"Sense of humor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the young officer began quite frankly and with a certain sense of humor to describe the circumstances that led up to the climax, but presently he hesitated, and, observing this, Owen said: "No false delicacy, please. It's extremely important to me as a doctor to know everything that happened. You say Mrs. Wells came in ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... who have a sense of humor are so — so, well so QUEER about it, if you get what I mean. That is, if you know they have one, of course you're naturally watching for them to say humorous things; and they're forever saying the sort of things that puzzle you, because you have never heard those things before in just ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... organs in their praises of the air. They breathed in deep breaths of the ambient atmosphere, chewed it up with loud smacks of enjoyment, and then blew it out, snorting like whales. Evelyn, who was not without a sense of humor, would have enjoyed it all, and laughed at them, even if she could not laugh with them, if she could have forgotten that they were her husband's brothers, but it is very hard to see the humorous in the grotesque behavior ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... he used to say, "increases in direct proportion to the sense of humor—the belly laugh, measured ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon
... more of sense of humor in the apparently phlegmatic passivity of the Russian nitchevo than is suspected by those not acquainted with him. There is also a great timidity in it; for the Russian moujik or christianik (peasant farmer) has scarcely been sure his soul is his own, since time ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... Natalie had no sense of humor, however. She saw that he meant to be amusing, and she gave the little fleeting smile one gives to a child ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the Vicar of Wakefield, was by nature a lover of happy human faces, and she could be playful herself on occasion; but she had little if any of the saving sense of humor. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... ants" described by the explorer. At last his older sister found the passage in which the little boy had mistaken "foregoing" for "foraging." No wonder that in his mature years he became an advocate of reformed spelling. His sense of humor, which flashed like a mountain brook through all his later intercourse and made it delightful, seems to have begun with his infancy. He used to say his prayers at his mother's knee, and one evening when he was out of sorts with her, he prayed the Lord to bless the Union ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... happened to be born a Prince, who should one day develop into a King. It chanced that Nature had a sense of humor—so Nature paid me a droll compliment. She gave me a futile ambition to be a man—me, whom she had decided was ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... in a surly frame of mind, a mental condition faithfully reflected in the attitude of his hired man who jerked back his chair and subsided into it with a grunt. Betty's irrepressible sense of humor pictured the dog (the Peabodys kept no dog because the head of the house considered that dogs ate more than they were worth) tucking his tail between his legs and slinking under the table as a port in the storm. The dog, she decided, glancing at Mrs. Peabody's timid face, ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... exhibition, and the work of Harting, van Hoytema, and Haverman do not fall much below his standard. There is young Israels (Isaac) with some very snappy sketches. Nieuwenkamp is intensely interesting in the few things he has there, with a certain sense of humor which is conspicuous for its absence in most Dutch work. The woodcuts of Veldheer are vital and unusually free from any academic feeling. Considering the relative size of the Netherlands, they have a remarkably ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... singular sight, and one that Phil would doubtless often recall with a lively sense of humor. The lantern lighted up the tent of the motor boat, showing the emaciated black devouring the food about like a starving wolf might be expected to act; and the three watching boys, Phil still gripping his Marlin, Tony the hatchet, and Larry another ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... philosopher, nor the scholar; but the worldly-minded Londoner, who cared less about texts in Leviticus than did his father, who knew more about coffee-houses and plays, and who cultivated clever people with assiduity, had a better developed sense of humor. It was not strange that he should smile quizzically when told these weird stories from the country. He may not have pondered very deeply on the abstract question nor read widely—perhaps he had seen Ady's book or glanced over Scot's—but, when he met keen men in his group who were laughing ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... given Hawthorne much entertainment. His own library, as he states himself somewhere, was of a miscellaneous character, and contained the works of scarcely any author of repute except Shakespeare. Alcott's sense of humor and keen knowledge of human nature may have been a sort of common ground ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... understudy observed him closely for a moment, but he made no sign, and so she turned her eyes again to the fire with a slightly troubled look. She had not a strong sense of humor, but ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... American Horse and other of the principal Cheyennes, and one of the Agency policemen, a fine fellow called Wolf Voice, became my interpreter. Though half-Cheyenne and half-Assiniboin, he spoke English well, and manifested a marked sense of humor. He had served one summer as guide to Frederick Remington, and had some capital stories concerning him. "Remington fat man—too heavy on pony. Him 'fraid Injuns sure catch him," he said with a chuckle. "Him all-time carry box—take pictures. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... told by McGivney to fix himself up and pose as one of the martyrs of the night's affair, and this appealed to his sense of humor. He cut off the hair from a part of his head, and stuck some raw cotton on top, and plastered it over with surgical tape. He stuck another big wad of surgical tape across his forehead, and a criss-cross of it on his cheek, and ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... girls to laugh at her. There is nothing so cruel as a schoolgirl's tongue when it is unbridled. And unless the victim is blessed with either a large sense of humor, or an apt brain for repartee, it goes ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... out into the bitterly cold room, and crept shivering into his clothes. He never quite understood Ford's sense of humor, at such times, but he had learned that it is more comfortable to crawl out of bed than to be kicked out, and that vituperation is a mere waste of time when matched against sheer heartlessness ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... He had the keenest sense of humor, and as I listened to the tales of his adventures and miraculous escapes from death at the hands of these desperate folk, I looked in his large laughing blue eyes and tried to solve ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... "You never had a sense of humor, John; but you was born without it. But, I tell you, it makes me young again. Why, it makes a woman old to feel she can do just as she pleases and not git talked about; and I feel I ain't got one foot in the grave to ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... news I've heard since I left Richmond, and I'm just tickled nearly to death!" exclaimed Sally, spinning about to hug Aileen rapturously. This sudden change of base was so astonishing that Beverly's sense of humor came to her ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Humility. His Simplicity and Informality. Keen Sense of Humor. His Unconventional Methods of Work. Power as ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Constance, Duchess of Westminster; Caroline, Duchess of Montrose, and the Duchess of Somerset, who, as Lady Seymour, was the heroine of the Eglinton Tournament. These ladies were all remarkable for the peculiar magic of their voices and for a peculiar sense of humor which their voices managed to indicate, and which gave its quality to their general views of life. They none of them laughed audibly, but the voice of each was a sort of laugh in solution, and this would produce a sense of laughter in ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... sense of 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 ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... about Phyllis's views of life (or, at least, what she supposes her views to be); but about Phyllis in flesh and blood there is more of that than anything else; which is one reason why she has been a constant fountain of joy to my heart as well as my sense of humor, ever since her clever Herefordshire father married my pretty ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the "Hoosier Poet," was born in Indiana in the year 1852. In many of his poems there is a strong sense of humor. What he writes comes from the heart and goes to the heart. He has written much in dialect. His home is ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... generation.... Economics in the hands of this master was no dismal science, because of his broad sympathies, his healthy conservative optimism, his belief in the efficacy of effort; and, in a more superficial sense, because of his saving sense of humor and his happy way of putting things, ... he was the fortunate possessor of a very pleasing literary style, ... clear and interesting to the general reader, as well as ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... impossible to him is to be natural. In short, his passion is grandeur, his fault is excess; his distinguishing mark is a kind of Titanic power with strange dissonances of puerility in its magnificence. Where he is weakest is, in measure, taste, and sense of humor: he fails in esprit, in the subtlest sense of the word. Victor Hugo is a gallicized Spaniard, or rather he unites all the extremes of south and north, the Scandinavian and the African. Gaul has less part in him than any other country. And yet, by a caprice of destiny, he is one of the literary ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Creek Camp, which was boiling and frothing with the excitement of gold-maddened men, and was congratulating himself that he would soon be at the camps west of the Peace, when the thing happened. A drunken Irishman, filled with a grim and unfortunate sense of humor, spotted Shan Tung's wonderful cue and coveted it. Wherefore there followed a bit of excitement in which Shan Tung passed into his empyrean home with a bullet through his heart, and the drunken Irishman was strung up for his misdeed fifteen minutes later. Tao, the Great Dane, was taken ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... confession may be made without degrading him in the public estimation) privately amused. Conscious of having honestly presented himself at the inn in Anne's interests, as well as in the interests of the ladies at Windygates, it appealed to his sense of humor to find himself kept at arm's-length by the very woman whom he had come to benefit. The temptation was strong on him to treat his errand from his own whimsical point of view. He gravely took out his watch, and noted the time to a second, before ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... usual true to life and true to her own noble instincts. Added to a feminine perception, Miss Sergeant has a dispassionateness and a sense of humor quite ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... has fully accomplished its main object."[82] Finally, in the same month in which the "Wanderer" and her mates were openly landing cargoes in the South, President Buchanan, who seems to have been utterly devoid of a sense of humor, was urging the annexation of Cuba to the United States as the only method of ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... The butler's sense of humor was not acute, but it was with considerable difficulty that he restrained his smiles during the next half hour. A more appreciative observer would have noticed and enjoyed the subtler points. Stephen's glare ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... though he had been an eldest son of the house. If they had expected that the ragged, shabby fellow, who entered the house so stealthily an hour ago, would provide food for their exquisitely delicate sense of humor, they were wofully disappointed. Alban ate his dinner without uttering a ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... man with no sense of humor, had been unusually expansive; but he shrank angrily into himself now, as though from a cold douche. It took some time for one to get accustomed to Fom's way of instructing authorities upon the subjects which they were supposed to know ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... engines being switched about aimlessly: perfect chaos reigned, and the shortness of the station platforms only added to the confusion and the waste of precious