusing piece of literary ventriloquism, Japanese Letters, Eastern Impressions of Western Men and Manners, London ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... acquiesced Gabriella, though without the enthusiasm of Algernon. "Do you remember what a belle she always was at the germans?" Though she was willing to admit that love was the ruling principle of life, it occurred to her that Algernon would be more amusing if he were less abundantly ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... evidences of the extent and power of the popular faith in the devil and in purgatory, and in their close connection with the present life, a faith nourishingly embodied in thousands of singular tales. Thomas Wright has collected many of these in his antiquarian works. He relates an amusing incident that once befell a minstrel who had been borne into hell by a devil. The devils went forth in a troop to ensnare souls on earth. Lucifer left the minstrel in charge of the infernal regions, promising, if he let no souls escape, to treat him on the return with ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... similar to the one I have just mentioned, of pretended loss of the use of the legs, or partial inability to walk; but as there was no marked difference in the cases, I need not notice them. There was, however, an amusing incident connected with one of them which I may mention. This prisoner was allowed a little porter every day, which was served out about one o'clock. One day at that hour he happened to be in an adjoining room ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... Buckingham Palace is as unlike a club as any place is likely to be. The Court is a separate part, which stands aloof from the rest of the London world, and which has but slender relations with the more amusing part of it. The first two Georges were men ignorant of English, and wholly unfit to guide and lead English society. They both preferred one or two German ladies of bad character to all else in London. George III. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... by his connection with Blackwood's Magazine, to which he was the chief contributor, De Quincey removed with his family to Edinburgh, where his erratic genius and his singularly childlike ways produced enough amusing anecdotes to fill a volume. He would take a room in some place unknown to his friends and family; would live in it for a few years, until he had filled it, even to the bath tub, with books and with his own chaotic manuscripts, allowing no one to enter or disturb his den; and then, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... you meant the words you said, 'Twould be amusing to discover If she had really turned your head, And in her lawyer found a lover. Yet even should this be the case, You cannot well escape supporting This statement—that it's not the place In open ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... at the cover side, admirably dressed in a white cravat and white tops, which latter either he, or Robinson his valet, introduced, and which eventually superseded the brown ones. The subtlety of Brummell's sneers, which made him so highly amusing to the first rank of society, made him an object of alarm if not of respect to others. "Do you see that gentleman near the door?" said a woman of rank to her daughter, who had been brought for the first time to Almack's. "Yes! Who is he?" replied the young ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... own law. When it became independent Greece was extremely ill administered under a nominal parliamentary government by politicians who made use of the brigands for their own purposes. The result was the state of things described with only pardonable exaggeration in Edmond About's amusing Roi de la montagne. An authentic and most interesting picture of the Greek brigands will be found in the story of the captivity of S. Soteropoulos, an ex-minister who fell into their hands. It was translated into English under the title ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... sad and so serious, it would be amusing to watch the double game that Turkey is playing with the Powers, and how she is laughing in her sleeve at ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... tolerably often from Livingstone during my absence. His letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not indicated a vein of sarcasm deepening ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... now such an odd idea to have a man paid to make jokes, but in those days it was the fashion. Some man who had a gift for saying funny things used to live in the household of a great nobleman and be as amusing as he could, and for this he received payment. More's fool was often rather impertinent, and at one time when there was a big dinner, and one of the guests happened to have a particularly large nose, the fool said out loud: 'What a terrible nose that gentleman has got!' So all the family pretended ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... for the boards were well joined and strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I thought it would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a garden planted with flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old duenna of a directress, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... aspect. The old Spanish newspapers continued to be published, and some of them, especially El Comercio, were enterprising enough to print alternate columns of English and Spanish, and, occasionally, a few advertisements in very amusing broken English. Two rebel organs, La Independencia and La Republica Filipina, soon appeared. They were shortly followed by a number of periodicals of minor importance, such as El Soldado Espanol, La Restauracion (a Carlist organ), The Kon Leche, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... latter is the object of the present volume. Vast as the subject appears, it is easily reducible within such limits as will make it comprehensive without being wearisome, and render its study both instructive and amusing. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the execution. So intense was the popular feeling, that when the time came for sailing he thought it prudent to avoid Montreal and Quebec and to board his ship at Rimouski. This circumstance afforded material to the editor of the Mail, Mr Edward Farrer, for an amusing article, bearing the alliterative title, 'The Murderer's Midnight Mizzle, or the Ruffian's ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... communicative, and with a manner equally free from violence and insipidity. Few subjects can be started, on which he is not qualified to appear to advantage as the gentleman and scholar. If there is some tinge of pedantry, it is carried off by great affability of address and variety of amusing and interesting topics. There is scarce an author that he has not read; a period of history that he is not conversant with; a celebrated name of which he has not a number of anecdotes to relate; an intricate question that he is not prepared to enter upon in a popular or scientific manner. If an ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... friends! which was a jest many of them could not relish, as they had before tasted of the whipping; looking on the other side, he saw a fine house, and demanding whose it was, they told him it was the assembly-house. While he was thus amusing himself, reflecting on the variety of his fate, fortune was preparing a more agreeable scene for him. A person coming up to the window, asked where the runaway was, who had been brought in that day, Mr. Carew composedly told him he was the man; they ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... she stood aside to make way for them, declared that the bell sounded as though it were within her bonnet. When they reached the school they found that many a child was absent who should have been there, and Mrs. Fenwick knew that the truant urchins were amusing themselves at the new building. And with those who were not truant the clang of the new bell distracted terribly that attention which was due to the collect. Mrs. Fenwick herself confessed afterwards that she hardly ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... the tall thick grass was as full of hopping, fluttering, and creeping things as a wheat beard is of grain. These tiny little creatures seemed to find life so pleasant and comfortable, and the glisten and "swish" of John Goodnow's scythe so very odd and amusing, that they kept only a little out of his way as he mowed, and when he stopped to whet his scythe they flocked around and settled on his boot-legs, on the brim of his hat, and even in the creases of his shirt sleeves, to see how ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... very long. Paris is like the earth: one half of it is always illumined by the sun. On this fateful evening the incroyables and the merveilleuses were amusing themselves within the walls of the Palace ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... present have just had a jolly warm bath and feel a very clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she called him wogger wd give anything to be back in Gib and hear you sing Waiting and in old Madrid Concone is the name of those exercises he bought me one of those new some word I couldnt make out shawls amusing things but tear for the least thing still there lovely I think dont you will always think of the lovely teas we had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore well now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... at last ended by the Edict of Nantes issued after Henry of Navarre became Henry IV. of France. Besides the political bearing of the letters, they give a picturesque account of Court life at the end of the 16th century, the fashions and manners of the time, piquant descriptions, and amusing gossip, such as only a witty woman—as Marguerite certainly was—could inject into such subjects. The letters, indeed, abound in sprightly anecdote and small-talk, which yet have their value in lightening up the ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... collected in the following amusing lines a large number of the natural prognostics of rain. They are said to have been addressed to a lady, who asked the Doctor if he ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... ride upon your bicycle—that nice new one that you received as a present from—from your grandfather." Here the speaker paused and laughed as if the idea of Margaret Anstruther getting a bicycle from her grandfather was a distinctly amusing idea. "We will go far, far along to the blue distance—much farther than you ever went with Miss Bidwell—and we will have tea at the inn down by the river and come home by moonlight. We shall be quite safe, for Reginald and Lionel will ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... comedy and obvious farce—the humour that finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. How thoroughly wholesome it is too! To be at the same time merry and wise, says the old adage, is a hard combination. Dickens