time. If it had not been for the Americans' strongly developed sense of humor, which served as an antidote for all the anger and worry, this execrably handled army apparatus must have broken down altogether. But as it was, everybody made the best of the situation and thanked the Lord that each ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... lined up for a scrimmage. Right here a difficulty arose that threatened to end the game. The opposing players insisted on gossiping with their arms around each other's necks. They would not get down to business. The referee raved—he was an imported product, with no sense of humor, and was rapidly getting congestion of the brain. "Don't hit in the clinches!" yelled some joker. For five minutes the teams gossiped. Then our quarter gave his signal—the first two bars of "Oh Promise Me"—and passed the ball to Wilson, ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... appeal most strongly to your sense of humor. Read them in such manner as to make their humorous quality thoroughly appreciable to ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... a blurred outline the painter had given to the black hair piled high upon the head a suggestion of waviness. The eyebrows were straight, the brown eyes looked at the world with an almost scornful sense of humor, and I marked that there was determination in the chin. Here was a face that could be infinitely haughty or infinitely tender, a mouth of witty—nay, perhaps cutting—repartee of brevity and force. A lady who spoke quickly, moved quickly, or reposed absolutely. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and he began to enjoy himself exceedingly. He had not reckoned upon so rich an entertainment when he had consented to come down to witness this odd ceremony. His sense of humor conquered every other consideration, and the circumstance that Lord Rotherby was his brother, if remembered at all, served but to add a ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... not, Norton. I see that your sense of humor is improving. If convenient, run over to New York the last of the week. I'll give you a card. My client's office is ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... amusing stanza may seem silly to some people, but those who have a sense of humor will be delighted with the whimsical conception of a potato with so independent a spirit. It usually spoils humor to comment upon it. To explain a joke is to kill it. The sense of humor is contagious. Children will laugh when ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... cried Balcome, flapping at Sue with his hat. "If there's one thing I like to see in a woman it's a sense of humor." ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... Bouchard, nature had meant him to be a wheel-horse. He had never had any hope of being chief of staff. Hawk-eyed, with a great beak nose and iron-gray hair, intensely and solemnly serious, lacking a sense of humor, he would have looked at home with his big, bony hands gripping a broadsword hilt and his lank body clothed in chain armor. He had a mastiff's devotion to its ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... may state I once owned a St. Bernard dog which reminded me much of my ideal. He was always sedate, always loving, and faithful; generally quiet. He only got excited when out in the elements.) I have not been able to get on with people who have no sense of humor. From my birth I was physically weak. First I suffered from eczema. Being born with a double squint, I was operated on at 21/2 and again at 31/2 years of age, with excellent result. From 4 to 12 years of age I had convulsions (often), and all the illnesses of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... strange sense of humor," she said, "but when you are risking your life to help me, how can ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... masculine offender—in which case he would have gladly defended the killer. But a suit for damages!—damages!—with the reading of love-letters before a hilarious jury and court, was against all his instincts. His chivalry was outraged; his sense of humor was small—and in the course of his career he had lost one or two important cases through an unexpected development of this ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Fanny; and the next minute both were laughing at a droll sketch of Tom in the gutter, with the big dog howling over him, and the velocipede running away. Very rough and faulty, but so funny, that it was evident Polly's sense of humor was strong. A few pages farther back came Fanny and Mr. Frank, caricatured; then grandma, carefully done; Tom reciting his battle-piece; Mr. Shaw and Polly in the park; Maud being borne away by Katy; and all the school-girls turned into ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... interested in the tale that Hank Porter was telling. But those who knew Tex, as did the members of this squadron, knew that the cynical smile on his thin lips was but the forerunner of some mirthless thing from which only "The Flying Fool" would be able to wring a laugh. His was such a grotesque sense of humor; a highly impractical practical joke was his idea of a riotous time. Someone in the squadron, who had once felt the sting of one of his pranks, had called him a fool, and another member had responded, "Yeah, he's a fool, all right—but a flyin' ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... of good stories left in me yet, I assured them. They must remember that I was only twenty-one, after all, and at twenty-one one does not lose the sense of humor. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... down, he pulled one off, not without difficulty, for the boots were wet; but he could not remove the other. He hesitated a moment, being aware of the subdued merriment of his comrades, and then held up his foot to the nearest one. This chanced to be the big Indian, who evidently had a keen sense of humor. Taking hold of the boot with both hands, he dragged the luckless brave entirely around the camp-fire. The fun, however, was not to be all one-sided. The big Indian gave a more strenuous pull, and the boot came off suddenly. Unprepared for this, he lost his balance and fell down the ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... in another the familiar du, but the same inconsistency occurs again and again throughout the volume. In itself a trifle, it indicates clearly enough the careless, slipshod manner of work—and an utter lack of a sense of humor, for no one with a spark of humor would use the modern, essentially German De in a Norwegian translation of Shakespeare. If a formal form must be used it should, as a ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... Teems with quiet fun. I often think what a lucky thing it is that you are blessed with such a keen sense of humor! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... in which people talked at Angleford. Lettice felt posed for a moment, and then a sense of humor came happily to ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... just a little joke and, to a few, that it was fine in Jerry to shoulder the blame so that she might play in the game against South High. But her gaiety covered the first real embarrassment she had ever suffered, for Ginny, who had always, because of her peculiar charm, coming from a sense of humor, a hail-fellow spirit, an invariable geniality and an amazing facility in all athletics, exacted a slavish devotion from her schoolmates, and was accustomed to dispense favors among them, hated now to accept, even from Jerry, a very, very great one! And Jerry ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... a dignified man; he had inherited from his English mother a saving sense of humor. It was intolerable that the pleasant relations existing between the few survivors on board the Kansas should be disturbed by reason of any failure on his part to acquiesce in Elsie's right to bestow her affections where she listed. He wondered if the girl had come on deck after supper; her ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... cackle. She had read in a Book by a Yale Professor that Woman is not supposed to possess the Sense of Humor. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... upon life from a sour or severe disposition, with hard and stringent notions, is ill prepared to meet the experiences of the world; but he who has the sweetness of hope, he who has an imagination lit up with cheerfulness, he who has the sense of humor which softens all things—he who has this atmosphere of the mind—has made himself superior to accident. As the angel described by Milton, who was smitten by the sword, and whose wounds healed as soon as the sword was withdrawn, so ought man to be; and ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... it; I am here, and with one word I could dispel the illusion," he acquiesced. "But I know myself; I am cursed with a peculiar, sinister sense of humor, and I am afraid I would not say the word. Hence, when the husband enters we are all silent. Then I say, 'I regret to have arrived at such an inopportune moment.' I take my hat and walk out, leaving you, madam, ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... man slowly filled the pail he caught sight of his own reflection in the spring. It certainly was not that of an Adonis! He laughed honestly; his sense of humor had saved him from many an extravagance, and mitigated many a disappointment before this. Well! She was a plucky, handsome girl—even if she was not for him, and he might never set eyes on her again. Yet it was a hard pull up that trail once more, carrying an insensible pail of water in ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... reasoning, the emotions and passions were from time to time deeply aroused and strongly excited. In many passages of direct retort Mr. Webster used an irony which he employed always in a perfectly characteristic way. He had a strong natural sense of humor, but he never made fun or descended to trivial efforts to excite laughter against his opponent. He was not a witty man or a maker of epigrams. But he was a master in the use of a cold, dignified sarcasm, which at times, and in this instance particularly, he used freely and mercilessly. Beneath ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... private ball without an invitation, and has a merry time of it indeed. To have the perfect sense of humor—that is what makes the world ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... have expressed himself appropriately. There is no suggestion of mawkishness in his discourse. Our Ferdinand, however, is distinctly spoony. There went no poetic irony to his creation, and he has no saving sense of humor. He never seems, like Romeo, to be toying with hyperbole in an artistic spirit, but it is all dead earnest. Such a love-lorn youth must expect to recruit his admirers chiefly from the ranks of the very young. And yet there are times, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... entire life a sham. Of the score of fine qualities which it imagined it had and was vain of, it really possessed hardly one. It regarded itself as gold, and was only brass. One day when he was in this vein he mentioned a detail—the sense of humor. I cheered up then, and took issue. I ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... who can detach themselves from tasks and drudgery long and often enough to get, at any rate once and again, view of the proportions of life and of the stage and plot of its action. We speak often with amusement, sometimes with distaste and uneasiness, of men who "have no sense of humor," who take themselves too seriously, who are intense, self-absorbed, over-confident in matters of opinion, or else go plumed with conceit, proud of we cannot tell what, enjoying, appreciating, thinking of nothing so much as themselves. These ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... as the struggling unbeliever with rich mud plastered in his eyes have a tendency to evoke keen appreciation from the yellow races, who are supposed to be devoid of a sense of humor. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... herself. There were chests of them piled away in the garret—Chilian's mother's, and those they had made to fill in the moments when housework was finished. She had a quiet sense of humor, and she smiled. What were they laying up these treasures for? Neither of them would be married, most of their ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... dominated by the personality of Disraeli. Even Bismarck feared the clever old man with his well-oiled curly hair and his supreme arrogance, tempered by a cynical sense of humor and a marvellous gift for flattery. At Berlin the British prime-minister carefully watched over the fate of his friends the Turks. Montenegro, Serbia and Roumania were recognised as independent kingdoms. ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... Five times I have appeared before President Wilson I have used dozens of these same jokes, about him, And he has the best sense of humor and is the best audience I ever played too, Which bears out the theory I work on, That you can always joke about a big Man that is really big, But dont ever kid about the little fellow that thinks he is something, cause he will get sore ...
— Rogers-isms, the Cowboy Philosopher on the Peace Conference • Will Rogers
... Westerner could want to make it look." His sense of humor affectionately covered any lack ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... comings, either; there are a lot of bad habits waiting to be acquired by a chap with time and money like me. I can't live without booze; I don't know how to earn a living; I'm a corking spendthrift. That's one side. Balanced against that, I possess— let me see—I possess a fair sense of humor. Not a very ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... me," he said, "but a sense of humor was always my undoing, and this reversal of our positions is a little odd, isn't it? I am not going to marry Juliet Lundy because she happens not to care for me in that way at all. My appearance is scarcely that of a ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Phillips, the principal, suggested that the stage be set with small evergreen trees. The picture of them in my mind's eye brought relief, and I impulsively exclaimed, "That will be good, because we will not have to wear pants," meaning, of course, the kilts. He had a sense of humor and was a tease. He pretended to take me literally, and raised a laugh ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... indifference, but he no longer patronized his rival. John had a quiet way of squelching such patronage and of turning the laugh, which was annoying to a person lacking a sense of humor. And then, too, it was quite evident that Emily Howes' liking for the younger man displeased Daniels greatly. Heman liked Emily, seemed to like her very much indeed. On one or two occasions he had taken her to ride behind his fast horse, and he often brought bouquets and fruit, "given me by ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... many unnamed landmarks {p.108} in the National Park ready to commemorate Mr. Cushman's ambition to make the Mountain a real possession of all the people. As to the other matter—the name of the peak itself,—that may safely be left to the American sense of humor. But what I have said is due in justice to Winthrop, one of the finest figures in our literary history. His work in making the peak known demands that his name, given by local gratitude to one of its important glaciers, shall ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... the chocolate we ate, but the gum-drops we used for tips right across the Balkans. In lands whose people have not known the taste of sugar for five years we found that a handful of gum-drops would accomplish more than money. A few men with Father Mullane's resource, tact, and sense of humor would do more than all the diplomats under the roof of the Hotel Crillon to settle international differences and make the nations understand ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... go down and see Tod," he said. "I like that wife of his; but she has no sense of humor. How much better principles are in theory ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he is himself he is the most charming companion that it is possible to conceive. His manners are as genial and as winning as those of his father and grandfather, both of whom he surpasses in brilliancy of intellect, and in quickness of repartee, as well as in a keen sense of humor. He gives one the impression of possessing a heart full of the most generous impulses,—aye, of a generosity carried even to excess, and this, together with a species of indescribable magnetism which appears to radiate from him in these moments, contributes to render him ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... cried Lupin, jumping for joy. "You see, baby, what you fall short in is the power of smiling; you're a trifle serious for your age. You're a very likeable boy, you have a charming candor and simplicity—but you have no sense of humor." He placed himself in front of him. "Look here, bet you I make you cry! Do you know how I was able to follow up all your inquiry, how I knew of the letter Massiban wrote you and his appointment to meet you this ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... warmer, then. A minute ago you said it was going to snow. It's my private opinion that you don't know what you think. Ned doesn't know any more. The professor is the only one in the outfit who has a sense of humor. He knows when it's ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... came to this, and Holcombe met many people, and drank tea with several ladies in riding-habits, and iced drinks with all of the men. He found it very amusing, and the situation appealed strongly to his somewhat latent sense of humor. That evening in writing to his sister he told of his rapid recovery in health, and of the possibility of his returning ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... looked at him uncertainly, as if his sense of humor were weak and not to be trusted off-hand; turned his tired horse awkwardly in a way that betrayed an unfamiliarity with "neck-reining," and began to retrace his steps beside Charming Billy. His stirrups were too short, so ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... the family expenses and income, of the sanitary surroundings, of the work record and diet, but we shall not know the family until we know what gives them pleasure. One visitor says that she never feels acquainted with a poor family until she has had a good laugh with them. A defective sense of humor in the visitor is a great hindrance to successful work: poor people are no fonder of dismal folk than the rest of us. When we come to recreations, friendly visiting not only makes large demands upon what we know, but upon what we are. Our pleasures ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... study has, to our knowledge, ever been done in the same way. Mr. Eggleston is a reliable reporter of facts; but he is also an exceedingly keen critic. He writes history without the effort to merge the critic in the historian. His sense of humor is never dormant. He renders some of the dullest passages in colonial annals actually amusing by his witty treatment of them. He finds a laugh for his readers where most of his predecessors have found yawns. And with all this he does not sacrifice the dignity ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... call was considered ended, so I took my departure. I related the details of my neighborly visit to Silvia, but her sense of humor was not stirred. It was entirely dominated by her dread of the ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... his average, Batting four hundred By taking a kindred irreverent soul, Graduated out of the whirlpool That wrecks all but the strongest, Born on the eastern edge Of Manhattan, Sam H. Harris, man of business, Who to the skill of the trader Adds the joy in life And the sense of humor, Coupled with pleasure in giving And