was both. With all his boisterous merriment, his volleys of inextinguishable laughter, he never makes game of what is ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... of civilization. We find it amusing to read that three or four hundred years ago bathing for pleasure was unknown, that when soap was first invented it was used only for washing clothes, and that even so late as the Seventeenth Century an author compiling a book of ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Westminster Review contains a pleasant scientific article under the title of "Shell Fish, their Ways and Works," in which the subject so much debated lately, whether the lower orders of animals are capable of reason, has some new and amusing illustrations. Generous and honestly disposed lovers of good dinners will be gratified with the notion that oysters receive as well as communicate a degree of happiness. The reviewer treats the subject in ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Verne have dreamed of encircling the globe with a motor cycle for emergencies he would have deemed it an achievement greater than any he describes in his account of the amusing travels of Philias Fogg. This, however, is the purpose successfully carried out by the Motor Cycle Chums, and the tale of their mishaps, hindrances and delays is one of intense interest, secret amusement, and incidental ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... Another incident was amusing in its way. Poor Mr. Irvine (who was going to be married) mended up a very much smashed greenhouse to greet his bride thereby with floral joy. Unluckily, the boys preferred broken panes to whole ones, so nothing was easier than by flinging brickbats and even ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... whom she might already have entrusted with her secret. There should be a strenuous effort first to bring her to her senses. Physical pain, he had noticed, had more effect on people's senses than any amount of argument. There had been a very amusing instance recently. One of his dancing girls named Malati had refused recently to sing and dance her best before a man to whom Gungadhura had designed to make a present of her; but the mere preliminaries of removing a toe-nail behind the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... girl, only a girl as the familiar phrase expresses it—a seventeen-year-old girl. She was reminded of a pathetic and familiar line, "A woman naturally born to fears ..." A wholesome reaction to pride followed and, suddenly, an amusing memory of Miss Blake, of her corduroy trousers stuffed into boots, of her broad, strong body, her square face with its firm lips and masterful red-brown eyes; a very heartening memory for such a moment. Here was a woman that had adventured without fear and had quite ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... his hands in expostulation. He liked Lisle, and Gladwyne was a distinguished guest. Batley seemed to find his confusion amusing. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... occasions was regulated on a scale of almost puerile splendor. The Banquet of Vows given at Lille, in the year 1453, and so called from the obligations entered into by some of the nobles to accompany Philip in a new crusade against the infidels, showed a succession of costly fooleries, most amusing in the detail given by an eye-witness (Olivier de la Marche), the minutest of the chroniclers, but unluckily too long to find a place in ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... figures in almost as distressing a state. A god only ordinarily maltreated could not excite the pity or interest of the Mexican Indian, whose every-day life has its own share of barked shins and painful adversities. It was amusing to find this village, hardly larger than many a one about the home of Mexican hacendados, the capital of a State. But the squads of rurales and uniformed police and the civil employees of Government were very solemn with their responsibilities. I had ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... Karl and the Crown Prince of Sweden, the latter expressing himself anxious to be the first to welcome Haakon VII into his capital. What became of Princess Maud's reluctance is not definitely known. It is understood that she never found life at the Danish court very amusing, and probably the prospect of exchanging Copenhagen for a city of less than half its size did not allure her. She must have realized that if she accepted a share of the Norwegian throne, she would be forced to abandon her favorite cure for ennui—frequent ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... spirit was amusing the crowd, a second medium brought out ten coconut shells, one of which was filled with blood and rice. These she placed on a winnower, which in turn was set on a rice-mortar. Soon the spirit Ilongbosan entered her body, and commanded the son of the patient to take some of the blood and rice ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... Guicciardini are absent from the pages of Nardi. He is anxious to present a clear picture of what happened; but he cannot make it animated, and he never reflects at length upon the matter of his history. At the same time he lacks the naiivete which makes Corio, Allegretti, Infessura, and Matarazzo so amusing. He gossips as little as Machiavelli, and has no profundity to make up for the want of piquancy. The interest of his chronicle is greatest in the part which concerns Savonarola, though even here the peculiarly reticent and dubitative nature of