helping That Cohan demands of his pals. Together they plan wonderful projects, And the artist soul And the soul of commerce Are an unbeatable union. Best of all about Cohan Is his ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... purchasing the amateur product appealed to his sense of humor. The more he thought of it, the stronger became his desire to own the paper. Strange he had never before considered publishing a monthly magazine. Yes, he would get out the few remaining issues of the March ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... was associated with width of culture. Others, such as Moses and Judah Minz, Jacob Weil, and Israel Isserlein, whose influence was paramount in Germany in the fifteenth century, were less cultivated, but their learning was associated with a geniality and sense of humor that make their "Responses" very human and very entertaining. There is the same homely, affectionate air in the collection of Minhagim, or Customs, known as the Maharil, which belongs to the same period. On the other hand, David Abi Zimra, ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... it the most of all, perhaps because, being Irish, they had a greater sense of humor than the Bostonians, but all agreed that Patty had played a very successful April Fool joke on them. All except Ruth,—she didn't see any fun in it at all, so Patty gave her ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... commented the philosophical Bragdon, "When you lose your heart your sense of humor goes too. Engaged couples couldn't do such ridiculous stunts if they had the ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... rippled forth, as though the expression of my face appealed to her sense of humor. Evidently the lady was no longer afraid of me, nor greatly distressed ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... had new pictures and done away with the old ones," observed Mr. Marvelle, with a feeble attempt at satire. His wife darted a keen look at him, but smiled a little too. She was not without a sense of humor. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... He seems quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, 'who,' he says, 'is gradually driving all ideas of political honor out of the House, and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism,' There is no doubt that a sense of humor has always been conspicuously ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... with the tongues of men and of angels and have not a Sense of Humor, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of Prophecy—and all knowledge—so that I could remove Mountains, and have not a Sense of Humor, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my Goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Watts were such absolute contrasts that it seemed impossible that they could have an interest or sympathy, in common. Therefore they had become chums. A chance in their freshman year had brought them together. Watts, with the refined and delicate sense of humor abounding in collegians, had been concerned with sundry freshmen in an attempt to steal (or, in collegiate terms, "rag") the chapel Bible, with a view to presenting it to some equally subtle humorists at Yale, expecting a similar courtesy in return from that college. Unfortunately ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... friends were not looking, began to toss tiny pebbles over. He was chuckling with glee. First he would throw one, peer over to watch the effect, then dodge back. Stacy Brown's sense of humor seemed ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... yet I was considered to be an outsider and not entitled to plan for the ceremonial of the dedication of the material fold for the Reverend Mr. Goodloe's flock. And then suddenly my hurt was swept away by my sense of humor and I laughed to myself when I saw that to Mother Spurlock, who had hungered and thirsted for my conversion, I would have to prove it, tell it ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... with a better developed sense of humor, says that "It may be doubted whether the man does not value his dog, when alive, quite as much as he does his woman, and think of both quite as often and lovingly after ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... intensely subjective and self-absorbed character of mind, he had no understanding of human nature, no insight into character with its marvelous complexities and contradictions. With these limitations Poe, as might be expected, had a very defective sense of humor, lacked true sympathy, was tactless, possessed little business ability, and was excessively annoyed by the dull routine and rude frictions of ordinary life. He was always touched by kindness, but ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Princess from the machinations of Gabriel, that knave of purgatory. Lorry, at last recognizing the hopelessness of his suit, was ready to throw down his arms and abandon the field to superior odds. His presumption in aspiring for the hand of a Princess began to touch his sense of humor, and he laughed, not very merrily, it is true, but long and loudly, at his folly. At first he cursed the world and every one in it, giving up in despair, but later he cursed only himself. Yet, as he despaired and scoffed, he felt within himself an ever-present hope that luck might turn the ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... he would eat fifty bales of hay, wire and all and six men with picaroons were kept busy picking the wire out of his teeth. Babe was a great pet and very docile as a general thing but he seemed to have a sense of humor and frequently got into mischief, He would sneak up behind a drive and drink all the water out of the river, leaving the logs high and dry. It was impossible to build an ox-sling big enough to hoist Babe off the ground for shoeing, but ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... pink enamel bed, and their admiring neighbors could never again refer to them as "poor white trash." It takes a long, long time to change ideas, but the Rector's respect for human personality (foolishness and stupidity notwithstanding) and his method of patience, tact, and a sense of humor did change many of us. And a controlled sense of humor has a marvelous effect at times. There was the instance when the Rector went to conduct a funeral service on Mt. Adams. It was a very hot day, the little rooms were crowded, and family and neighbors were close to the coffin. Mr. Nelson ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... in company with ladies), and try to force the place, I refused decidedly to do so. The garrison were strengthening their position by plastering and renewed renovation, and I doubt that by this time the original rafters are no longer to be seen. A plasterer's boy, with a fine sense of humor, stood clapping his trowel on his board, inside the house, while we debated retreat, and derisively invited us to enter: "Suoni pure, O signore! Questa e la famosa casa del gran pittore, l'immortale Tiziano,—suoni, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... true that Roderick had lost his sense of humor, but he scratched his head with a gesture that was almost comical in its effect. "You are a queer fellow! I should think I would disgust ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Spenser obtain the effects of terror? Mystery and terror are prime elements in romance. 