the man is obvious. While he sympathizes with Savonarola's ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... needle in hand as a child. He caricatured "Boney," borrowing not a little from Gilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis XVIII. trying on Boney's boots. Before the century was actually in its teens we believe that George Cruikshank was amusing ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... allowed]. Weekly baths were the regulation, but "it was often possible for pushing natures to get an extra bath on other days," by a method which works all the world over. At Burg "the new Commandant was a tall, well-made, soldierly figure. He had a strong face, curiously resembling an owl." An amusing little story follows as to the preciseness of the Commandant and Mr. O'Rorke continues: "It is pleasant to add that this new Commandant was in one respect just the man that was needed. From the first day he began to make the place hum, the foul ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... you to indignation. In his "Onyegin," Pushkin often pleases you, but he never stirs you. Pushkin is in literature what the polished club-man is in society. In society the man who can repeat the most bon-mots, tell the most amusing anecdotes, and talk most fluently, holds the ear more closely than he that speaks from the heart. So Pushkin holds his place in literature because he is brilliant, because his verse is polished, his language chosen, his wit pointed, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... unfortunately, the vine broke. The residue, unable to cross, remained on the hither side, and became afterwards the enemies of those who had passed over. Cusick anticipates that his story of the grape-vine may seem to some incredible; but he asks, with amusing simplicity, "why more so than that the Israelites should cross the Red Sea on dry land?" That the precise incident, thus frankly admitted to be of a miraculous character, really took place, we are not required to believe. But that emigrants ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put 'bodily into their souls' his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional ...
— The Republic • Plato
... while Morton Agnew was amusing himself with a game of solitaire, and chuckling with glee over the clever manner in which he had put Buck Badger in a "box," a rap sounded on the door of his room that made ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... snigger, crow, snicker, chuckle, cackle; burst out, burst into a fit of laughter; shout, split, roar. shake one's sides, split one's sides, hold both one's sides; roar with laughter, die with laughter. Adj. amusing, entertaining, diverting &c. v.; recreational, recreative, lusory[obs3]; pleasant &c. (pleasing) 829; laughable &c. (ludicrous) 853; witty &c. 842; fun, festive, festal; jovial, jolly, jocund, roguish, rompish[obs3]; playful, playful as a kitten; sportive, ludibrious|. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Hilario. The devil that possessed her, in consequence of the charm, began immediately to howl, and to confess the truth. "I have suffered violence," said he; "I have been forced hither against my inclination. How happy was I at Memphis, amusing my friends with visions! O the pains, the tortures which I suffer! You command me to dislodge, and I am detained fast by the charm below the threshold. I cannot depart, unless the young man dismiss me." So cautious, however, was the saint, that he would not permit the magic figures to be searched ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... but is improving. Good by, my dear." "Venice, November 30, 1807. I have your letter of the 22d. I have been for two days in Venice. The weather is very bad, which has not prevented my going through the lagoons to see the different forts. I am glad to see that you are amusing yourself in Paris. The King of Bavaria and his family and the Princess Elisa are also here. After December 2, which I shall spend here, I shall be on my way back, and glad to see you. Good by, my dear." "Udine, December 11, 1807. I have your ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... on famously. Betty and she have fallen in love with each other. It is amusing to hear Betty try to talk in the Wyandot tongue, and to see Myeerah's consternation when Betty gives her a ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... from something I had seen among Flaxman's drawings." John Flaxman was the son of a humble seller of plaster casts in New Street, Covent Garden. When a child, he was such an invalid that it was his custom to sit behind his father's shop counter propped by pillows, amusing himself with drawing and reading. A benevolent clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Matthews, calling at the shop one day, saw the boy trying to read a book, and on inquiring what it was, found it to be a Cornelius Nepos, which his father had picked up for a few pence at a bookstall. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... manufactory passed on very merrily. One day, however, when I was in my best singing vein, and everybody spoke of the extraordinary brilliancy of my voice, one of the journeymen said that I was a girl, and not a boy. He seized hold of me. I cried and screamed. The other journeymen thought it very amusing, and held me fast by my arms and legs. I screamed aloud, and was as much ashamed as a girl; and then, darting from them, rushed home to my mother, who immediately promised me that I should never ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... food of every kind, as much of it as we want, and constant variety, so that even the most fastidious cannot tire of it, good shelter, good clothing, good ventilation, exercise in the open air ad libitum, no over-exertion in the way of work, instructive and amusing books of every kind, relaxation in the shape of cards, chess, dominoes, halma, music, and story-telling—how should any one be ill? Every now and then I hear remarks expressive of perfect satisfaction with the life. Truly the whole secret lies in arranging ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... quite delightful at the eyrie. Cecil and Miss Violet have made fast friends, and Duke, the greyhound, looks on approvingly, though with an amusing tint of jealousy. The child has forgotten her wounds, has had some berries, cake, and ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... suffered nothing by the circumstance, it is to be regretted that he was still left under the charge of his mother: a woman without judgment or self-command; alternately spoiling her child by indulgence, irritating him by her self-willed obstinacy, and, what was still worse, amusing him by her violence, and disgusting him by fits of inebriety. Sympathy for her misfortunes would be no sufficient apology for concealing her defects; they undoubtedly had a material influence on her son, and her appearance was ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... beginning. From the concealment of her lofty bluebell Maya commanded a splendid view of the social life coming awake beneath. Watching it she forgot, for the moment, her anxiety and mounting homesickness. It was too amusing for anything to be safe in a hiding-place, high up, and look down on the doings ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... and "ordinarily do attend" in the laws meant. [b] The important question of how many absences from church would prevent a man from claiming that he was a regular attendant was thus left in the hands of judges, who were for the most part prejudiced or partial. Many amusing and exasperating legal quibbles occurred in the courts between judges, who were determined to sentence for neglect of public worship, and defendants, who were equally positive of their rights. Many dissenters ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... of a series of volumes, designed to contain the literary, political, and social reminiscences of Mr Jerdan during the last fifty years, has just seen the light. It will be found to be one of the most amusing books of the day, and also not without a moral of its own kind. We presume it is of no use to debate how far it is allowable to bring before the public matters pertaining to private life, and about which living individuals may feel a delicacy. The time for such questions seems ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... an amusing thing has happened. Mr. S—— said to Dr. ——, "We English have captured your Kronprinzessin Cecilie," without saying that he meant the ship, and not the lady. As the Government keeps all such disagreeable intelligence dark, it was news to the doctor, and he stoutly contradicted ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... capital, and has been repeatedly noticed by travellers; as, for instance, Kohl, Custine, &c. &c. Our readers will find the singular colour of the St Petersburg atmosphere (particularly observable in the winter, or at night) very well described in Sir George Lefevre's amusing "Notes of a Travelling Physician." This greenish tint is as peculiar to the banks of the Neva, as is the reddish-black to the neighbourhood of Birmingham or the Potteries; or the yellowish-brown (in November—"let rude ears be absent!") to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... as well as amusing, excellently describing the extravagance still practiced in middle-class Moslem families on the death of the pater familias. I must again note that Arab women are much more unwilling to expose the back of the head covered by the "Tarhah" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... guidance in the case of their best, or almost their best, prose writer, may perhaps be followed by a similar docility in the case of their best, or almost their best, poet, Poe, whom also England had preceded the United States in recognizing." This comical patron is all the more amusing from his ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... left my room this evening when I heard a pattering step and a hurried tap on my door. On my saying "Come," my opposite neighbor slipped in and turned the key in the lock. It was an unconventional and amusing performance, but I didn't mind. Somehow one couldn't mind anything with such a ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that gay thing, the indoor winter game, becomes rampant. It is there that the old euchre deck and the staring domino become fair and beautiful things; that the rattle of the Loto counter rejoices the heart, that the old riddle feels the sap stirring in its limbs again, and the amusing spilikin completes the mental ruin of the jaded guest. Then does the Jolly Maiden Aunt propound the query: What is the difference between an elephant and a silk hat? Or declare that her first is a vowel, her second a preposition, and her third an archipelago. It is to crown such ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... "You'll be out on Main Street, to-night, ready to tramp miles and miles, if anything amusing ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... Pretentious Young Ladies, Mascarille and Jodelet impose upon two provincial girls, in Bury-Fair, La Roch, "a French peruke-maker" succeeds in deceiving Mrs. Fantast and Mrs. Gertrude under the name of Count de Cheveux. The Count is very amusing, and though a coward to boot, pretends to be a great warrior. His description of war is characteristic; he states that "de great Heros always burne and kille de Man, Woman, ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... sound, startlingly akin to the agitated contents of over-ripe vegetables, came from somewhere in the internal mechanism of the small man. Inferentially, the inquiry was amusing to the questioned, likewise the immediately surrounding listeners who became suddenly silent, gazing at the stranger with the wonder of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... of self, of him, of a situation which to any wholesome masculine mind contained the germs of humour, romance, and all sorts of amusing possibilities, began to be a little irksome to him. And still her aloofness amused ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... against their wills they bequeath to their children a bodily dwelling of inferior material, and so poor in construction that it very soon falls into decay through disease, or in very early life becomes a tottering ruin. It would seem rather amusing to us if one should sit down and write his will and say: "I bequeath to my daughter Mary my yellow, blotched and pimpled complexion, resulting from my own bad habits of life. I bequeath to my son John, the effects of my habits of dissipation ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... the planter cried, impatiently. "Don't you see you can trust me? God! The recklessness, the folly of young people! Could you not leave this insurrection to your elders? Or perhaps you thought it a matter of no great importance, an amusing thing— " ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... presents a varied and select bill of fare, containing among other things, Part XIII. of Robert Dale Owen's novel "Beyond the Breakers," "The Fairy and the Ghost," a Christmas tale, with six amusing illustrations; a curious and interesting article on "Literary Lunatics," by Wirt Sikes, "Our Capital," by William R. Hooper, and very much more excellent matter in the way of stories ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... vividly recall how in 1875, when we were all returning en famille from a long summer holiday spent at Torquay in a pleasant house lent us in Meadfoot Bay, we all travelled together in a third-class carriage; how it fell to my lot to have the amusing of Hugh, and how difficult he was to amuse, because he wished to look out of the window the whole time, and to make remarks on everything. But at Lincoln I hardly remember anything of him at all, because I was at school with my elder brother, and only came back for the holidays; and we ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... came again in person and told dowager lady Chia that she would take Hsi Jen home to drink a cup of tea brewed in the new year and that she would return in the evening. For this reason Pao-y was only in the company of all the waiting-maids, throwing dice, playing at chess and amusing himself. But while he was in the room playing with them with a total absence of zest, he unawares perceived a few waiting-maids arrive, who informed him that their senior master Mr. Chen, of the Eastern Mansion, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... business was. He was interested to note how persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He suspected that it was all a feverish anodyne to still some inward unease. Since they must (not being ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... sister Barbara are amusing. She was four or five years older than he, but being a woman had not had his opportunities. He begins by trying to teach her Latin. But the difficulties were many, and apparently she did not progress far enough to write in the tongue. At any rate, Ellenbog copied none of ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... Another amusing incident of the same campaign, and one which illustrates Lincoln's love of a practical joke, is given as follows: "Among the Democrats stumping the county at this time was one Dick Taylor, a most pompous person, who was always arrayed in the richest attire—ruffled shirts, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the only thing observed among the Negritos of Zambales which had the slightest resemblance to a game. Even the children, who are playful enough at times, find other means of amusing themselves than by playing a systematic game recognized as such and having a distinct name. However, they take up the business of life, the quest for food, at too early an age to allow time, to hang heavy, and hence never feel the need of games. Probably the fascination ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... the second day after his interview with Mrs. Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the little document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinking what he would do in the circumstances and how he would do it. He would not have said that Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemed very short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walked over to the Rue de l'Universite and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde's portress whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him that she had arrived, with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, ...
— The American • Henry James
... heart had been warmer toward his dead son George than to any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair as Andrew was dark, as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and dispiriting, as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother was slow and angular, as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was phlegmatic and sour—or so it seemed to the father and to ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... very day when Tommy Fox was amusing himself, and swallowing crickets as fast as he could grab them, his mother came out of her house and watched him for a little while. Tommy was feeling ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... thinks it fortunate for the Whigs 'that their very enemies acknowledge the finest women of Great Britain to be of that party;' and in an amusing but rather absurd way he discourses to maids, wives, and widows on the advantages of adhering to the Hanoverian Government. It is characteristic of Addison that a political paper like the Freeholder should be flavoured with the humour ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... staggered at this second blow. "Vewy amusing anecdote, indeed! Thank you, Lorton. Much obwiged, and all that sawt of thing, for the in-fawmation. Yaas, bai-ey Je-ove! And so I'll say good day. Good day, Lorton; good day to you!" and he started off, with a quick step, in the very opposite direction to that ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... head it may rack with a bilious attack, And your senses with toothache you're losing, Don't be mopy and flat—they don't fine you for that, If you're properly quaint and amusing! Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day, And took with her your trifle of money; Bless your heart, they don't mind—they're exceedingly kind— They don't blame you—as long as you're funny! It's a comfort to feel If your partner should flit, Though you suffer a deal, They ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... musicians of the old school, conducted occasionally at the Ancient Concerts and the Philharmonic, and his glees are still favourites after public dinners, and are sung by those old bacchanalians, in chestnut wigs, who attend for the purpose of amusing the guests on such occasions of festivity. The great old people at the gloomy old concerts before mentioned always pay Sir George marked respect; and, indeed, from the old gentleman's peculiar behaviour to his superiors, it ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conversation, Bluebell sat incapable of contributing to it. She would not have believed that his presence should afford her so little pleasure; but he seemed incongruous here, and was apparently amusing himself with the simplicity of her relatives. A clatter of tea-things filled her mind with dismay. The ideas of the "help" on the subject of cleanliness were in a very rudimentary stage, and that the cloth would be in anything but its first freshness, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... house, and all goes as merrily as it can, while the horrors which they have left behind them hang, like a black background, to all their thoughts. However, both Scoutbush and Campbell send as cheerful reports as they honestly can; and gradually the exceeding beauty of the scenery, and the amusing bustle of the village, make them forget, perhaps, a good deal which they ought to ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... the spirit of my contemporary group by looking over many documents, I find nothing more amusing than a plaint registered against life's indistinctness, which I imagine more or less reflected the sentiments of all of us. At any rate here it is for the entertainment of the reader if not for his edification: "So much of our time is spent in preparation, so ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... all the evening without ceasing, and at night accompanied Lucy to her room, there to go on talking still, enlarging, in a lively, amusing strain, on the adventures of their seaside life; the "fun," the "splendid bathing," the people who were there, their dress, manners, and conversation; all the flirtations she had observed, with the quick eye of a girl who as yet has no personal interest ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... Inn; and here was Herbert to sit, studious, for the next three years,—to sit there instead of at the various relief committees in the vicinity of Kanturk. And why could he not be as happy at the one as at the other? Would not Mr. Die be as amusing as Mr. Townsend; and the arguments of Vice-Chancellor Stuart's court quite as instructive as those heard in ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... old. But of all his lessons he liked geography best, he liked to find out places in the maps, and to know whereabouts the different countries were that he heard people talk of; and then his papa was often kind to tell him amusing stories about the inhabitants of those countries, and he also told him what things are brought from them: for instance, Charles knew that tea grows in China, which is in Asia; and sugar in the West-Indies; that the rose-wood that his mamma's chairs and card tables were made of, ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner
... see my nevy, while you and Peter are amusing each other," he ses at last. "I'll ask 'im to come round to-morrow and then you can ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
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