6. Find examples of another romantic characteristic, exaggeration. 7. Do you think that in his use of hyperbole and impossibilities Spenser shows that he was deficient in a sense of humor? 8. Observe the lyric note in iii and liv. 9. How does the poet impress the reader with the size of the Dragon? 10. Which Muse does he invoke? 11. Spenser's poetry is richly sensuous: find passages in which he appeals to the sense of sight (iv, viii, xiv), of sound (iv, ix), of touch ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... "And now the Transcontinental moguls are buying up a majority of their own, meaning to capture the main-line dog and leaving us to wag the extension tail which we have just acquired. Say, Ford; doesn't that appeal to your sense of humor?" ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... was enjoying himself hugely. His bestial sense of humor was tickled. It was very funny, the contortions of the negro ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... 'ain't you got no sense of humor?' atter I'd let out somethin' between a groan and a squeal. 'I had,' I says, ''till I was shot in the head.' 'Shot in the head! Why didn't it kill you?' 'The bullet struck a bolt, ma'am, and glanced off.' We rode seven hours that ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... represent him as a singularly wise and witty person. In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... could not reproach Mrs. Bates for thus indulging her sense of humor in order to recoup herself for ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... predicament was, this picture of himself as the fraudulent philanthropist was too much for Bunker's sense of humor, and to the extreme astonishment of his visitors he went off into a fit of laughter so hearty and prolonged that it was some time before he ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... it is not," said Frank, "but from my point of view it has certain humorous aspects, and unfortunately I am cursed with a sense of humor. I hardly know how I can go into the matter here"—he looked round—"for even if this is the time, it is certainly not the place, and I think I'll accept your invitation and come down to Weald Lodge to-morrow ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... have never met a man—except a man from a remote rural district—who thought he knew the Bowery. There are agriculturists, however, all over this broad land who have entertained that supposition and acted on it—but never twice. The sense of humor is the saving ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... the causes of irritation during the course of a business day are too petty to bother about. Many of them could be ignored and a good many more could be laughed at. A sense of humor and a sense of proportion would do away with ninety per cent of all the wrangling in the world. Some one has said, and not without truth, that a highly developed sense of humor would have prevented the ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... sense of humor," said Mr. Caryll, head on one side, contemplating the spy with admiration in ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Comedy" which proves that the delightful fellow-wanderer in Holland and in London has a keen sense of humor and a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... avenue of Colversham the boys had agreed to room together. Bob came from New York City. He was younger than Van, slender, dark, and very much in earnest; he might even have passed for a grind had it not been for his sense of humor and his love for skating and tennis. As it was he proved to be a master at hockey, as the school team soon discovered, and before he had been a week at Colversham his classmates also found that he was most loyal in his friendships and a lad of ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... the reach of being further traduced. Whatever the shortcomings of the performance, it could not fail to be interesting. It is written in an easy, well-bred style, like the author's way of talking—not without a sense of humor, with touching pride in his brother's endowments, and tenderness toward faults which he does not deny. In place of comprehensive views and sound judgment of Alfred de Musset's genius and career, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... that elephants possessed a keen sense of humor, and now he was sure of it. But he never thought he would have an opportunity to have the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... numerous guests of the house, and cordially greets us with "Good-by" when we enter and "How do you do?" when we are leaving, which, you may remember, was just what Mr. Monard, who had the little French church in Philadelphia, used to do until some person without any sense of humor undertook to set him straight. We trust that no misguided person may ever undertake to correct Polly's English or Miss Cassandra's French, for as Walter says, "To hear those two exchanging linguistic courtesies is one of the experiences that make life and travel worth while, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... make him ashamed of it. He is disgusted and indignant to the last degree at seeing "Mr. Quelconque" chosen over the illustrious statesman who was his favorite candidate. But all his indignation cannot repress a sense of humor which was one of his marked characteristics. After fatiguing his vocabulary with hard usage, after his unsparing denunciation of "the very dirty politics" which he finds mixed up with our popular institutions, he says,—it must be remembered that this was an offhand letter ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... quam elegans, quam oratorium, sive habeas vere, quod narrare possis, quod tamen, est mendaciunculis aspergendum, sive fingas." Either invent a story, or if you have an old one, add on something so as to make it really funny. Is there a parson, a bishop, an archbishop, who, if he have any sense of humor about him, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... humble station—the comic man. The village blacksmith or a peddler. You never see a rich or aristocratic comic man on the stage. You can have your choice on the stage; you can be funny and of lowly origin, or you can be well-to-do and without any sense of humor. Peers and policemen are the people most utterly devoid ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... a triumphal march to the kitchen and cooled down by the well-known process of slamming pots and pans for half an hour. Soon her Irish sense of humor came to her rescue. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... sense of humor. I wouldn't dream of asking her to laugh at my jokes as I do you. She wouldn't see them, and then I shouldn't like to show her the improper ones. They're not suitable for ladies, and the improper ones are the best. I sometimes think you can't have ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... take a malignant pleasure in the misfortune of an ally. Henry also saw the white teeth of Timmendiquas gleam as his lips curved into a smile. But in him the appeal was to a sense of humor, not to venom. He seemed to have little malice ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... magician-giant, who plays in the Algonquin mythology a part only inferior to that of Glooskap, whom he in every way resembles. Both are benevolent, both make war on wicked sorcerers and evil wild beasts, and both, finally, are much like Gargantua and Pantagruel in their sense of humor. They are sometimes made the heroes of the same adventure in different stories. The true origin of the name, according to Mr. Rand, is as follows: "After a cow moose or caribou has been killed, her calf is sometimes ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... content to welcome the young girl in a quiet, cordial manner. Merwyn tacitly accepted the mother's view, which she had not wholly concealed in the sick-room, and which he thought had been confirmed by Marian's manner and interest. With returning health Strahan's old sense of humor revived, and he often smiled and sighed over the misapprehension. Had he been fully aware of Marian's mood, he might have given his physician cause to look grave over an apparent return ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... stop him. Frowning had no effect, and toward the end of his outburst I even protested in words. But it was no use. He spoke quickly, and he spoke very loudly, and not a word was lost on Bainbridge. Bainbridge had a fine sense of humor; but like many other humorists, he did not relish jocosities of which he was the subject. Any levity in any manner connected with Hili-li, I knew would be to him unendurable. He had from the beginning taken the Peters disclosures, and even the old sailor himself, very ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... Reid went down to the city in the six o'clock train, and papa read aloud to us Byron's splendid, stirring "Isles of Greece," and portions of "Childe Harold." Reading poetry is quite an accomplishment of papa's, and although he is very happy in sentimental and heroic verse, he has also a keen sense of humor, and his reading of comic and dialect poems, especially those of Hans Breitmann, have been much complimented; indeed, in "our circle" he is the reader par excellence of Bret Harte, John Hay, ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... traveler is one whose digestion is perfect, whose disposition is cheerful, who can be enthusiastic under the most discouraging circumstances, to whom discomfort is of no moment, and who possesses at least a sense of the ridiculous, if not a real sense of humor! The perfect traveler furthermore, is one who possesses the virtue of punctuality; one who has not forgotten something at the last minute, and whose bags are all packed and down at the hour for ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... of this poem is that a man's best helper may be that which gives him no direct aid at all—a sense of humor. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... too rarely put to myself even, and never answer to myself. Practically the only question they did not ask was if I ever intended to marry. I was tempted to volunteer that information, but, as neither man had the smallest sense of humor, I decided it was wiser to ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... of The most nominal description. There were the usual number of hollow pated lads on board, who buzzed in their usual feeble way round Miss Hannay, and were one after another duly snubbed. Miss Hannay has plenty of spirits, and a considerable sense of humor, and I think that she enjoyed the voyage thoroughly. And now let ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... made General Logan terribly angry; but Senator Allison, who had a quiet, keen sense of humor, and I were very much amused, —as much at the fury of Logan as at the remark ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humor asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge. And then he cried, till he laughed again, and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... have been or to have posed as being indifferent to popular success, would have required a man of less vivid sympathy with his fellow-men: to have been puffed up and pretentious would have needed one less gifted with a sense of humor, less conscious of the littleness of one man, however talented, in the vast procession of life on the earth's surface. His delight in his work and its success was of the perfect and natural kind, which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... bind their captives to these dead cacti, which supply at once scourging thorns, binding stake, and consuming fuel, and, kindling a fire at the top, leave it to burn slowly down to the victim, and, long before it despatches him, to twist his body and limbs into what appear to the Apache sense of humor ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... to keep my sense of humor and my faith in things in spite of anything that comes to me," she promised herself, "even if they do have to give me boneset tea to jerk me up a bit!" She laughed at Millie's faith in the boneset tea. "I hope it also takes the meanness and hate out of my heart. Why, just now I hate Lyman! If he ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... several sudden deaths during the following weeks, but Juan de la Cosa privately believed it was partly the memory of the pig. The young man had what might in another time and civilization have developed into a sense of humor. It would not do for a hero with the world before him to get himself sent back to Spain because of ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey |
