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More "Amuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came to us, when I was a little girl, and so young that I remember nothing of the affair except as something dreadful that frightened me very much, two young men who had studied painting with my grandfather came down to Brixleg from Munich, partly to paint, and partly to amuse themselves,—"ghost-hunting" as they said, for they were very sensible young men and prided themselves on it, laughing at all kinds of "superstition," and particularly at that form which believed in ghosts and feared them. They had never seen a real ghost, you know, ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... time, safe for the reader to assume that Mr. Taswell Skaggs had been a rich man and therefore privileged to be eccentric. It is also time for the writer to turn the full light upon the tragic comedy which entertained but did not amuse a select audience of lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic. As this tale has to do with the adventures of Taswell Skaggs's heirs and not with the strange old gentleman who sleeps his last sleep literally in the midst of the island of Japat, it is eminently ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... bad writers may amuse our idle hours: alas! even good ones do not much amuse mine, unless they record an action of love or generosity. As for the graver, why cannot they come among us and teach ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... does it matter? Time isn't so valuable as all that. The others will wait for us, and take things easy. Allan has promised to show them some Indian picture writing this afternoon, and I know he'll amuse the bunch so they ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... All the time that her mother was sorting, counting, and arranging where things should go, she sat in the window sullen and unhappy, looking out at the pansy-bed. Peter grew tired of a companion who did nothing to amuse him, and began to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... that I owed my introduction to Aytoun. What its nature was may be inferred from its title—"Flowers of Hemp; or, The Newgate Garland. By One of the Family." Like most of the papers on which we subsequently worked together, the object was not merely to amuse, but also to strike at some prevailing literary craze or vitiation of taste. I have lived to see many such crazes since. Every decade seems to produce one. But the particular craze against which this paper was directed was the popularity of novels and songs, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... her, sew for her, play cards with her, but do not amuse yourself or regulate your wardrobe at her expense. When I say "sew for her" I do not mean make her dresses, but do the little odd things that mothers of families always do, and which must remain undone ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... be found in the descriptions given by his biographers? But biographers seek far more to amuse and astonish, in order that their writings may be read, than to adhere to the ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... good in its way; nor shall we dare to raise the curtain, and reveal certain communications relating to affairs of state, political and diplomatic, which were discussed by the minister and his secretary. Harry heard some Rio Janeiro news too, which seemed to amuse him, but would scarcely have any interest for the reader. At length, as Mr. Henley and Harry were picking their nuts, the minister happened to enquire the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... varied knowledge of life and character supplies him with touches enough of nature and truth to make the fortune of a dozen ordinary dramatists; and withal you feel as you read that he is writing, as Augier says of him, to amuse himself merely, and that he could an if he would be solemn and didactic with all the impressiveness that a perfect acquaintance with men and things and an admirable dramatic aptitude can bestow. The fact that he is always in a good temper has done him some wrong in that it has led him to be ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... beauty. But the leve uniforms of the officers gave an air of brilliance contrasted with the civilians of the Government of Egypt. Tamara thought their dress very ugly, it reminded her of a clergyman's at a children's party, where he has been decorated with caps and sham orders from the crackers to amuse the little guests. It seemed strange to see the English faces beneath the fez. She and Millicent Hardcastle walked about and talked to their friends. There were many smart young gallants in the regiments then quartered in Cairo, who enjoyed dancing with the slender, youthful ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... brain to amuse him," remarked Gerty, while she watched him gravely, "but he can't get his mind off that possible attack of pneumonia, and he's even made me look up the death rate from it in the bulletin of the Board of Health. Do you think Arnold would come if I telephoned ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... be amused. The trained man wishes to amuse. A man under thirty-five is in this world to be made happy. The man over thirty-five ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... poor sinner said no more, the priest spoke a few kind words and left him. An hour later the gaoler brought him a parcel of books. "The holy brother sends them so that you can amuse yourself a little." ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... This you have accomplished, you poor armless man, that hundreds, though they had two arms, perished, while you are privileged to appear on the stage this evening as if nothing had occurred. We must enjoy ourselves; and it is better that you who entertain and amuse us with your thousands of tricks should have been saved than any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Besides we want to reimburse you for all the troubles you have been through. What is more, because of your skill and because of your rescue, you are ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... general habits and customs. She therefore very soon began to regret that she had not accepted Lieutenant Schank's invitation to visit his family. Pat Brady made himself very agreeable to his cousins, and had such wonderful stories to tell them that he was a great favourite. I had plenty to amuse me; but there seemed very little probability of my getting the education which Captain Oliver had recommended. The castle also was not over well provisioned, potatoes and buttermilk forming the staple of our meals, with an over-abundance ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... separated from his wife on Christmas Day for the first time in their married life did not amuse Mr. Holiday; and although too much of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren bored him to extinction, still he felt that any festive day on which they were not all with him was a festive day gone very wrong indeed. But ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Mr Stephens may have mistranslated this passage, which might be more appropriately read, who put him to death for the sins of men. This clumsy legend of St Thomas may amuse our readers; but probably derives its principal features from the contrivances ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... found little to amuse or interest them in Boston, and grew very weary of its monotonous life and Puritanic tone. They missed the public amusements to which they were accustomed in their own country, and complained of the superstitious observance ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... fellows, who were apprentices in knavery, in whom there was more of the material that makes thieves than saints, and who knew just how far it was possible to go without catching their necks in the branches of trees, made up their minds to amuse themselves, and live well, condemning certain hawkers or others in all the expenses. Now these limbs of Satan gave the slip to their masters, under whom they had been studying the art of parchment scrawling, and came to stay at the hotel of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate to the life the gestures and convulsions of those really ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his books. Art was beautiful, of course—it brought in an income, made friends and brought him close to people who saw nothing unless you made a picture of it. He made pictures for recreation and to amuse folks, and his threat to put the peeping Prior into the "Last Supper," posed as Judas, revealed his contempt for the person to whom a picture was just a picture. The marvel to Leonardo was the mind that could imagine, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... no longer upon the hunt for each day's supply of food. But the instinct to hunt which still remains we use to amuse ourselves while upon our camping trips. Some people even made a living by hunting for the market, although, fortunately for the wild creatures, little of this kind of hunting ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... were immerged in profound darkness, the prince of this world amused and diverted himself with the generality of mankind, and, like another Sardanapalus, gave himself up to his ease and pleasures in perfect peace; for what would he do but amuse and divert himself, in the quiet and undisturbed possession of his kingdom? But when the light shining from above dissipated a portion of his darkness—when that Mighty One alarmed and assaulted his ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... at this table to-night. Mr. Hampton, permit me to present Judge Hawes, of Denver, and Mr. Edgar Willis, president of the T. P. & R. I have no idea what they are doing in this hell-hole of a town, but they are dead-game sports, and I have been trying my best to amuse them while ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... matter much to my shipmates, who, being snugly housed from blinding blizzards, settled down to amuse themselves with sing-songs and story-tellings ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... where, maybe, he knows a bit more than I do (though he didn't know his Burns so well as a man ought that thinks to make laws for Scotland!). But to hear him talking about natural facts, you'd think he was just inventing for to amuse himself! Do you know, Ma'am, he thought stags had white tails like rabbits, and that 'twas only when they wagged them so as to show, that you could shoot them. And he thought that you pulled a salmon out o' the ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... says the witch baby, "you play on the dulcimer and amuse yourself while I get supper ready. But don't stop playing, or I shall feel lonely." And she ran ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... 'picturesqueness,' as they call it. As for 'character,' I reckon you'll find all you want of that among the Pointers; anyway, I never seed such critters as they be. When you get tired of painting, maybe you can amuse yourself trying to get to the bottom ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... quickening of pulse-beat that tingled over her whenever she saw Stewart in violent action. No action of his was any longer insignificant, but violent action meant so much. It might mean anything. For one moment she remembered Stillwell and all his talk about fun, and plots, and tricks to amuse her guest. Then she discountenanced the thought. Stewart might lend himself to a little fun, but he cared too much for a horse to run him at that speed unless there was imperious need. That alone sufficed to answer Madeline's questioning ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... did the narrative, and the conversation produced by it, serve to amuse and interest the old gentleman, who still remained in his bed. But long before it was finished, Major Henderson had arrived at the hall, and had been introduced to Sir Charles, who was much pleased with him, and requested him ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that a well-known lively air commenced, I begged them to exhibit some native dance to amuse us. Seeing their hesitation, I inquired whether they would wish to see my men perform? After a few words between Kittakara and Rahonka, the former agreed that it would be better for my men to commence the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... you," said he; "I thought so. But you had best go and amuse yourself in places proper for you; you are not coming to walk over ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... conjectural, which may amuse, but can scarcely satisfy, the earnest student, it is fitting that we should now pass to the known and actual. Phoenician metal-work of various descriptions has been found recently in Phoenicia Proper, in Cyprus, and in Sardinia; ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... over and the old chiefs gone, I asked the young men to play or dance, or amuse themselves in their accustomed way; and after some little hesitation they agreed to do so. They first had a trial of strength, two boys sitting opposite each other, foot being placed against foot, and a stout stick grasped by both their hands. Each then tried to throw himself back, so as ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... smiling town, seated in the midst of adorable scenery, with its little black, white, rose-colour and blue houses? One sighs and says 'It would be good to live here,' and then one passes on and goes to amuse ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... short journey, Sally sat screaming and crying in an easy-chair, into which she had thrown herself, declaring she would go, and pushed Dinah away as often as she attempted to take out a pin. Nor would she be pacified by any endeavours which were used to please and amuse her, till her mother, quite tired with her noise and ill-humour, declared she would send word to her governess the next morning if she did not do what she was desired; upon which threat she submitted to be undressed, but petulantly ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... orchards without asking permission, and were never molested. Shortly after Benjamin West's first efforts with pen and ink, a party of red men reached and encamped in Springfield. The boy-artist showed them his sketches of birds and flowers, which seemed to amuse them greatly. They at once proceeded to teach him how to prepare the red and yellow colors with which they decorated their ornaments. To these Mrs. West added blue, by contributing a piece of indigo. Thus ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... finish'd up to hit the Taste of the Connoisseur; others more negligently put together, to strike the Fancy of a common and unlearned Beholder: Some Parts are made stupendiously magnificent and grand, to surprize with the vast Design and Execution of the Architect; others are contracted, to amuse you with his Neatness and Elegance in little. *So, in Shakespeare, we may find Traits that will stand the Test of the severest Judgment; and Strokes as carelessly hit off, to the Level of the more ordinary Capacities: ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... eloquence of the late Dr. Enfield. A gentleman, too, still living, who has lately added to his literary fame by a biographical work of high repute (I scarcely need add that I allude to Mr. W. Taylor) would sometimes instruct us by his various and profound knowledge, or amuse us with his ingenious paradoxes.' When we recollect how at this time the poetical puerilities of Bath Easton flourished in the West, we may claim that Norwich and Yarmouth, if not as favoured by fashion, had at any rate a claim to intellectual reputation at least quite equal ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... only the idle men have the time to amuse us," retorted Miss Keene. "But," she added, with a laugh, "I suppose I'm getting nervous and fidgety myself; for I find myself every now and then watching the officers and men, and listening to the orders as if something were going to happen again. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... of a different stamp. He also was kind, and in every way worthy of grateful remembrance. He loved to amuse especially the junior Bar, and more particularly in court. He was a good natural punster, and endowed with a lively wit. The circuit was never dull when Platt was present; but there was one trait in his character as an advocate that judges always profess to disapprove of—he loved ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... always to have a baby on hand, and several others in various stages of development. These children spend most of their time, so far as I can judge, in hanging about, just outside the front garden, waiting for something to turn up to amuse them, and I had been much bothered by their creeping round behind me, or edging closer and closer to my side, and occasionally shoving each other so as to shake me or my sketch. I tried to forget them, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... tower with a happy sigh. It turned the Countess to a tender mood, where she suffered herself to be played upon by the season— L'ora del tempo e la dolce stagione. The spring whimpered in her blood. Prosper felt her sighing as she leaned on his arm, and made stress to amuse her, for sighs always seemed to him unhealthy. He set himself to be humorous, sang, chattered, told anecdotes, and succeeded in infecting himself first and the lady afterwards. She laughed in spite of ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... his bedroom candle; then, on the first landing, he paused a moment to enjoy his work and to look at the mass of congealed ones whom he had forced to thaw and amuse themselves. ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... Montfort off the vicar's hands in a minute. Raspall was heard to intimate that he had a nice warm spare room over the bakehouse doing nothing; and our principal butcher, Mr. Clodd, declared boldly that a man like that, who could amuse any company, and was fit for any company, was worth his ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... it seems, only shot at his legs, merely to 'disable'—and it must be expected that every gentleman will amuse himself in shooting at his own property whenever the notion takes him, and if he should happen to hit a little higher and go through the small of the back instead of the legs, why every body says it is 'unfortunate,' and the whole of the editorial ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... there was little to amuse the eye; and the young man's attention centred on the dumb companion of his drive. A card was nailed upon one side, bearing the superscription: 'Miss Doolan, passenger to Dublin. Glass. With care.' He thought with ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... That he could neither read nor swim The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square They (good women) are not by the dozen, as every one knows They have not one more invention left wherewith to amuse us They juggle and trifle in all their discourses at our expense They never loved them till dead Tis in some sort a kind of dying to avoid the pain of living well Tis not the number of men, but the number of good men Tis there she talks plain French To be, not to seem To keep me from dying is ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... other, "and I have need of some distraction just now. This evening I mean to amuse myself. To-morrow we shall storm the fortress of Del Valle with all our force; and may the devil scorch me, if I leave one stone ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... it was even discovered by the opposite party, who considered it as an artful scheme on the part of[a] the Independents to detain the king in Oxford, till Fairfax and Cromwell should bring up the army from Cornwall; to amuse the royal bird, till the fowlers had enclosed him ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... child. Try to amuse yourself while I am gone. There is plenty to look at here, and the others will soon be back again. If the city is fairly quiet this evening we will all go out together, to Canopus, to eat oysters. Good bye till we meet again, my pet!" She ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 'The Hermit', and 'The Deserted Village'. But, as is often the case, he is remembered even more favourably by some of those delightful familiar verses, unprinted during his lifetime, which he threw off with no other ambition than the desire to amuse his friends. 'Retaliation', 'The Haunch of Venison', the 'Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury', all afford noteworthy exemplification of that playful touch and wayward fancy which constitute the chief attraction of this species of poetry. In his imitations of Swift and Prior, and his variations ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... walls bounding the Abbey domains; it will proceed to contemplate the mingling angles of its ruins, and in the back ground, the rich tops of the woods in the neighbourhood of Beaumont Leys. This scene however, will not serve merely to amuse the eye, but will naturally lead the well informed visitor to interesting and affecting thoughts, while he contemplates the spot in which, in former times, were acted all the striking rites of the Romish Church, tho' ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... 'It would amuse me very much if the Reardons got a lot of money at Mr Yule's death—and that can't be ten years off, ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... respectable mother. I described my precious commodity, and fixed my price. Touching the bargain, your admirable mother was a little too calm, too stolid, too immovable and statue-like. In fine, your admirable mother vexed me. To make variety in my position, and to amuse myself—what! a gentleman must be amused at somebody's expense!—I conceived the happy idea of disappearing. An idea, see you, that your characteristic mother and my Flintwinch would have been well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah, bah, bah, don't look as from high to low at me! I repeat ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... them understand how the thing looked to him. But there crystallized in him a wish that he might some day see Rose's critics fluttering about her and, as it were, eating out of her hand. He used to amuse himself by arranging all sorts of extravagant settings for this picture. He never included Rodney in this vengeance, although he felt sure—indeed Rodney had practically admitted as much to him—that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... no use to drop down lower, because I expect the Indians have canoes. Keep the men all under cover of the bulwarks, and you and Lynton can take a couple of rifles and amuse yourselves shooting any wild beasts you see on the starboard bow. But mind you all keep well under ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... were a kind of lyric songs sung at social meals, when the spirit was raised by wine and conversation to a lyrical pitch. The lyre or a sprig of myrtle was handed round the table and presented to any one who could amuse the company by a song or even a good sentence in a ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... in the same way as a drop of water, crowded with infusoria, seen through a microscope, or a little heap of cheese-mites that would otherwise be invisible. Their activity and struggling with each other in such little space amuse us greatly. And it is the same in the little span of life—great and earnest ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... want to go to the Palmers'," Alice explained, tolerantly—"and as mama and I made him take me, and he thought that was pretty selfish in me, why, he felt he had a right to amuse himself any way he could. Of course it was awful that this—that this Mr. Russell should——" In spite of her, the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... familiar with all literary and scientific data, and according to Clemens could swear in twenty-seven languages. It was thought to be a choice idea to get Trumbull to supply a lingual medley of quotations to precede the chapters in the new book, the purpose being to excite interest and possibly to amuse the reader—a purpose which to some extent appears to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... see, Sir, we shall see," said TIME. "I don't think I'm particularly difficult to amuse." By this time they had entered the dazzling hall, and, reclining on sumptuous seats, were prepared to bestow their best attention upon the proceedings. A stout man with a fair wig, a dyed moustache and a ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... would be upon us any minute. Sometimes the General lingered unnecessarily long on the incline, the wooden slope leading up to the ward, in which case he was not visible from the window, and Erard would amuse us by regretting that he had no periscope for the transom ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... Quiet games that do not call for too much exertion, paper-doll plays, the ever-delightful "cutting out" of pictures or fashion book people, making scrap books for children's hospitals and simple knitting or crocheting all help to amuse the little folk. Almost all children enjoy being read to, but care must be taken not to select stories that will depress the child or so excite him as to keep him awake at night or cause ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... steamboat to touch there and take me up to Louisville, Ky. It was in the fall of the year, water was very low, and but few boats running. Shortly after breakfast, I took my rifle and ammunition and started down along the river to amuse myself, and kill time by hunting. Game was scarce, and after strolling along until noon, I got tired and came out to the river to see if any boats were in sight, as well as take shelter from a heavy shower of rain that had come on. I sought an immense old tree, whose broad crown and ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... them. This, however, the artists could not convey to us: that they were constantly changing in shape and color. And they do this not only of their own accord but also at my command, and sometimes I amuse myself by letting them grow larger or smaller, black or blue, and by making them assume curious shapes. Amid throngs numbering hundreds of them I have moved about, and though my power over them varies, yet I never feel again the old nameless dread and ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... Moussorgsky was buoyed by the great force of the Russian charity, the Russian humility, the Russian pity. It was that great religious feeling that possessed the man who had been a foppish guardsman content to amuse ladies by strumming them snatches of "Il Trovatore" and "La Traviata" on the piano, and gave him his profound sense of reality, his knowledge of how simple and sad a thing human life is after all, and made him vibrate so exquisitely with the suffering inherent ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him, at least, I find it so with myself; but when misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the history of the old Democratic and the old Whig parties, that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement in 1854, by which I was to have the place of General Shields in the United States Senate, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... every nation, for every man and every woman. They were all foreseen by the infinite wisdom of God, all provided for by His infinite power and justice, and all are consistent with His infinite love. To believe otherwise would be to believe that He made the world, to amuse His idle hours with the follies and agonies of mankind, as Domitian was wont to do with the wrigglings and contortions of insect agonies. Then indeed we might despairingly unite in that horrible utterance of Heine: "Alas, God's Satire weighs heavily ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... complained his lordship, stifling a yawn. "What I'm to do to amuse myself for a fortnight I'm sure ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... quite agrees with me. After all, she's a child still, and doesn't realize what vieux jeu all that sort of thing is. I insisted on reading to her 'Sludge, the Medium,' but it made no impression on her! In a sense I've only myself to thank, for I used to amuse myself in testing her amazing thought-reading powers when ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... worshipped the gods even while he held his bishopric. The Christians upon the whole stood firm. Even the heathens were little moved. Julian's own teachers held cautiously aloof from his reforms; and if meaner men paused in their giddy round of pleasure, it was only to amuse themselves with the strange spectacle of imperial earnestness. Neither friends nor enemies seemed able ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... wearily. "I hardly knew I was in town myself. I only ran up last night. I thought it would amuse me to have a look round—but things ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... from her maiden voyage Hinpoha and Migwan were ready with a stunt to amuse the audience. They dramatized that classic argument between the man and his wife as to whether the crime was committed with a knife or a scissors. Migwan, as the husband, stoutly maintained that it was a knife, and Hinpoha, as his spouse, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... "It will amuse you," she said, with a quiet smile. "You will see all the county families there, staring at one another's guests; and you will hear a lot of songs, like 'My Pretty Jane' and 'Ever of Thee,' sung by bashful young ladies. At the opening of the proceedings my brother ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... our great pleasure at the thought that thousands and thousands of children who one year ago were strangers to us are now our little friends, and, we might say, seem to us like one large family. We have done our best to amuse and instruct them, and to make them happy; and by giving them weekly a rich fund of beautiful pictures, stories, poems, and instructive reading, to awaken in them noble thoughts and impulses, a desire for information, and also to teach them ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... months' run, Witnesses Two Hundred, Ninety and One: Clergymen, guardians, factors, physicians, Middlemen, labourers, smart statisticians, Journalists, managers, Gentiles and Jews, And this is the issue! A thing to amuse A cynic, the chat of this precious Committee, But moving kind hearts to despair blent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... We were comrades now. "Amuse yourself, Haljan. Or come out on deck if you wish. I will tell my men you are one ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... literary himself," said Miss Rennie, who had left the two students to amuse each other, and now joined the more congenial group. "He writes such clever things in magazines, Miss Melville, I quite delight to come on anything of ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... just as much as you like; we'll amuse you. Give him a board, and paper, and chalks, and let him alone. You are to know, you young scamps, that his father did me a service. Here, Corde-a-puits, go and get some cakes and sugar-plums," he said to the pupil who had tortured Joseph, giving him some small change. "We'll see if you are to be ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Influence of our Opinions on Happiness. He here quotes, from Ferguson, examples of opinions unfavourable to Happiness; such as these: 'that happiness consists in having nothing to do,' 'that anything is preferable to happiness,' 'that anything can amuse us better than our duties.' He also puts forward as a happy opinion the Stoical view, 'I am in the station that God has assigned me.' [It must be confessed, however, that these prescriptions savour of the Platonic device of inculcating ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... Latimer, the gymnastic mistress; twice also they were taken for walks in the neighbourhood; and on the remaining Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, which were regarded as half-holidays, they were allowed to amuse themselves as they liked, though they were required to be out-of-doors if the weather permitted. The judicious combination of work and play made the daily round both pleasant and healthy. The girls had enough lessons to keep them occupied, yet their ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... take part in their sports, little do the simple children think that the gentle old man who can so amuse them and himself, has spent most of his life amidst scenes of wild adventure and deadly peril; and yet ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... you not," said he, with yet greater asperity, "amuse yourself first with seeing bailiffs take possession of my house, and your friend Priscilla follow ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... school surely do amuse me," he laughed. "When I tell 'em I'm to be a missionary doctor, which I do first thing to give 'em sort of a shock they don't often get, they stand off and say, 'What, you!' as if I had told 'em I was ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... before I conclude, that I was induced to write the narrative of our voyage, not merely to amuse my readers, but to interest them in the dark-skinned inhabitants of the almost countless beautiful islands spread over the Pacific, and to induce them to give their warm support to the missionary efforts now making to convey the blessed light ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... happy thy return to Thebes—victorious! Thy chariot is drawn by hand—the conquered chiefs march backwards before thee—whilst thou leadest them to thy venerable father—Amon, husband of his mother." And the poets amuse themselves with summoning Maraiu to appear in Egypt, pursued as he was by his own people and obliged to hide himself from them. "He is nothing any longer but a beaten man, and has become a proverb among the Labu, and his chiefs repeat to themselves: 'Nothing of the kind has occurred ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... enjoyed at clean, well-ordered tables. The employers keep in their service a male cook and female assistants, who will cook anything the people choose to bring. After breakfast, for fifteen minutes, the people knit, sew, converse, stroll out of doors, or amuse themselves in any way they choose. At half-past eight, the manager takes his stand at a desk in the great dinner-room, gives out a hymn, which the factory choir sings. Then he reads a passage from a suitable ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... of M. Michelet's fury against us poor English, are four which will be likely to amuse the reader; and they are the more conspicuous in collision with the justice which he sometimes does us, and the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... concerns. If they have any business or engagement out of doors, they say so and go, using no ceremony, and but few words as an apology. Their visitors, I mean such as stay for a time in their houses, are left in the interim to amuse themselves as they please. This is peculiarly agreeable, because their friends know, when they visit them, that they neither restrain, nor shackle, nor put them to inconvenience. In fact it may be truly said that if satisfaction in visiting depends upon a man's own freedom to ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... absurdities of those who have gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by those who are to come after us. Theories are the mighty soap-bubbles with which the grown-up children of science amuse themselves while the honest vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify these learned vagaries with the name of wisdom! Surely Socrates was right in his opinion, that philosophers are ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... amount of social recognition given by English duchesses to such American visitors as Col. William Cody, generally known as "Buffalo Bill." They do not reflect that it is just because the social gap between the two is so irretrievably vast and so universally recognised that the duchesses can afford to amuse themselves cursorily with any eccentricity that offers itself. As Pomona's husband put it, people in England are like types with letters at one end and can easily be sorted out of a state of "pi," while Americans are theoretically all alike, like carpet-tacks. Thus Americans of the best class often ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Writing to a friend at Langholm, he said, "Having now being occupied for about seventy-five years in incessant exertion, I have for some time past arranged to decline the contest; but the numerous works in which I am engaged have hitherto prevented my succeeding. In the mean time I occasionally amuse myself with setting down in what manner a long life has been laboriously, and I hope usefully, employed." And again, a little later, he writes: "During the last twelve months I have had several rubs; at seventy-seven they tell more seriously than ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... it is present. You must have a lot of patience to do this work. Some people are able to do lots of things that will prove entertaining. After all, what you are concocting is an entertainment. You should always aim to present something different, something original or novel that will surprise and amuse your audience, not the hackneyed old stunts that everyone has seen ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... island they emptied their pouches on the sand—too often, I must confess, solely for my benefit. Selfish bachelor birds on returning with full pouches jerked their catch into the air, and so swallowed it. It used to amuse me, however, to watch a robber gull, perched on their back, cleverly and neatly intercepting the fish as it ascended. These fish, with broiled turtle meat and tinned fruits, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... castles in the air, And thanks his stars, whenever Edmund speaks, That such a dupe as that is not his heir— But know, old Harpy! that these fancy freaks, Though vain and light, as floating gossamer, Always amuse, and sometimes mend the heart: A young man's idlest hopes are still his pleasures, And fetch a higher price in Wisdom's mart Than all the unenjoying ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Mister Peter Harding out before us, and then didn't leave him a leg to stand on. He proved conclusive he'd used every spare moment he'd had since Junior was in short clothes, carrying him to Multiopolis to amuse him, and feed him treats, and show him shows; so he was to blame if Junior developed a big consuming appetite for such things. How ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... said, "to keep you company and to amuse myself; but I see that I am in the way, so I hope you will take me back to Gorice and leave me there. You must know that I like society as much as you do, and I do not feel inclined to die of solitary ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... chief remaining impressions of those days are attached to Hunter Street. My mother's general principles of first treatment were, to guard me with steady watchfulness from all avoidable pain or danger, and, for the rest, to let me amuse myself as I liked, provided I was neither fretful or troublesome. But the law was, that I should find my own amusement. No toys of any kind were at first allowed, and the pity of my Croydon aunt for my monastic poverty in this respect was boundless. On one of my birthdays, thinking to overcome ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Hilbery agreed urbanely, pleased at the diversion. "I think they said they were going to Hampton Court, and I rather believe they were taking a protege of mine, Ralph Denham, a very clever fellow, too, to amuse Cassandra. I thought the arrangement very suitable." He was prepared to dwell at some length upon this safe topic, and trusted that Katharine would come in before he ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... amuse them. They get enough instruction in school. I hope soon to give another evening to the older girls. I wonder whether you would like to come and ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... floating on a single spar in the wide sea of a populous, busy, fuming, fussy world like this. At any rate it is consonant to both our tastes. You may suppose, however, that I find it rather difficult to amuse my friends out of the incidents of so isolated an existence. Our daily career is very regular and monotonous. Our life is as stagnant as a Dutch canal. Not that I complain of it,—on the contrary, the canal may be richly freighted with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... am coming to a very sad and wonderful part of my story; but as I have talked long enough now to weary myself if not to weary you, I will ask you to amuse yourselves for a while among the grounds and in the park till tea-time, and after tea I shall be happy to conclude my story, the most important part of which ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... got rid of his entire load and saddle, and then came quietly to us, apparently very well satisfied with himself and with the damage he had done. It was a most ludicrous scene, and defies all power of description; so much did it amuse us, that we could not stop laughing for three ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... 57) mentions in 1746 his cousin Sir John Philipps, of Picton Castle; 'a noted Jacobite.'... He thus mentions Lady Philipps in 1788 when she was 'very aged.' 'They have a favourite black, who has lived with them a great many years, and is remarkably sensible. To amuse Lady Philipps under a long illness, they had read to her the account of the Pelew Islands. Somebody happened to say we were sending a ship thither; the black, who was in the room, exclaimed, "Then there is an end of their ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... better for being less serious, less heroic, less militant, and more what the French call bourgeois, just as you may like the style of Louis XV better than that of Louis XIV,— Madame du Barry better than Madame de Montespan,—for taste is free, and all styles are good which amuse; but since we are now beginning with the earliest, in order to step down gracefully to the stage, whatever it is, where you prefer to stop, we must try to understand a little of the kind of energy which Norman art expressed, or would have expressed if it had thought in ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... and people who paint even in the Himalayas, though Miss Harris and I in our superior way went yearly to the Simla Fine Arts Exhibition chiefly to amuse ourselves by scoffing. It was easy to say clever things about the poor little exhibits; and one was grateful to the show on this account, for nothing is more depressing east of Suez than the absence ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... his curiosity on the qui vive to amuse herself a little longer, but ended by telling him all, amid frequent exclamations ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... old gentleman in the west of Ireland, whose love of the ridiculous quite equalled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont, upon festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his friends by drawing out one of his servants, exceedingly fond of what he termed his "thravels," and in whom, a good deal of whim, some queer stories, and perhaps, more than all, long and faithful services, had established a right of loquacity. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,—the "chaff,"—with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental bizarrerie fails to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and easily into the outward life of the people among whom he is,—while he always reserves within himself a cold, stern individuality; he often is angered when he should be amused, and retorts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... mirror. And in doing this, perceiving the bizarre effects produced by the roundness of the mirror, which twists the beams of a ceiling into strange curves, and makes the doors and other parts of buildings recede in an extraordinary manner, the idea came to him to amuse himself by counterfeiting everything. Thereupon he had a ball of wood made by a turner, and, dividing it in half so as to make it the same in size and shape as the mirror, set to work to counterfeit on it with supreme art all that he saw in the glass, and particularly his own self, which ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... city, and erected the permanent buildings on the great forum. These works involved vast labor and expense, and must have been very burdensome to the people. Like other oppressive monarchs, Tarquinius planned games and festivities to amuse them. He enlarged the Circus Maximus, and imported boxers and horses from his native country to perform at games there, which were afterwards celebrated annually. Besides these victories of peace, this ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... those little parties of which she had spoken to Graham, where she had spent the evening in the company of a dozen other young ladies of her own age, all white muslin and sash-ribbons. "These girls, how tiresome they all are!—how they chatter and laugh, and what silly jokes they make! How can it amuse them? But they are still in the school-room, as Aunt Barbara is always telling me; and before that, they were all in the nursery, I suppose; they do not know anything about life; their only experiences concern nurses and governesses; whilst I—I—ah! is it possible ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... stealthily and unequally, according to the humouring or thwarting of local circumstances. Nobody, I am sure, is better aware of this accident, as besetting the transit of dialects, than Mr. Ferguson. For instance, many of those words which are imported to us from the American United States, and often amuse us by their picturesqueness, have originally been carried to America by our own people; in England they lurked for ages as provincialisms, localised within some narrow circuit, and to which some trifling ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... nobles of Greece have fine young slaves to wait upon them, and amuse them by singing or dancing. These slaves are bought from the Tartars, who steal them from Russia, Circassia, or Georgia, and are taken great care of, being taught to embroider, sing, dance, and deport themselves with elegance and grace. Their ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... enough to abstain from all reproaches, direct or indirect, by word or look, may reclaim her husband's affections: the bird escapes from his cage, but returns to his nest. I am glad that you have agreeable company at your house; they will amuse Mr. L——, and relieve you from the necessity of taking a share in any conversation that you dislike. Our witty friend —— will supply your share of conversation; and as to your silence, remember that witty people are always content with those ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... I was! How unutterably proud of my handsome tender husband! I do not know whether even then he truly loved me, or if he merely intended me as a pretty toy to amuse him during the tedium of college sessions; I only remember my delirious delight, my boundless exultation. We returned home, and Cuthbert resumed his college studies, but through the co-operation of his room-mate, he spent much of his time in our ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the nimbleness with which they pieced broken ends, as the mule carriage began to recede from the fixed roller beam, and to see them at leisure, after a few seconds' exercise of their tiny fingers, to amuse themselves in any attitude they chose, till the stretch and winding on were once more completed. The work of these lively elves seemed to resemble a sport, in which habit gave them a pleasing dexterity. Conscious of their skill, they were delighted to show it off to any stranger. As ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... habit of making his bow in three or four drawing-rooms of a night. A dinner with Doctor Portman or a neighbouring Squire now and then; a dreary rubber at backgammon with the widow, who did her utmost to amuse him; these were the chief of his pleasures. He used to long for the arrival of the bag with the letters, and he read every word of the evening paper. He doctored himself too, assiduously,—a course of quiet living ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it comes. But I'm going to take a lesson in coffee-making as they do it out here. It will amuse me to make our coffee after lunch. Besides, it will be something to do. And I want to take an interest in everything, in all the trifles of this ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... for her darling's sufferings being very sincere. Later she comes in after doing her best at courage building, tiptoes her way in to see if her pet is sleeping or awake, and bringing something if possible, with which to amuse or interest the invalid. However great is the grief of the women, that of the child's papa is equally sad to see, and he, poor man, is forced to face the probability of a long and dreary winter, if not a lifetime ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... to amuse herself by stirring up more bad blood among friends. For the look he saw on her face was one of pure malicious mischief. It occurred to him that she had sorrowed not at all over the taking off of Escobar at Rios's hand; ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... assured, that however they amuse themselves with a variety of projects for substituting something else in the place of that great and only foundation of government, the confidence of the people, every attempt will but make their condition ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Lady K.'s passion for animals fills up the hours which are not spent in dressing. All her children have been ill,—very disagreeable fevers. Her ladyship visited them in a formal way, though their situation called forth my tenderness, and I endeavored to amuse them, while she lavished awkward fondness on her dogs. I think now I hear her infantine lisp. She rouges, and, in short, is a fine lady, without fancy or sensibility. I am almost tormented to death by dogs. But ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... poodle! what worrisome fiend hath possest thee, Nosing and snuffling so round the door? Go behind the stove there and rest thee, There's my best pillow—what wouldst thou more? As, out on the mountain-paths, frisking and leaping, Thou, to amuse us, hast done thy best, So now in return lie still in my keeping, A ...
— Faust • Goethe
... You just watch us. There is nothing—literally nothing—which a country house party can't do with Attila here operating on the premises. Seppings presumably took the back-door key with him. We must just amuse ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... spite of their long holidays, the children do not have half the fun that English boys and girls have. There is no cricket, football, hockey, golf, or any game of that sort, and there is not a racquet-, fives-, or tennis-court in the land. How then, you will ask, do they manage to amuse themselves? ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... with it. People looked uneasy and ashamed as though a door had been suddenly opened on a terrible secret thing that was customarily locked up in a closet. But the uncomfortable feeling soon passed, and they began to talk about the strange woman and to gossip and play and amuse themselves with her sorrow. A crowd collected about the aide, who grew more and more voluble and important each time he repeated his ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... completed his exile and returned to the Pandava court, Krishna visits him and the two go into the country for a picnic. 'After a few days, Arjuna said to Krishna, "The summer days have come. Let us go to the River Jumna, amuse ourselves with some friends and come back in the evening." Krishna replied, "I would like that very much. Let us go for a bathe." So Arjuna and Krishna set out with their friends. Reaching a fine spot fit for pleasure and overgrown ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... Charlotte," she said, in her deep, quiet voice. "No doubt he will amuse you. I know ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Bandello the Bishop (Tome 1, Paris, Liseux, 1879, small in 18) where the dying fisherman replies to his confessor, "Oh! Oh! your reverence, to amuse myself with boys was natural to me as for a man to eat and drink; yet you asked me if I sinned against nature!" Amongst the wiser ancients sinning contra naturam was not marrying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... Jack heard no more of the bean-stalk, but he could not forget it, though he feared making his mother unhappy. It was in vain endeavoring to amuse himself; he became thoughtful, and would arise at the first dawn of day, and sit looking at the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... write forthwith," I said firmly, "so please don't try to dissuade me. I have been feeling quite uncomfortable at the thought that, all the time I have been in your employ, I seem to have done nothing but idle about and amuse myself. The opportunity of doing something tangible for my wage is too precious to be ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... self-possessed air of knowledge; others had obviously never been there before, and were excited. Many were full of interest and expectation, a few, chiefly very young men, wore a blase, half-pitiful, half-patronising air, as though to say, "that's right, good people, amuse yourselves with your day-dreams while you may. We have tried a few weeks of this sort of thing, and have done a summit or two; in imagination we have also been up Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, and the Matterhorn, and a few of the Hymalaya peaks, and most of the mountains in the moon, and several ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... to thank Heaven for having spared me that curse. But here! put my hat and cane away. I am going to amuse myself with a few pages of Moreri. If I can trust my old fox-nose, we are going to have a nicely flavoured pullet for dinner. Look after that estimable fowl, my girl, and spare your neighbors, so that you and your old master may be spared ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... time? You have had your orders given you.' 'I daresay I have,' he retorted, 'but I am not going to be put off with THEM. I want some cutlets to eat, and a bottle of French wine, and a chance to go and amuse myself at the theatre.' 'Pardon me,' said the President. 'What you really need (if I may venture to mention it) is a little patience. You have been given something for food until the Military Committee ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the numberless Rovings of Fancy, and Windings of Language. It is, in short, a Manner of Speaking out of the simple and plain Way (such as Reason teacheth, and proveth Things by) which by a pretty, surprizing Uncouthness in Conceit or Expression, doth affect and amuse the Fancy, stirring in it some Wonder, and breeding some Delight thereto. It raiseth Admiration, as signifying a nimble Sagacity of Apprehension, a special Felicity of Invention, a Vivacity of Spirit, and Reach ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... him, but she answered, "Oh, I only—after I'd had my bath—lay on the floor and ran round my head for a bit. It's not a bit difficult, once you've got the knack. But I got thinking of Mrs. Paget—she does amuse me, that woman. Only yesterday she asked me what Puck was short for, and I told her Elizabeth—and then I got laughing so that I ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... most of their time in conversation, and visits, and assemblies, these COMPANIONABLE qualities, so to speak, are of high estimation, and form a chief part of personal merit. In countries where men live a more domestic life, and either are employed in business, or amuse themselves in a narrower circle of acquaintance, the more solid qualities are chiefly regarded. Thus, I have often observed, that, among the French, the first questions with regard to a stranger are, IS HE POLITE? HAS HE WIT? In ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... infused at our nativity. He that lives according to nature will suffer nothing from the delusions of hope, or importunities of desire; he will receive and reject with equability of temper; and act or suffer, as the reason of things shall alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse themselves with subtile definitions, or intricate ratiocinations. Let them learn to be wise by easier means; let them observe the hind of the forest, and the linnet of the grove; let them consider the life of animals, whose motions are regulated ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... playgrounds were thrown open to the children during the long vacation, with kindergarten teachers to amuse them, and vacation schools tempted the little ones from the street into the cool shade of the classrooms. They wrought in wood and iron, they sang and they played and studied nature,—out of a barrel, to be sure, that came twice a week from Long Island filled ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... well-known anecdote. "Don't tell that story of Grouse in the gun-room," says Diggory to Mr. Hardcastle in the play, "or I must laugh." As we twaddle, and grow old and forgetful, we may tell an old story; or, out of mere benevolence, and a wish to amuse a friend when conversation is flagging, disinter a Joe Miller now and then; but the practice is not quite honest, and entails a certain necessity of hypocrisy on story hearers and tellers. It is a sad thing, to think that a man with what you call ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... evening—that business of the utmost importance called me to the town of Ayr. I took a hasty farewell of my bride, and set off, resolved to be back upon the Thursday at farthest. Early in the forenoon of Tuesday, I got everything arranged to my satisfaction; but was too late for the first coach. To amuse myself in the best manner I could, until the coach should set off again, I wandered down to the harbour; and, while there, it was my misfortune to meet an old acquaintance, Alexander Cameron, the son ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... fashionable divorce cases in process of incubation; and Siegfried Wagner conducts. With infinite labour Wagner built this magnificent theatre, the most perfect machine in the world for the reproduction of great art-works; and Mrs. Wagner has given it as a toy to her darling son that he may amuse himself by playing with it. And, like a baby when it gets a toy, Siegfried Wagner is breaking it to pieces to see what there is inside. Unless it is taken from him until he has spent a few years in ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... nineteenth; felicitous parallels and cunning epigrams, subtle combinations of the pathetic, the egotistical, and the cynical, all presented with calm self-reliance and in the most finished and distinguished of styles, may veil for the moment from the audience which such things amuse, and even interest, the hollowness which lies beneath. But the only meaning of the lectures is to point out more forcibly than ever that besides the obvious riddles of man's life there is one stranger and more appalling still—that a religion which M. Renan can never speak of without admiration ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... holding it till he seemed to understand who it was near him. Then he would sink into long, unrefreshing, heavy slumber, to awake to all the wild frenzy again. Thus, to and fro went the little maiden from the farm to the Owl's Nest and Madame Giche, who chatted to and tried to amuse her when there, and to beguile her from ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... apple or cherry was a pretty enough shade tree for him, and he used to say too that a tree that bore the biggest and best apples didn't take any more room than one that yielded what was fit only for the cider press. Now the p'int's just here. You don't come to the country to amuse yourself by developin' a property, like most city chaps do, but to make a livin'. Well, don't you see? This farm is like a mill. When the sun's another month higher it will start all the machinery in the apple, cherry, and pear trees and the small fruits, and it will turn out a crop ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... numerous in South Africa where the Boers and half-castes amuse themselves with rearing zebras, antelopes, and the like; but I have not found many instances among the native races. Those that are best known to us are mostly nomad and in a chronic state of hunger, and therefore disinclined to nurture captured animals as pets; ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... quite as savage. Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd which an idle curiosity, easily excited and as soon satisfied, had gathered round us, she prefaced every introduction with a little exordium which seemed to amuse every one but its object: 'Lord Erskine, this is the Wild Irish Girl whom you are so anxious to know. I assure you she talks quite as well as she writes.—Now, my dear, do tell my Lord Erskine some of those Irish stories you told us the other evening. Fancy yourself among your own set, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... in a good old easy, high-backed, split-bottomed chair—there was positive comfort in that, when in the "parlor" there was nothing but restraint and discomfort. No; leave all this vanity to town-folk, who have nothing better—or who, at least, think they have—to amuse themselves with; it has no fitness for a country dwelling, whatever. All this kind of frippery smacks of the boarding school, the pirouette, and the dancing master, and is out of character for the farm, or the sensible retirement of ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... from her furiously). Damn charming! That's what you all say. I'm sick of it! You think that if a man's charming, that's the end of him, and that all he's good for is to amuse a few old ladies at a tea party. I'm sick of it! The rude rough man with the heart of gold—that's the only sort that can have a heart at all, according to some ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... by the bedside of Small (a man of poor constitution), she had acquired, the habit, and there were countless subsequent occasions when she had sat immense periods of time to amuse sick people, children, and other helpless persons, and she could never divest herself of the feeling that the world was the most ungrateful place anybody could live in. Sunday after Sunday she sat at the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... overawed the more credulous. The toads, quite harmless in fact, but then accounted poisonous, were bitten and torn between their dainty teeth. They jumped over large fires and pans of live coal, to amuse the crowd and make them laugh ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... way to merriment, too. It was funny. Much as she was sorry for Miss Peckham's fright, the situation altogether was one to amuse her. ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... Quartet for men's voices. It is the Verein song "Frisch auf zu neuem Leben," ["Uprouse to newer life."] written for the New Weymar Verein by Hoffmann von Fallersleben. The passage "von Philister Geschrei;" ["Of Philistine cry."] will probably amuse you, and the whole thing is kept rather popular and easy to be performed. If it does not make a bother let it be tried in Leipzig when you ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... la belle Paris offers so many attractions, that I have decided not to make up my mind in the matter, for I always am seduced into staying a much longer time than I had previously intended; there is always so much to amuse one." ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... the governor, and followed him every-where like a dog. His favourite station was at a window of the sitting-room, which overlooked the whole town; there, standing on his hind legs, his fore paws resting on the ledge of the window, and his chin laid between them, he appeared to amuse himself with what was passing beneath. The children also stood with him at the window; and one day, finding his presence an encumbrance, and that they could not get their chairs close, they used their united efforts to pull him down by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... involves the necessity of a sacrifice of time and feelings, and almost invariably creates an isolation,—consequences from which we, perhaps, should fearfully shrink. On the brilliant conversationist is inflicted the penalty of never enjoying a rest in society: her expected employment is to amuse others, not herself; the beauty is the dread of all the jealous wives and anxious mothers, and the object of a notice which is almost incompatible with happiness: I never saw a happy beauty, did you? The great genius is ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... rest of the day the visitors were permitted to amuse themselves. Lou was shy, Margaret was distantly respectful and the old man went about in leisurely attendance upon his affairs, not yet wholly unsuspicious. A week before the arrival of the "folks from off yander," as the strangers were termed, there had come to ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... "For, to tell you the truth, Master Dexter, she is the sweetest wench and hath looked kindly on me. Indeed, 'twas for this reason I think my master sent me off here on this business to get him more men. For he is apt to amuse himself, while he waits for the mistress, with the maid; and I doubt when I return I shall find the little witch hath clean forgotten how ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... preacher might indeed command their respect, but could never excite their sympathy. It may be feared that his Sermons were less popular from another cause, imputable more to the congregation than to the pastor. Swift spared not the vices of rich or poor; and, disdaining to amuse the imaginations of his audience with discussion of dark points of divinity, or warm them by a flow of sentimental devotion, he rushes at once to the point of moral depravity, and upbraids them with their favourite ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... motions with their sticks as if picking up and throwing something away, followed by blowing with the breath for the purpose of expelling evil spirits from their midst. While this is going on the fifth masker, Gauneskide, performs antics designed to amuse the audience. When the songs are finished the dancers depart in an eastwardly direction, whence they came, ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... such a failure of it, old boy, that I am compelled to talk nonsense in return. The idea of your preaching! Here I am with nothing special to do, and I like to amuse myself. Ought not that to be enough ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... woman! We would be alone! Retire into the jolly old background and amuse yourself for a bit. Read a book. Do acrostics. Charge ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... as long as I am funny and I amuse you; but the minute I begin to talk about serious subjects—such as feelings and sentiments and emotions—you lose your interest at once, and turn everything into a joke. The truth is, you have so persistently suppressed your higher self that it is dying of inanition; you'll ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... rather than for small talk, and who can't take much interest in the very trifling matters that engage the attention of these poor fellows, such a man finds it very tiring indeed sometimes, when a merry bright good-natured fellow would amuse himself ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and amuse myself detecting essence beneath semblance and tracing the same principle running through things the outward aspect of which is widely different. I have studied the Dhobie in this spirit and find him to be nothing else than an example of the abnormal development, ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... known it a week ago! A prison a la Princess Ahlden, or the Danish Queen Caroline Matilda, for me, disgraceful dismissal for Romano, for times are happily past when comely gentlemen, who have the wit to amuse royal ladies, durst be murdered in cold blood like Koenigsmarck, or be-handed, be-headed and cut into ninety-nine pieces as ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... of color rose in his cheeks. His eyes regarded her with a mysterious steadiness. "You want neither my respect nor my friendship," said he. "You want to amuse yourself." He pointed at her hands. "Those nails betray you." He shrugged his shoulders, laughed, said as if to a child: "You are a nice girl, Jane Hastings. It's a pity you weren't brought up to be of some use. But you weren't—and it's ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... were Wylders of Brandon, and Brandons of Brandon. In one generation, a Wylder ill-using his wife and hating his children, would cut them all off, and send the estate bounding back again to the Brandons. The next generation or two would amuse themselves with a lawsuit, until the old Brandon type reappeared in some bachelor brother or uncle, with a Jezebel on his left hand, and an attorney on his right, and, presto! the estates were back ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... choice meats and expensive wines from golden plates and crystal goblets; but they are never thus favoured unless they have done an extraordinary number of evil deeds since the last period of meeting. After the feast they begin dancing, but such as have no relish for any more exercise in that way amuse themselves by mocking the holy sacrament of baptism. For this purpose the toads are again called and sprinkled with filthy water, the Devil making the sign of the cross, and the witches calling out [oath omitted]. When the Devil ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... as Mrs. Tallboys said; you will do nothing but laugh at us, or else talk sentiment about our refining you. Now, I want to be free to amuse myself." ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "However, you still keep your eyes; And surely, sir, to see one's friends, For legs and arms would make amends." "Perhaps," says Dodson, "so it might, But latterly I've lost my sight." "This is a shocking story, faith; But there's some comfort still," says Death; "Each strives your sadness to amuse; I warrant you hear all the news." "There's none," cries he, "and if there were, I've grown so ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... said the landlady. She led Spargo into a room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies, evidently inmates, were sitting. The landlady left Spargo to sit with them and to amuse himself by watching them knit or sew or read the papers, and he wondered if they always did these things every day, and if they would go on doing them until a day would come when they would do them no more, and he was beginning to feel ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... again, to my great joy; I am nobody without her. As the roads are already very good, we walk and ride perpetually, and amuse ourselves as well as we can, en attendant your brother, who ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... will often exclaim that he is just the same as he always was. But in spite of this, they will know that he is very different. His hopes will have dwindled down; the glow, the colour, and the bright haze will have gone from them; things that once amused him will amuse him no more: things he once thought important, he will consider weary trifles; and if he thinks anything serious at all, they will not be things he thought serious when a boy. The same thing is true of the year, and its changing seasons. ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... people talk of "laying down" their carriages, so I suppose my friend Mr. —- had "laid down" his conscience for a time, meaning, doubtless, to resume it as soon as he could afford it. The inner economy of such a man's daily life would present a most strange picture, if I could allow myself to amuse the reader at his expense. Even with my limited opportunities for observing what went on, I saw many scenes of London intrigues and complex chicanery, "cycle and epicycle, orb in orb," at which I sometimes smile to this day, and at which I smiled then, in spite of my misery. My situation, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... always planning something to interest and amuse his friends, and when in America he taught us several games arranged by himself, which we played again and again, he taking part as our instructor. While he was travelling from point to point, he was cogitating fresh charades to be acted when we should again meet. It ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... regards exercise and amusement, we would certainly neither prohibit a mother's dancing, going to a theatre, nor even from attending an assembly. The first, however, is the best indoor recreation she can take, and a young mother will do well to often amuse herself in the nursery with this most excellent means of healthful circulation. The only precaution necessary is to avoid letting the child suck the milk that has lain long in the breast, or is heated ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... straits because their clown—for whom they sent to Leipzig, has not arrived. You are to take off the honorable Prussian uniform and to join this group of mountebanks, sent there by me, as a warning to every one. You are to become an actor, a clown of clowns-and henceforth amuse the German nation with your foolish and criminal jokes and quips. Shame ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... when I'm doing this I'm not telephoning you to come and amuse me. Just think what a lot of extra time you have ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... the story of "the piece of string" to amuse them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of December he took to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... This statement ex-detective Parrock believed, and that the fatal shot was fired over Peace's shoulder as he was making off. Though habitually sober, Peace was made intoxicated now and then by the drink, stood him by those whom he used to amuse with his musical tricks and antics in public-houses. At such times he would get fuddled and quarrelsome. He was in such a frame of mind on the evening of Dyson's murder. His visit to the Vicar of Ecclesall ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... if you could have seen Cousin Redfield dance, with his arms akimbo, and his head thrown back, and watch him cut the pigeon-wing, you would have understood why he wanted to do it. He knew it would amuse them and make them want to dance, too; which it did, and pretty soon they were in a circle around him, bride and groom and all, dancing around and around and singing the Hollow Tree song, which all the Deep ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... passes over them like the shaking of many telegraph wires, and neither officer nor Tommy raises his head to watch it strike. They are tired in body and in mind, with cramped limbs and aching eyes. They have had twelve nights and twelve days of battle, and it has lost its power to amuse. ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... "With what sense can I amuse my selfe in the secrets of the Starres, having continually death or bondage before mine eyes?" For at that time the Kings of Persia were making preparations to war against his Countrie. All men ought to say so: Being beaten ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... chosen her to amuse me, and I should really prefer that she should have one of those insignificant little thoughtless ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... those sad rogues to travel, With something in their shoes much worse than gravel In short, their toes so gentle to amuse, The priest had order'd peas ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... a man. Their doctrine of moral wisdom was an ostentatious display of words, in which little regard was paid to nature and reason. It professed to raise human nature to a degree of perfection before unknown; but its real effect was, merely to amuse the ear, and captivate the fancy, with fictions which can never be realized.... The extravagancies and absurdities of the Stoical philosophy may also be in some measure ascribed to the vehement contests which subsisted ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... the other hand, proposes to give us an accurate picture of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse us, or to appeal to our feelings, but to compel us to reflect, and to understand the occult and deeper meaning of events. By dint of seeing and meditating he has come to regard the world, facts, men, and things in a way peculiar to himself, which is the outcome ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... two drunken harlots for the possession of a headless dummy taken from a draper's shop, and noted a youngster go up to the very steps of the Provisional Government House of the New Republic of Ireland and amuse the armed rebels with impersonations of ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... for her own; for she remembered how he disliked a wet day, and how difficult it always was for him to spend it comfortably. Still Herbert might not be so foolish now, she thought, and she would try all she could to amuse him. ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... beautiful saying of Goldsmith that innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. Judged by this standard, the imaginative operations taking place in Duncan's brain, considering their effect on his happiness, cannot be pronounced either ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... be damned to you!" he muttered. "You haven't got the dope, and you can't git it, either. Trail that horse if you want to—I'd like to see yuh amuse yourselves that way!" ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... masquerade ceased to interest and amuse? Simply because no travestie of costume, no change of condition, is so strikingly ludicrous as what we see on every side of us. The illiterate man with the revenue of a prince; the millionaire who cannot write his name, and whom yesterday ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... said of them, as an inexperienced young man, who would understand better by and by of what materials the world was made. There had been excitement and anxiety enough. Conservatism was in power again. Fine gentlemen could once more lounge in their clubs, amuse themselves with their fish-ponds and horses and mistresses, devise new and ever new means of getting money and spending it, and leave the Roman Empire for the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... thronged with people, and the roof over it was also crowded with more than three thousand men and women. They sent for Samson, to rejoice over him; and Samson was led into the court of the temple, before all the people, to amuse them. After a time, Samson said to the ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... the window to see if any of her playmates were in sight, while the kitten, left to amuse herself, walked slowly across the keyboard, and sat down upon the lower ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... to our note-book, we find our authority for attributing the authorship of these works to Mr. Anstruther is the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1837, p. 283. In the review of Doveton the writer says, "There is in it a good deal to amuse, and something to instruct, but the whole narrative of Mr. Anstruther is too melodramatic," &c. However, as he declines the compliment, perhaps some of our readers will be able to find the right head to fit ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... shall it matter, Dear, how the world use us? 'Tis but a show and its antics amuse us! World that knows nothing of all our sweet gladness And of the love ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... to be able to play in his company treated the young girl with the deference due an artist. Then there were a number of young women who, though fond of attending the theatre, looked askance at the clever men and women whose business it was to amuse them. They approved of the theatre, but for them the foot-lights divided the two worlds, and they wished no trespassing of the stage folks on their territory. Quite their opposite were the girls who were desperately ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Fitz Lee until my brother's return from prison in April of that year. Fitz Lee's brigade camped near Charlottesville, on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, in January, in order that forage could be more readily obtained. The officers, to amuse themselves and to return in part the courtesies and kindnesses of the ladies of the town, gave a ball. It was a grand affair for those times. Committees were appointed and printed invitations issued. As ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... are superior to this kind of thing, you can amuse yourself by deducing from the practice before you the famous Rules for Revolvers, which, mutatis mutandis, are as old as the Aristotelian unities and, for all I (or, probably, you) know to the contrary, were laid down at the same ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... about the news in low, horrified tones on the way back to Dorothy's, and down they sat, prepared not only to amuse Elisabeth but to amuse her until the return of Miss Merriam, no matter how ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... found out in nothing) and giving occasional dry wrinkly indications of crying—as if capable of torrents in a wetter season—at the thought that they were not allowed to go into Mr. Featherstone's room. For the old man's dislike of his own family seemed to get stronger as he got less able to amuse himself by saying biting things to them. Too languid to sting, he had the more venom ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... her arms, but Johnnie, though usually delighted to come to her from Sarah, turned his head away, unwilling to leave his mother. He did not quite cry, but was so near it that she had to do her utmost to amuse him. She caught up something bright to hold before him, and was surprised to see it was a coral cross, which Violet, in changing her dress, had laid for a moment on the dressing-table. The ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Samson," besides instructing the treble singers, of whom she was now herself the first. As astronomical assistant, she has herself given a glimpse of her experience in the following words: "In my brother's absence from home, I was, of course, left solely to amuse myself with my own thoughts, which were any thing but cheerful. I found I was to be trained for an assistant astronomer, and, by way of encouragement, a telescope adapted for 'sweeping,' consisting of a tube with two glasses, such as are commonly used in ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... This seemed to amuse Mrs. Smiley. "It was 'Wilbur,'" she said. "He loves to jump in and seize upon some one's vocal chords that way. It's ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... respectful to human progress, bewildered Gabriel, whose fierce Spanish bigotry had taught him to despise all profane science. There was only one true learning in the world, and that was theology. The other sciences were only toys, only fit to amuse the eternal infancy of humanity. To know God and to meditate on the greatness of His power, this was the only serious study to which men could devote themselves; machinery, the discoveries of the positive sciences, in ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... difficulties merely amuse a good glass-blower, but to an experimenter who wants to get on to other things before sufficient skill is acquired (in the movement of the hands and arms) the following method is recommended. First, use flint glass. Then, assuming that any drawing ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... one day, as the invalid was sitting up in an easy-chair at the window—"Sam, it's so long since I was at East Point that I'm becoming more and more of a civilian. You army people begin to amuse me. There's always something funny about you. The Tutonians are the funniest of all. The little red-cheeked officers with their blond mustaches turned up to their eyes are too funny to live. You feel like kissing them and sending ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... is simply impossible for any thinking man at the present day to take any living interest, for example, in the ancient controversies. The "drum ecclesiastic" of the seventeenth century would sound a mere lullaby to us. Here and there a priest or a belated dissenting minister may amuse himself by threshing out once more the old chaff of dead and buried dogmas. There are people who can argue gravely about baptismal regeneration or apostolical succession. Such doctrines were once alive, no doubt, because they represented the form in which ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the spectators. ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... appeared to amuse his cousin also, for he could be heard laughing heartily, even above the purr of the now steadily going motor that sent the propellers whizzing around so rapidly; for there was one fore and aft, as is ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... "I know if I had told you earlier you would have protested you didn't want me, just because you foolishly fancied I should be lonely at the Range; but I have been very selfish, and you must have been horribly lonely too; and one of the nicest girls you ever saw is coming to amuse you. You can't help liking Flo. Of course I had to bring a maid; but you will have to make the best of us, because you couldn't stop us now if ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... directly in mid-channel. It is an odd thing, while very little ice-drift is met in Bering Sea, you have no sooner passed north of the straits than a white world surrounds you. Fog, ice, ice, fog—endlessly, with palisades of ice twelve feet high, east and west, far as the eye can see! The crew amuse themselves alternately gathering driftwood for fuel, and hunting {195} walrus over the ice. It is in the North Pacific that the walrus attains its great size—nine feet in length, broader across its back than ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... slow process. I'm glad it doesn't hurt, but it may at times. The worst, though, is that you will get very tired lying still so long. But I know what a brave little girl you are, and we will all do all we can to help and amuse you." ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... in the art of interesting the tender feelings by a pathetic representation of those minute, endearing, domestic circumstances, which take captive the soul before it has time to shield itself with the armour of reflection. To amuse, rather than to instruct, or to instruct indirectly by short inferences, drawn from a long concatenation of circumstances, is at once the business of this sort of composition, and one of ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... accept Lady Exmoor's kind proposal. I saw her about it the same morning we got Hilda's letter; and she offers 200L. a year, which, of course, is mere pocket money, as your board and lodging are all found for you, so to speak, and you'll have nothing to do but to dress and amuse yourself.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... that," said Monica; "she isn't a huffy person. I know she would like to see you—she said to me once that the idea of coming didn't seem to amuse you, but she seemed disposed to sympathise with you for that. Just write and say you ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in summer, there is so much to delight and amuse in Oxford. {2} What day can be happier than that of which the morning is given (after a lively college breakfast, or a "commonising" with a friend) to study, while cricket occupies the afternoon, ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... it is, for the poor man is mad. I thought his madness would amuse them; it is very funny. But Allah knows that there is not a laugh in all their bodies. So I have kept him from ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... 1881.—This invalid life is too Epicurean. For five or six weeks now I have done nothing else but wait, nurse myself, and amuse myself, and how weary one gets of it! What I want is work. It is work which gives flavor to life. Mere existence without object and without effort is a poor thing. Idleness leads to languor, and languor to disgust. Besides, here is the spring ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... minister at Vienna endeavoured to amuse the queen with the strongest assurances of his master's friendship, a body of five-and-thirty thousand men began their march for Germany, in order to join the elector of Bavaria; another French army was assembled upon the Rhine; and the count de Belleisle being provided ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... too much pains to be intelligible to young persons, if I had a mind to open myself to them. They certainly do not desire I should. You like my gossiping to you, though you seldom gossip with me. The trifles that amuse my mind are the only points I value now. I have seen the vanity of every thing serious, and the falsehood of every thing that pretended to be serious. I go to see French plays and buy French china, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... served to amuse my mind, but no spar could I see. Another night came on, and, overcome by hunger, thirst, and weariness, I lay down in the bottom of the boat to sleep. At length I awoke. Some time must have passed since I lay down. I felt so low, that I scarcely expected to live through another day should ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Asa-folk thought that great honor was shown to Balder each time any thing refused to hurt him; and to show their love for him, as well as to amuse themselves, they often hewed at him with their battle-axes, or struck at him with their sharp swords, or hurled toward him their heavy lances. For every weapon turned aside from its course, and would neither mark nor bruise the shining target at which it was aimed; and Balder's princely ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... the monk, muttering as he went up the winding stair, "carry him his trumpery with all despatch. Alas! that man, with so many noble objects of pursuit, will amuse himself like a jackanape, with a laced jerkin and a cap and bells!—I must now to the melancholy work of consoling that which is well-nigh inconsolable, a ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... more negligently put together, to strike the Fancy of a common and unlearned Beholder: Some Parts are made stupendiously magnificent and grand, to surprize with the vast Design and Execution of the Architect; others are contracted, to amuse you with his Neatness and Elegance in little. *So, in Shakespeare, we may find Traits that will stand the Test of the severest Judgment; and Strokes as carelessly hit off, to the Level of the more ordinary Capacities: Some Descriptions ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... mind was that the occupation of Leghorn was only the prelude to an invasion of Corsica in force. "I have no doubt," he wrote to the Viceroy, "but the destination of the French army was Corsica, and it is natural to suppose their fleet was to amuse ours whilst they cross from Leghorn." Thus reasoning, he announced his purpose of rejoining the admiral as soon as possible, so as not to lose his share in the expected battle. "My heart would break," he says to Jervis, "to be absent at ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... us be literary;—a sad falling off, but it is always a consolation. If 'Othello's occupation be gone,' let us take to the next best; and, if we cannot contribute to make mankind more free and wise, we may amuse ourselves and those who like it. What are you writing? I have been scribbling at intervals, and Murray will be ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... In the middle of the night, a large company of elves assembled at the place; and the man, peeping out from his hiding-place, was frightened out of his wits. After a while, however, the elves began to feast and drink wine, and to amuse themselves by singing and dancing, until at last the man, caught by the infection of the fun, forgot all about his fright, and crept out of his hollow tree to join in the revels. When the day was about to ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... rest of the day to think where. I should go abroad and amuse myself; but your ideas of amusement are, most likely, not mine. At any rate, wherever you go, I can always supply you with money, when you want it; you can write to me, after you have been away some little time, and I can write back, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... from Prince Metternich that we all loved so much to play it, adding that he would like to see the game himself. "We are going to have a mock battle this afternoon," said he. "All these generals and officers who are here have come from everywhere to take part I think it will amuse you to see it, if you have never seen anything of ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... and caressing sister. Is it not hard that she should be torn from this quiet little haven of domestic duties and family affection to be bound hand and foot in the chains of art, and flung into the arena to amuse that great ghoul-faced thing, the public? The white slave does not complain. While as yet she may, she presides over the cheerful table; and the beautiful small hands are helpful, and that light morning costume is a wonder of simplicity and grace. And then the garden, and the soft summer air, and ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Count. "This is a magic sack which has the property of turning anything inside it into whatever its owner wishes. I thought it might amuse you." ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... should take a share in it. This was done, on her part, principally in affectionate remembrance of the old times when she lived under the care of the clown's wife, and when she had learnt cribbage from Mr. Peckover to amuse her, while the frightful accident which had befallen her in the circus was still a recent event. It was characteristic of the happy peculiarity of her disposition that the days of suffering and affliction, and the after-period of ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... chief's hand in a dish of water which a servant offers, and after wiping it dry with his own scarf makes way for his neighbour. After this refreshment the chief and his guests sit down in the public hall, and amuse themselves with chess, draughts or games of chance, or perhaps dancing-girls are called in to exhibit their monotonous measures, or musicians and singers, or the never-failing favourites, the Bhats and Charans. At sunset the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... crowd just lives as if it were soaked and sodden in the city's vast beer output. It is content to let a few men and a few big concerns monopolize all the business. It scarcely has energy enough to try to amuse itself. It goes to bed at half past nine, and never thoroughly wakes up. The town is sleepy, notwithstanding its size and its boasted progress. It grows because it can't help itself. The people appear to be good because they've not energy enough ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... People looked uneasy and ashamed as though a door had been suddenly opened on a terrible secret thing that was customarily locked up in a closet. But the uncomfortable feeling soon passed, and they began to talk about the strange woman and to gossip and play and amuse themselves with her sorrow. A crowd collected about the aide, who grew more and more voluble and important each time he repeated ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... pale small smile fell like a snowflake upon Hilda's mood, and was swallowed up. "You are very preposterous," she said. "Go on. You always amuse one." Then, as if Hilda's going on were precisely the thing she could not quite endure, she said quickly, "The Coromandel is telegraphed from ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... into them, and that the upper margins of them come only about an inch above your shoe-tops. People who have no business to do so, are thus enabled, when you are seated, to see the tops of your socks and to amuse themselves by counting the tin tags with which they are adorned. Also, the socks, being so short, become better pullers than the garters, so that instead of the garters holding the socks up, the socks pull the garters down. This usually ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... beat an old man to death," he gasped finally. "I'll let the scoundrel go. He's had enough and he won't fight. Let's mosey along back to the schooner and leave them here to amuse themselves the best ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... widower. Hudjadge, king of Persia, could not sleep, and commanded Fitead, his porter and jailer, under pain of death, to find some one to tell him tales. Fitead's daughter, who was only 11, undertook to amuse the king with tales, and was assisted in private by the sage Abou'melek. After a perfect success, Hudjadge married Moradbak, and at her recommendation, Aboumelek was appointed overseer of the whole empire.—Comte ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... a shed," he said. "It was meant to be a cow-house, but uncle lets me have it to amuse ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... cheers were given for the little master; and after the ceremony was over, Miss Bertram told her little nephews to amuse themselves quietly for another half hour before ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... was merely a sort of armour she put on in self-defence. She fought every inch of the way—every inch. She never lost patience, even after hope was gone. Everything she could think of she did, trying endless devices to interest and amuse him—for years Francis drove with her every day. And finally she accepted the truth with the same courage with which she had fought against it—the courage that knows when it is beaten—and ceased to try and rouse him. He hasn't been outside his ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... that the person to lose his place would be Leach himself. "It is quite exciting!" she thought; "I was wondering a while ago what I should do to amuse myself in the country, and here I am called upon at once to remedy wrongs and settle village feuds! Nothing could be more novel and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... appears to amuse you, fair huntress? I might apologise for it—since I can assure you it is not my own conception, nor is it to my taste any ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... uncontrollable laughter, at the squawk of amazement from fowls which, having gained their old haunt, had found Jimmy there waiting to receive them. As for ourselves, I doubt if we ever enjoyed anything better. A simple thing, perhaps, to amuse grown-up white folk—a fat, perspiring Chinaman, and eight or ten lubras chivying fowls; but it is this enjoyment of simple things that makes life in the Never-Never all ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the most hidden movements of his enemies. Cinq-Mars lacked the caution necessary for a conspirator. His purposes became evident to the king, who had no thought of exchanging his great minister for a frivolous boy who was only fitted to amuse his hours of relaxation. The outcome of the affair appears in a piece of news published in the Gazette de France on ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... you'll amuse yourself this morning," Furley observed, "and I'm afraid I sha'n't be able to get out for the flighting ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not have said so if you had seen bad weather; and moreover, it is one thing to be a passenger with nought to do but to amuse yourself, and another to be always hauling at ropes and washing down decks as a sailor. I am glad night is coming on, for I feel strange in this country I know nothing of, and in the dark one place ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... will take a look among these rocks for a ptarmigan for supper; so you can amuse yourself watching Maximus build ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... spear, and to the habit of defending themselves from it. They begin by throwing reeds at each other, and are soon very expert. They also, from the time when they can run, until prompted by manhood to realize their sports, amuse themselves with stealing the females, and treat them at this time very little worse ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... tent. At the conclusion of the outbreak Mrs. Livingston gave the signal to rise and the girls crowded out with flushed faces and laughing eyes, a group of them surrounding Tommy, asking her questions in the hope that she might amuse them with other funny remarks. This gathering was interrupted by the voice of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... little brother, who would cast aside his toys and take his stand beside the piano as soon as he perceived that Marianne's lesson was about to begin. There he would remain until the lesson was finished, listening intently to everything that was played or spoken. At other times he would amuse himself by finding simple chords on the instrument, striking them over and over again, and bending his head to catch the harmonies thus produced. At length Leopold Mozart began to teach him, half in fun at first, but very soon in earnest, for it was apparent ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... greatest moment to ascertain precisely what his feelings were during this summer with regard to Harriet. Hogg has printed two letters in immediate juxtaposition: the first without date, the second with the post-mark of Rhayader. Shelley ends the first epistle thus: "Your jokes on Harriet Westbrook amuse me: it is a common error for people to fancy others in their own situation, but if I know anything about love, I am NOT in love. I have heard from the Westbrooks, both of whom I highly esteem." He begins the second with these words: ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... once tell the news. She wanted to amuse herself with her victim before she destroyed her; and she had hardly yet made up her mind as to the way which she would take to inform the family of Sacred Wind of the secret she had ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... the Pombo, whether to amuse me or to show off his riches, ordered about one hundred ponies, some with magnificent harness, to be brought up; and, mounting the finest, and holding in his hand that dreadful taram, rode round the hill on which the ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... sprang up to catch the supposed eavesdropper, when he at once calmed them by throwing his voice in another direction, and then letting them into the secret. He was also, in his way, a fair actor; and, with the late Mr. John Brown, the Horncastle Laureate, and others, he helped to amuse considerable audiences, in town and neighbourhood. In comedy he could take all the parts himself, rapidly changing his dress, and at one moment adopting the high falsetto tones of an old crone, and the ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... not a man on a tedious job amuse himself? Piloting her over to the small room in the rear, he pointed down at the boards. She gave one look and then stepped ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... because the naked pure and simple must not enter the drawing-room or is in danger of taking cold, that the naked with his clothes on will also take cold or must stay in his bedroom. Hold to it eternally that the clad man is still naked if it amuse you,—'tis designated in the bond; but the so-called contradiction is a sterile boon. Like Shylock's pound of flesh, it leads to no consequences. It does not entitle you to one drop of his Christian blood either in the way of catarrh, social exclusion, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... have been as good a husband as a voyageur could be. And Mackinac is so dull in winter she can amuse herself but little. It was hard for her to wait your return. Now she will not look at you. It ...
— The Black Feather - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... changed since I was here some little time ago to announce my arrival in Italy (solemn occasion), when I had to amuse myself for an hour or so with Baudelaire in the library, Mrs. Nichol being engaged upon "house-accounts." This time, as I enter the studio, she is playing cards with a pretty handmaiden, amid peals of laughter. She often plays cards. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Sheila with quite a new interest in her face; and she came forward as though she would have gone down on her knees and begged this great favor of him. "Do, Mr. Ingram! We should try to amuse you some way, and the weather is sure to be fine. Shall we keep a room for you? Can you come on Friday and stay till the Monday? It is a great difference there will be in the place if you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... plenty to amuse us. Crossing the bar at daybreak with a fair breeze, we ran along outside the line of islands which fringe the coast of Georgia, and which are devoted to the cultivation of "sea-island cotton." The water teemed with fish, and birds ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... the traditions and accepted beliefs which bind together clans or families, and assign to every man a satisfactory function in life. The vivid realisation of history goes naturally with a love—excessive or reasonable—of the old order; and Scott, though writing carelessly to amuse idle readers, was stimulating the historical conceptions, which, for whatever reason, were most uncongenial to the Utilitarian ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... business in my hands," said the lawyer, on the journey to town, "and go and amuse yourself on the Continent. I can't blame you for falling in love with Miss Restall; I ought to have foreseen the danger, and waited till she had left us before I invited you to my house. But I may at least warn you to carry the matter no ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... to incarnate the divine ideas from which all its glories must flow, it must be attributed in part to the artists themselves; in part to the public for whom they labor, and whom they too often seek only to amuse. They clutch at the ephemeral bouquets of the passing passions of a day, not caring to wait for the unfading crowns of amaranth. If the artist will stoop to linger in the Circean hall of the senses, he must not be astonished if good and earnest men should reproach him with the triviality of a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of mankind keeps itself in constant motion like bubbles of water racing around a pool at the foot of a water-fall—or like rabbits hurrying into their warrens and immediately hurrying out again. Whereas, while these antics amuse and sadden us, we for the most part remain where we are. Hence our wants are few; they are generally most courteously supplied without our asking; or, if we happen to be momentarily forgotten, we can quickly secure anything in the neighbourhood by ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... not object to working—that is to say, we pride ourselves on having a job. We like to be moderately busy. We would not have enough to amuse us all day if we did not go to the office in the morning; but what we do is not work! It is occupation perhaps—but there is no labor about it, either of mind or body. It is a sinecure—a "cinch." We could stay at home and most of us would not be missed. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... day's fighting, there happened an affair which served to amuse us not a little on our return to our camp that night. The tories, who, from time to time had fallen into our hands, were often easing their vexation, by saying, that it was true, "Marion had proved too cunning for colonel Tynes and captain Barfield, and other British and loyal officers, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... at permanent conviction. Sometimes, when Lincoln's friends urged him to raise a storm of applause, which he could always do by his happy illustrations and amusing stories, he refused, saying, 'The occasion is too serious; the issues are too grave. I do not seek applause, or to amuse the people, but to convince them.' It was observed in the canvass that while Douglas was greeted with the loudest cheers, when Lincoln closed the people seemed serious and thoughtful, and could be heard all through the crowd, gravely and anxiously discussing the subjects ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... composition—a very rare thing indeed; for genuine sea-songs didn't often get into print and weren't enjoyed by landsmen when they did. The setting is that of a merchantman carrying passengers whose discomforts rather amuse ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... felt crushed. She did not understand him. What matter if the gossips did amuse themselves at her expense? And with falsehoods, too! She was used to it, and had a sufficiently thick skin not to feel the stings of such insects. Was he going to turn from her for such a reason as this? From her, who would ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... last king, is said to have fallen under the fascination of a beautiful woman and to have spent his time in undignified carousals. He built a mountain of flesh and filled a tank with wine, and to amuse her he caused 3,000 of his courtiers to go on all fours and drink from the tank like ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... Arden interjected with just a hint of malice. "What a pity you must be chained down by inexorable duty, while we fly round and amuse ourselves." ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Flemming, having done as his friend desired, "tell me something of Heidelberg and its University. I suppose we shall lead about as solitary and studious a life here as we did of yore in little Gottingen, with nothing to amuse us, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... imagined they had caught a glimpse of his meaning, and set him down in their minds for a sort of gentleman conjuror, who intended to amuse them before the ball with some tricks of legerdemain. Under this impression, they became very impatient to follow him, as they had made up their minds not to be drunk before supper. The ladies, too, were extremely ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... think it would amuse you to go and see a few people," said Acton. "You are having a very quiet time of it here. It 's a dull ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... that the bomb would have had less effect behind the door than in front of it? And the little cavity under the floor, do you believe that a genuine revolutionary, such as you have here in Russia, would amuse himself by penetrating to the villa only to draw out two nails from a board, when one happens to give him time between two visits to the dining-room? Do you suppose that a revolutionary who wished to avenge the dead of Moscow and who could succeed in getting so far as the door behind ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... delightful to observe the nimbleness with which they pieced broken ends, as the mule carriage began to recede from the fixed roller beam, and to see them at leisure, after a few seconds' exercise of their tiny fingers, to amuse themselves in any attitude they chose, till the stretch and winding on were once more completed. The work of these lively elves seemed to resemble a sport, in which habit gave them a pleasing dexterity. Conscious of their skill, they were delighted to show it off to any stranger. As to exhaustion ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... for a long time after we drove away, and it was only when we halted and a soldier got down to kill a great rattlesnake near the ambulance, that my thoughts were diverted. The man brought the rattles to us and the new toy served to amuse my little son. ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... tell," briskly said the fair narrator. "But I know that the ladies of the court did not. As the king retired, and we remained in the opera boxes to amuse ourselves a little with the display, we heard, to our astonishment, a proposal that the tables should be cleared away, and the ladies invited to a dance upon the spot. The proposal was instantly followed by the officers climbing into the boxes, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... "Take the children for walks," that was a thing she had not thought of, and she did not relish the idea and as to going into the drawing-room, she could very well dispense with that. She was not aware that Mrs. Arlington intended her accomplished young governess to help to amuse her guests. Excessively annoyed, Isabel repaired to her own room to calm her ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... rapidly grew old after childbirth. Numbers of young girls and women were accustomed to bathe perfectly naked in the river just before our tent; I employed them to catch small fish for baits and for hours they would amuse themselves in this way, screaming with excitement and fun, and chasing the small fry with their long clothes in lieu of nets; their figures were generally well shaped, but both men and women fell off in the development of the legs. ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... no trip for you to-morrow," said Mrs. Racer kindly. "Never mind, I'll amuse you while the boys are away pretending they are detectives," and ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... multiply words in a case so clear; and, indeed it is needless to say anything more about Mr Sadler's book. We have, if we do not deceive ourselves, completely exposed the calculations on which his theory rests; and we do not think that we should either amuse our readers or serve the cause of science if we were to rebut in succession a series of futile charges brought in the most angry spirit against ourselves; ignorant imputations of ignorance, and unfair complaints ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... favor. Follow Marius a little. He does not know you, it will be easy. Since a lass there is, try to get a sight of her. You must write us the tale. It will amuse his grandfather." ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the country he did not find dull exactly. To be sure it was vacation-time, and his whole life was a vacation, and summer was rather more difficult to dispose of than winter, for one had to make more of an effort to amuse himself. But Edith was never more charming than in this new dependence, and all his love and loyalty were evoked in caring for her. This was occupation enough, even if he had been the busiest man in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... merchant's ladies, who had heard something of my adventures, and found out that I was a young and personable man, with better manners than are usually to be found before the mast, invited me one evening to a tea-party, that I might amuse her friends with my adventures. They were most curious about the Negro queen, Whyna, inquiring into every particular as to her personal appearance and dress, and trying to find out, as women always do, if there was any thing of an intrigue between us. They shook ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... those who undertake to plead the cause of the unfortunate who spend their days in continual agony, or he will make no impression.—I do not conceive how any man can display wit instead of feeling, upon this distracting subject, amuse with an antithesis, instead of forcible reasoning, and only dazzle where he ought to warm. I have no conception how a sensible and thinking being, can see a fellow-creature tortured and torn to pieces, perhaps his poor wife ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... has no nationality." The Admiral was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and kept a microscope to amuse his leisure. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... most books are written only to amuse the dispirited human mind for a brief hour, to make it forget for a moment its troubles. They are literary narcotics; they are sops to jaded appetites, that's all. A book, for example, that pictures an injured man discovering a great treasure, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... have often told you. Considering myself sufficiently incongruous on my legal eminence, I have until now suppressed my domestic destiny. You know M. R. F., but not as well as I do. If you knew him as well as I do, he would amuse you.' ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... they were awed. At the word of command they trooped into school, settled themselves at their desks, and took up their interrupted lessons with a docility at which Hester wondered, since for the moment she herself had lost all power to interest or amuse them. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... easily as possible. These are the main features of that demand for science, which is now so clamorous. Mr. Pease divides the lectures of the day into three classes; first those of which the object is instruction, then those designed to amuse, and last, those which profess to serve both these purposes; and he thinks it may be said of all, that they have no vital, form-giving, organific principle, running through them, developing properly each separate part, and uniting them all by its ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... to the honor of becoming your daughter-in-law, and can well afford to refuse Mr. Leigh's hand, when she hopes to be mistress of Le Bocage. She is pretty, and she knows it, and her cunning handling of her cards would really amuse and interest me, if I were not grieved at the deception she is practicing upon you. It has, I confess, greatly surprised me that, with your extraordinary astuteness in other matters, you should prove so obtuse concerning the machinations ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... from her words, of what she felt inwardly in her mind. She was, indeed, a perfect mistress of herself, and regulated her discourse and her actions by the rules of wisdom and sound policy, showing that a person of discretion does upon all occasions only what is proper to be done. She did not amuse herself on this occasion with listening to the praises which issued from every mouth, and sanction them with her own approbation; but, selecting the chief points in the speech relative to the future conduct of the war, she laid them before the Princes and great lords, to be deliberated ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... unpatriotic as to report back that treaty in a form to arouse the enthusiasm of the British press, I fear I should disregard senatorial courtesy. But the United States Senate does not happen to be composed of idiots, and the President may amuse himself writing treaties, but he ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... my brother Henri, who amuses himself in cutting out images: I amuse myself with clipping ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... erroneously called the baboon, is heard oftener than it is seen, while the common brown monkey, the bisa, and sacawinki rove from tree to tree, and amuse the stranger as he ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... it wouldn't be walking. However, that doesn't matter. It's mild enough for anything—for sitting out like all these people. And I've never walked in Paris at night. It would amuse me." ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... of the Taheitans. They rise with the sun, and hasten to rivers and fountains to perform an ablution equally reviving and cleanly. They pass the morning at work, or walk about till the heat of the day increases, when they retreat to their dwellings, or repose under some tufted tree. There they amuse themselves with smoothing their hair, and anoint it with fragrant oils; or they blow the flute, and sing to it, or listen to the songs of the birds. At the hour of noon, or a little later, they go to dinner. After their meals they resume their domestic amusements, ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... of these terrible events leaves me no repose! Nothing can amuse, nothing divert my mind. These images, these cares are always before me. The king will now say that these are the natural fruits of my kindness, of my clemency; yet my conscience assures me that I have adopted ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... well-founded alarm, there were some moments in which we sought to amuse ourselves, or, to use a common expression, to kill time. Cards afforded us a source of recreation, and even this frivolous amusement served to develop the character of Bonaparte. In general he was not fond of cards; but if he did play, vingt-et-un was his favourite game, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... are of two kinds: those whom I esteem, and who do not amuse me—often; and those who amuse me, ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about in consecrated and unconsecrated places, and the consequences were soon perceived. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... came back at night, her keel had sunk and sunk until it reached the bottom, so she could not be moved with all our pulling. Moreover the tide had gone out so far as to prevent any boat at all from coming to the dock wall round the harbour. I tried to amuse myself for an hour while the tide might rise; but at length, impatient and sleepy and ready for bed, to be off to-morrow at break of day, I determined to get on board ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... for it is full of the tales of the mighty King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. You will like to hear me read these brave stories when you are tired with your day's work, or on rainy days when you can neither hunt nor ride. Then you know not how to amuse yourselves and time is heavy on your hands, since you can neither read nor play upon the musical instruments that give us so ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... interest you to know how these intimes amuse themselves? Life is so simple in Washington, and there are so few distractions outside of society, that we only have our social pleasures to take the place of theaters and public entertainments. It is unlike Paris and ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... magazines and books upon the center table and more books upon a low tier of shelves on either side of the fireplace. The girl tried to amuse herself by reading, but she found her thoughts continually reverting to the unhappy situation of the king, and her eyes momentarily wandered to the cold and repellent ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... khorovod circle moved plump little Ustenka in her red beshmet and the stately Maryanka in her new smock and beshmet. Olenin and Beletski were discussing how to snatch Ustenka and Maryanka out of the ring. Beletski thought that Olenin wished only to amuse himself, but Olenin was expecting his fate to be decided. He wanted at any cost to see Maryanka alone that very day and to tell her everything, and ask her whether she could and would be his wife. Although that question had long been ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... the imagination of ambassadors, vied with regal magnificence, whilst their golden trappings could have stood even the test of Chinese curiosity. My coachmaker's bill for this year, if laid before the public, would amuse and astonish sober-minded people, as much as some charges which have lately appeared in our courts of justice for extraordinary coaches, and very extraordinary landaus. I will not enter into the detail of my extravagance in minor articles of expense; these, I thought, could never be ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... only of the ministration of good, but of the deceiving and deadly power of the evil angels, there is no one more distinct in its gratuitous, and unreconcilable sin, than that this—of all the living creatures between earth and sky—should be the one chosen to amuse the apathy of our murderous idleness, with skill-less, effortless, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... to win the game, Miss van Huysman," he replied with a gentle smile; "I only desired to amuse you and the other guests of Professor Marmion. Now, it may be that some excellent but ignorant people here may think that that ball is bewitched, as they would call it, so if you will give it to me, I will ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... going to sit up with you till She comes home," said Maria, "and we might as well amuse ourselves." She began to read, and Harry listened happily. But Maria, whenever she glanced over her book at her father's happy face, felt the ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... him whatever good things they can think of before he has time to desire them. From the time when elaborate mechanical toys are put into his reluctant hands, it is understood that he is to be amused, and need not amuse himself His education is arranged for him. His companions are chosen for him. There is nothing for him to do, and if there were, there is no incentive for him to do it. In the game of life he is never allowed to be the horse. It is his fate ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... concern Mankind. His Post is of the same Kind, and but the next in Order above that of Players on Instruments, admirable Voices, excellent Actors on the Stage, and famous Dancers; whose Province is only to amuse and recreate; and is therefore far below theirs, who are either busied in governing the State, defending their Country, improving the Minds, or relieving the Bodies ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... speakers looked towards a corner where a group of recognized wits had gathered, men of more or less celebrity, and several men of fashion. These gentlemen made common stock of their jests, their remarks, and their scandal, trying to amuse themselves till something should amuse them. Among this strangely mingled party were some men with whom Lucien had had transactions, combining ostensibly kind offices ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... comtesse," said the woman, "was engaged on a matter of business, but she begged monsieur be so kind as to wait, and to amuse himself with the books in the library, because she might be ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... energy, and no doubt he was then influenced by feelings of baffled hatred and revenge, from having failed in his much-vaunted determination to carry off in triumph one of their gins. I would sometimes amuse myself by asking him how he was to excuse himself to his friends for having failed in the premised exploit, but the subject was evidently a very unpleasant one, and he was always anxious to escape ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the right to shoot, and need take no precautions. But, in fact, a farmer, whether he has liberty or not, can usually amuse himself occasionally in that way. If his labourer sees him quietly slipping up beside the hedge with his double-barrel towards the copse in the corner where a pheasant has been heard several times lately, the labourer ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... making them serious, thoughtful, preparing them for the struggle for liberty which was soon to come. The plays of the time seemed too trifling or else too foul. The Puritans and the English people of the day were willing to be amused, if the stage would amuse them. They were willing to be taught, if the stage would teach them. But they were not willing to be amused by vice and foulness, and they were not willing to be taught by lecherous actors who parroted ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... spite of all this and a great deal more—ah! a very great deal that I have not time to tell you—you still care to come, I will do my best to amuse you. At any rate, we can read together; that will be something, if you don't find me too stupid. You must remember that I have only had a private education, and have never been to college like you. I shall be glad of the opportunity of rubbing up my ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... in nothing) and giving occasional dry wrinkly indications of crying—as if capable of torrents in a wetter season—at the thought that they were not allowed to go into Mr. Featherstone's room. For the old man's dislike of his own family seemed to get stronger as he got less able to amuse himself by saying biting things to them. Too languid to sting, he had the more ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... from the public view. But to Copernicus, steadily studying the subject, it became more and more a reality, and as this truth grew within him he seemed to feel that at Rome he was no longer safe. To announce his discovery there as a theory or a paradox might amuse the papal court, but to announce it as a truth—as THE truth—was a far different matter. He therefore returned to his little town ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the natural man takes a hand, but he is seen through civilized spectacles, not, as in your delightful books, with the eyes of the sympathetic sportsman. If Why-Why and Mr. Gowles amuse you a little, let this be my Diomedean exchange of bronze for gold—of the new Phaeacia for Kukuana land, or for that haunted city of Kor, in which your fair Ayesha dwells undying, as yet unknown to the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... work at home was subject to a disturbance which would have led him to seek other lodgings, could he have hoped to find any so cheap as these. The landlady's son, a lank youth of the clerk species, was wont to amuse himself from eight to ten with practice on a piano. By dint of perseverance he had learned to strum two or three hymnal melodies popularised by American evangelists; occasionally he even added the charm of his voice, which had a pietistic nasality not easily endured by an ear ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... before her glowing wheels. To these a thousand idle themes succeed, Deeds of all kinds, and comments to each deed. Here stocks, the state barometers, we view, That rise or fall by causes known to few; Promotion's ladder who goes up or down; Who wed, or who seduced, amuse the town; What new-born heir has made his father blest; What heir exults, his father now at rest; That ample list the Tyburn-herald gives, And each known knave, who still for Tyburn lives. So grows the work, and now the printer tries His powers no more, but leans ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... Occasionally also I amuse myself in my own fashion. Thus sure knowledge has come to me about certain epochs in the past in which I lived in other shapes, and I study those epochs, hoping that one day I may find time to write of them ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... squires, fasted in succession; and our chivalrous guide, for his part, "would have been heartily glad to have been penniless at Poitiers or Paris." Daily deaths made the camp a scene of continued mourning, and all the minstrels that had come across the sea to amuse their victor countrymen, like the poet who went with Edward II. to Bannockburn to celebrate the conquest of the Scots, found their gay imaginings turned ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... a light burden that he had to carry, the little uncle. Never, since his brother's intervention brought him back to France and placed him where he and his old friends could amuse themselves with conspiracies which, as Joubard said, did little harm to any one, had he been in a position of such real difficulty. Riette did not at all realise what she was bringing upon her father, when she slipped ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... and he talked so fast, and his ideas upon the subject were so original that he held me spellbound. At first I was inclined to be provoked: one does not like to be forcibly hypnotised, but gradually the situation began to amuse me, the more ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... that he was a traveller, and invited by the beauty of the evening and the place to repose a little and amuse himself with reading."—"I may as well repose myself too," said the sportsman, "for I have been out this whole afternoon, and the devil a bird have I seen ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... My silence appeared to amuse him. He studied me and looked unhurried and reflective. He stretched out a long, yellow arm in simulation of contented weariness. "I wonder why you wish to keep the prisoner with ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the middle of a furrow and glanced up, laughing. These thoughts seemed to amuse him greatly, and he was so carried away by them that he hardly knew whether or not he was still upon earth. It seemed to him that in a twinkling he had been lifted all the way up to ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... spring, and blackberries in autumn. But my chief remaining impressions of those days are attached to Hunter Street. My mother's general principles of first treatment were, to guard me with steady watchfulness from all avoidable pain or danger, and, for the rest, to let me amuse myself as I liked, provided I was neither fretful or troublesome. But the law was, that I should find my own amusement. No toys of any kind were at first allowed, and the pity of my Croydon aunt for my monastic poverty in this respect was boundless. On one of my birthdays, thinking to overcome ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... espalier through which she had to walk. But worse than this were the lewd looks that she knew were following her, and the laughter that greeted her ears. It was the type of laughter ordinarily heard at night when one passes a low dive, in which the scum of human society has gathered to amuse itself by ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... contemplate at the same time the many circumstances that might either allure or deter him from the prosecution of his idea. Consider him as a private gentleman, possessed of ease and independence, accustomed to employ and amuse his mind in retired study and philosophical speculation; arrived at that period of life, when the springs of activity and enterprize in the human frame have begun to lose their force! consider that ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... as you shall appoint—no need to say that, or my thanks—but this note troubles you, out of my bounden duty to help you, or Miss Mitford, to make the Painter run violently down a steep place into the sea, if that will amuse you, by further informing him, what I know on the best authority, that Wordsworth's 'bag-wig,' or at least, the more important of his court-habiliments, were considerately furnished for the nonce by Mr. Rogers from his own wardrobe, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Hill was fired only when the burghers were in the mood, but occasionally the artillery youths desired to amuse themselves, and then they operated the gun as rapidly as its mechanism would allow. When the big gun had been discharged, the young Boers were wont to climb on the top of the sandbags behind which it was concealed, and ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... passion of my nature. It rose before me, as the sun ascends before the Indian, until its fire drives him to the shade. I, too, have been scorched, have shrunk, and now I regret my shrinking. But time deals alike with all. I can now amuse myself only by images of the past; and, in the darkness and solitude of years, I take their Magic Lantern, and replace life by the strange, wild, and high-coloured extravagances, the ghosts and genii ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... flies regarded as splendid things with which to amuse the baby, but they were thought to be very useful as scavengers as they were often seen feeding on all kinds of refuse in the yard. Then, too, they seemed to be cleanly little things, for almost any time some of them could be ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... her generous affection, that was the precious oil through which floated her eccentricities like "flies as big as bumble-bees," would smooth over all appearance of ridicule in these reminiscences, they should never amuse any one save myself. But really, I cannot better carry out her restless desire of pleasing others, than by reproducing the merriment which throughout a long life was occasioned by her, who of all the Aunt Pollies that ever ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... love! They did not meet for a long time. And every day, when Gabriel came to fetch me for my walk, he only asked after her as he should have asked after my dearest friend. Of course, when she got better and he sat with us daily to help me to amuse her, they were thrown more together. It was a great joy to me to see how well ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... that bordered the terrace, and she admired the foliage of the apple-trees, over which Autumn, with liberal hand, had scattered gold and purple; the grass there was as high as her knee, and was fragrant and glossy. Above the apple-trees she saw the spire of the church at Cormeilles; it seemed to amuse itself watching the flying clouds. It was a high-festival day. The bells were ringing out a full peal; they spoke to this happy girl of that far-off, mysterious land which we remember, without ever having seen it. Their silvery voices were answered by the cheerful cackling ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... much less trouble, no doubt, to amuse ourselves with evil, rather than dispute about good. Moreover, I would give all the speeches made for forty years past at the Tribune for a trout, for one of Perrault's tales or ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... taken much pleasure in hearing me read about the different ways in which the little "Nursery" people amuse themselves. He is very anxious that they should, in return, know about the steamboat which his uncle brought him from the Centennial,—a real ...
— The Nursery, February 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Wherefore the occupation of play-actors, the object of which is to cheer the heart of man, is not unlawful in itself; nor are they in a state of sin provided that their playing be moderated, namely that they use no unlawful words or deeds in order to amuse, and that they do not introduce play into undue matters and seasons. And although in human affairs, they have no other occupation in reference to other men, nevertheless in reference to themselves, and to God, they perform other actions both serious and virtuous, such as prayer and the moderation ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... room for much reflection, even in a lad of fourteen, although at that age we are not much inclined to think. But Jack was in bed; his eyes were so swollen with the stings of the bees that he could neither read nor otherwise amuse himself; and he preferred his own thoughts to the gabble of Sarah, who attended him. So Jack thought, and the result of his cogitations we ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sir—a black silly circle. 'There you are, grinning idgits,' I says; 'now amuse yourselves with that, and while you're busy I'll go and cook the dinner and see if I can't get hold o' something for the Guvnors to cook ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... underwent. His chronicles were not dissertations to be coldly pondered over, and skeptically conned; they were read aloud at solemn festivals to listening thousands: they were to arrest the curiosity—to amuse the impatience—to stir the wonder of a lively and motley crowd. Thus the historian imbibed naturally the spirit of the tale-teller, as he was driven to embellish his history with the romantic legend—the awful superstition—the gossipy anecdote—which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... she ses arter they 'ad gone inside and 'er mother 'ad gone upstairs arter giving Ginger a bottle o' beer to amuse 'imself with; "I ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... his brother-in-law, Earl Ulf, had prepared a great feast for him. The earl was the most agreeable host, but the king was silent and sullen. The earl talked to him in every way to make him cheerful, and brought forward everything which he thought would amuse him; but the king remained stern, and speaking little. At last the earl proposed to him a game at chess, which he agreed to; and a chess-board was produced, and they played together. Earl Ulf was hasty in temper, stiff, and in nothing yielding; but everything he managed ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... beautiful night and the plaza presented a most animated aspect. Taking advantage of the freshness of the breeze and the splendor of the January moon, the people filled the fair to see, be seen, and amuse themselves. The music of the cosmoramas and the lights of the lanterns gave life and merriment to every one. Long rows of booths, brilliant with tinsel and gauds, exposed to view clusters of balls, masks strung by the eyes, tin toys, trains, carts, mechanical horses, carriages, steam-engines ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... clear, resonant tones, and in a calm, confident manner, at once resolute and reassuring. Looking back to see whence it came, my eyes were instantly riveted upon a figure only a few feet distant, whose appearance amazed if it did not for the moment amuse me. It was he who was giving the orders. At first, I thought he might be a staff officer, conveying the commands of his chief. But it was at once apparent that he was giving orders, not delivering them, and that he was ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... gaiety, which formed a bitter contrast with my mourning and my solitude. On the steps of the gate sat a young mother playing with her child. She kissed its little rosy mouth still impearled with drops of milk, and performed, in order to amuse it, a thousand divine little puerilities such as only mothers know how to invent. The father standing at a little distance smiled gently upon the charming group, and with folded arms seemed to hug his joy to his heart. I could not endure that spectacle. I closed the window with violence, ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... be born," is an ideal towards which my happiest dreams have ever struggled in vain. But would it work as a practical scheme? Speaking for myself, I can guarantee that under such circumstances I should potter about with many activities that would amuse my delicious leisure, but I doubt whether any of them would be regarded by society as a fit return for the pleasant livelihood that it gave me. And human society can only be supplied with the things that it needs if its members turn ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... better employer in the actor and manager, Paris, who pays him handsomely for the tragedies that at each successive exhaustion of his exchequer he is fain to write for the taste of a corrupt mob. [26] But at last Statius began to see the folly of all this. He grew tired of hiring himself out to amuse, of practising the affectation of a modesty, an inspiration, an emotion he did not feel, of hearing the false plaudits of rivals who he knew carped at his verses in his absence and libelled his character, of running hither and thither over Parnassus dragging his poor muse at the heels of some ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... letter to his friend Lucilius[21] makes the following interesting allusion to the fact. "You know," he says, "that my wife's idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind. If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for one. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious of her blindness, and consequently ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... a mere feeling of the other's lines by either force. Hooker vainly endeavored to ascertain Lee's strength at various places in his front. Lee, to good purpose, strove to amuse Hooker by his bustle and stir, to deceive him as to the weakness of his force, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... by appointment. She wanted to see him alone, and he informed her, that Mrs. Blathenoy was in the hotel, and would certainly receive and amuse Nesta for any ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... accomplish the same, whether you come to me as a suppliant, or do not supplicate, for a mighty contest awaits me, to release you from these evils. Wherefore, having heard one thing, be persuaded that I will not speak falsely. But if I speak falsely, and vainly amuse you, may I perish; but may I not perish, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... ferocity of the contest; rarely, even in struggles with a foreign foe, had the fighting been so keen.[22] The fierceness with which Harlaw was fought impressed the country so much that, some sixty years later, when Major was a boy, he and his playmates at the Grammar School of Haddington used to amuse themselves by mock fights in which they ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... children. She was a London girl, her head still dancing with the delights of her first season, and she had never been to a Sunday-school treat in her life. Madge Merewether, her old schoolfellow, had told her she was to help amuse the little girls. Heaven knew how she was to do it. Already the unintelligibility of Lancashire speech had filled her with dismay. The array of hard-faced little girls daunted her; she turned to the boys, but she only saw one—the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... said there was no such thing as an even break with Whispering Smith. A few men in a generation amuse, baffle, and mystify other men with an art based on the principle that the action of the hand is quicker than the action of the eye. With Whispering Smith the drawing of a revolver and the art of throwing his shots instantly from ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... restored in the dining tent. At the conclusion of the outbreak Mrs. Livingston gave the signal to rise and the girls crowded out with flushed faces and laughing eyes, a group of them surrounding Tommy, asking her questions in the hope that she might amuse them with other funny remarks. This gathering was interrupted by the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... to encourage you. You mustn't waste your talent. When we stay among the Rockies we will spend the days in the most beautiful places we can find and I shall take my pleasure in watching you at work. But didn't your fondness for sketching amuse the mess?" ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... selection has been made from this tender and helpful correspondence. When it first began the lads were too young to read the letters themselves, but he wrote long accounts of his work to be read to them, and it is pleasant to see how keen his eye became in noting such things as were likely to amuse them and to arrest their attention. Some of the letters are written in big letters resembling printed capitals. The brief, childlike letters that were sent to him by them were bound up into a paper volume, which he carried about with him during his Mongolian wanderings, and in looking them ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... in his good fortune, for just as the fellow Jeffs went forward, the helmsman began to hum over some sea-song, pretty loudly, to amuse himself; while he held his hand below his eyes and gazed over it forward, to see what was going on, and why his ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... natural and fit that Lyndsay should be present. It is more than likely that he had a leading hand in the enterprise. As tutor to the young Prince, it had been a recognised part of his duty to amuse him by various disguises; and he was likewise the first Scottish poet with an ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... assuaging her thirst with some lemonade. I then opened my box of surgical instruments, and approached the opening to the east which served us for a window, and which we could close by means of a curtain, that was now entirely raised to give air to our dear invalid, and to amuse my children, who were watching the storm. The mighty waves that broke against the rocks, the vivid lightning bursting through the castles of murky clouds, the majestic and incessant rolling of the thunder, formed one of those enchanting spectacles to which they had been ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... occupation of Leghorn was only the prelude to an invasion of Corsica in force. "I have no doubt," he wrote to the Viceroy, "but the destination of the French army was Corsica, and it is natural to suppose their fleet was to amuse ours whilst they cross from Leghorn." Thus reasoning, he announced his purpose of rejoining the admiral as soon as possible, so as not to lose his share in the expected battle. "My heart would break," he says to Jervis, "to be absent at such a glorious ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... but he also enjoined him to pursue manly sports as the best means of keeping up the full working power of his mind, as well as of enjoying the pleasures of intellect. "Every kind of knowledge," said he, "every acquaintance with nature and art, will amuse and strengthen your mind, and I am perfectly pleased that cricket should do the same by your arms and legs; I love to see you excel in exercises of the body, and I think myself that the better half, and ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Fatherland!' The lad snapped his fingers in the Prussian's face. Pierre's courage, instead of further angering the German, appeared to amuse him. ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... I think it's great having you here for the game, and mother and Lois. Wasn't I clever to get Frank to amuse Lo to-night? We're going to the theater, you know, something musical. I wish he could stay longer, but, of course, he can't; he'll have to ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... a most amusing game. When you play badly it amuses me, and when I play badly and lose my temper it certainly must amuse you." ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... disorder. Secret desires were excited, and but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate to the life the gestures and convulsions of those really affected, roved from place to place seeking maintenance ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... applying to business; and even when they began to abate, as it was only at intervals that he could attend to what was serious, he gave up a great part of his time to trifling and even childish occupations, which served to relieve or amuse his mind, enfeebled and worn out with excess of pain. Under these circumstances, the conduct of such affairs as occurred of course in governing so many kingdoms was a burden more than sufficient; but to push forward and complete the vast schemes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... heads towards the canal. Two rode horses of a dark bay colour, the third a dapple grey, and the fourth a sorrel. As soon as they had passed out of sight, Captain Salt ascended to the deck again and entered into a long conversation in Dutch with the fat boatman. As this did not amuse Tristram any more than the windmills of which the scenery was mainly composed, he remained below and, stretching himself again on the bench, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... darkness, thinks of her own wretchedness and, thinking of it, is held fast to it. Being miserable, she thinks to Self; thinking of Self, she is bound to the solitude of Self—blank solitude without fixed objects to amuse, without fixed Beauty to lead higher, to restore, to calm. Is all this tantamount to saying that when separated from God Spirit-life is less desirable than earth-life? It is: for then we are "dead" to celestial-living, and in Spirit-life all other living is miserable ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... too. It was funny. Much as she was sorry for Miss Peckham's fright, the situation altogether was one to amuse her. ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... you come into this house and the little fortune that has been yours since you left for the Arctic, you may meet with some puzzling things; you may even be tempted to say, or think, that the old man must have been a little 'cracked.' But one must amuse oneself, especially when thought gnaws and time hangs heavy; and if there happens to be a way of attaining one's chief desires which is not altogether a tiresome and conventional way, why not choose it, as I have done? Should my whims cost you ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... replied; "they are as bad as they can be; and the resident will put them all to rights when he arrives, and save me a vast amount of trouble. In the meantime you may amuse yourselves with hunting. There must be an abundance of game in the neighbourhood, as the tigers alone, I am told, carry off at least a dozen peasants a week; and there are deer, bears, and wild boars without number. You will find it a perfect ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... written only to amuse the dispirited human mind for a brief hour, to make it forget for a moment its troubles. They are literary narcotics; they are sops to jaded appetites, that's all. A book, for example, that pictures an injured man discovering a great treasure, and then using ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... have long practiced together, who can dancer the lancers and Virginia reels as easily on horseback as on foot, and who can ride at the ring as well as Lord Lindesay himself, or as well as the pretty English girls who amuse themselves ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... he knows how to disguise; and his plan is to amuse you. Be sure the wretch makes sport of you by these fair speeches. I must confess that I am very unhappy. After all my pains to live honourably, and to repel the addresses of a vile seducer, I must be exposed to his vexatious ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... the theme of my northern journey they desired me to give them some information with regard to England; I therefore related various circumstances which I thought would amuse them. Amongst other things I described the track of the sun in the heavens in those northern latitudes; this they fully understood, and it excited their most unqualified admiration. I now spoke to them of still ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... from the bed and was holding him out to his teacher with such a happy face that the young man felt that it would never do to disappoint him. So he received the baby gingerly in both hands and set him on his knee, but he did not know what to say or do to amuse the child, and it was an immense relief to him when Little Brother held out his hands to Theo, and the boy took ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... his fashions and his simplicity. There was then also in Florence a young man of a mighty pleasant humor and marvellously adroit in all he had a mind to do, astute and plausible, who was called Maso del Saggio, and who, hearing certain traits of Calandrino's simplicity, determined to amuse himself at his expense by putting off some cheat on him or causing him believe some strange thing. He chanced one day to come upon him in the church of San Giovanni and seeing him intent upon the carved work and paintings of the pyx, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... his happy hunting ground. He possessed social talents, he could sing and play and amuse the ladies, and consequently he was a great favourite. He dressed beyond his means; but he never borrowed money from any of his friends or aristocratic acquaintances. He even went to the length of buying two worthless shares and mentioning on every possible occasion that ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... did what they could to make the time go for him—setting around sociable in the express office telling stories about other hangings they'd happened to get up against, and trying all they knowed how to amuse him, and giving him more seegars and drinks than he really cared to have. But as he was kept hitched to both handles of the safe right enough, and handcuffed, and as the two members of the Committee watching him—while they was as pleasant with him as anybody—never had their hands ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... hardly worthy a thought; for they swerve to and fro according to events which they do not comprehend or attempt to shape. When the time for reconstruction comes, they will want the old political system of caucuses, Legislatures, etc., to amuse them and make them believe they are real sovereigns; but in all things they will follow blindly the lead of the planters. The Southern politicians, who understand this class, use them as the French do their masses —seemingly consult their prejudices, while they make their orders and enforce them. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... did she amuse me, although without intending it, that I thought it would be only fair, in my turn, to do something for her entertainment. I was engaged one day in shaping a wooden foil with my knife, whistling and singing ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... know. Might let you amuse yourself if there were no one in sight. But I've got nothing against you, young man. I've lived long enough to forgive ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... one's life there is an opportunity to make some one happy. One might amuse herself by keeping a diary of her efforts ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... consort with our neighbours), and an annual visit to our paternal grandfather's; where himself, our kind grandmamma, a maiden aunt, and two or three elderly ladies and gentlemen, were the only persons we ever saw. Sometimes our mother would amuse us with stories and anecdotes of her younger days, which, while they entertained us amazingly, frequently awoke—in ME, at least—a secret wish to see a little ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... must be off to see the owners. Keep out of the way as well as you can. I suppose you will find plenty to amuse yourself." ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... on, "that you will do the work that you came here to do. There is no reason why you should not do it from the Cabinet. But there is the rest—your own life. Are you never going to amuse yourself, to take holiday, to draw some of the outside things into your scheme ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thing we can amuse you with, unless you are fond of music. Maybe you are," and Mrs. Dobson led the way to a little music-room, where, in the recess of a bow window a closed piano ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... resting, Forester paddled them about. The boys asked him when he was going to let them row, and Forester told them that perhaps they had had drilling enough for one day, and if they chose he would not require any thing more of them, but would paddle them about and let them amuse themselves. But they were all eager to learn ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... "Juvenile literature" was but scantily known at that time, and the enormous and extraordinary contribution made by the United States to this department of human happiness was locked in the bosom of futurity. The young Hawthorne, therefore, like many of his contemporaries, was constrained to amuse himself, for want of anything better, with the Pilgrim's Progress and the Faery Queen. A boy may have worse company than Bunyan and Spenser, and it is very probable that in his childish rambles our author may have had associates ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... for his safety. Work invariably brought on a cough, and as he came from a family whose lungs had formed the staple conversation of their lives, he had been compelled to abandon it, and at last it came to be understood that if he would only consent to amuse himself, and not get into trouble, nothing more would be expected of him. It was not much of a life for a man of spirit, and at times it became so unbearable that Mr. Cox would disappear for days together in search of ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... acquiescence, till a sufficient force shall appear to support them. The authors and promoters of this desperate conspiracy have, in the conduct of it, derived great advantage from the difference of our intentions and theirs. They meant only to amuse by vague expressions of attachment to the parent state, and the strongest protestations of loyalty to me, whilst they were preparing for a general revolt. On our part, though it was declared in your last session that a rebellion existed within the province of the Massachusetts' ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... went away. But she got over that mostly, though the lad's name was, never mentioned between us. That day I was so hungry for the sight of her that I got my field-glass—used to watch my vessels and rafts making across the bay—and trained it on the window where I knew she sat. I thought, it would amuse her, too, when I went back at night, if I told her what she had been doing. I laughed to myself at the thought of it as I adjusted the glass. . . . I looked. . . . There was no more laughing. . . . I saw her, and in front of her a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for this to be made ready MacQueen hummed a snatch of a popular song. It happened to be a love ditty. Boone ground his teeth and glared at him, which appeared to amuse the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Commission. 'What do you want?' said the President. 'Why are you here for the third time? You have had your orders given you.' 'I daresay I have,' he retorted, 'but I am not going to be put off with THEM. I want some cutlets to eat, and a bottle of French wine, and a chance to go and amuse myself at the theatre.' 'Pardon me,' said the President. 'What you really need (if I may venture to mention it) is a little patience. You have been given something for food until the Military Committee shall have met, and then, doubtless, you will receive your proper reward, seeing that it ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... away in a gharry to go "Doon the Water" in Denny's steamer, in November 1885. They had far more fun, they say, before we came; a rupee went farther, and so on; and I quite believe it—we did not grab the country to amuse them! ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... am going back to his place; he said I might amuse myself with his books till he came in. I haven't had dinner yet,' and Cecil felt a momentary importance ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... and eke of railway companies, must be taken without question," he answered. "No, I shall keep your pieces of silver. I mean to invest them. It will amuse me to learn how much I can make on an initial capital of twelve francs, fifty centimes. Will you allow that? I shall be scrupulously accurate, and submit an audited account at Christmas. Even my worst enemies have never alleged dishonesty against ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... are great? I could fancy that, in The Tempest, he wrought with a peculiar consciousness of this power, smiling as the word of inimitable felicity, the phrase of incomparable cadence, was whispered to him by the Ariel that was his genius. He seems to sport with language, to amuse himself with new discovery of its resources. From king to beggar, men of every rank and every order of mind have spoken with his lips; he has uttered the lore of fairyland; now it pleases him to create a being neither man nor fairy, a something between brute and human nature, and to endow its purposes ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... their playgrounds were thrown open to the children during the long vacation, with kindergarten teachers to amuse them, and vacation schools tempted the little ones from the street into the cool shade of the classrooms. They wrought in wood and iron, they sang and they played and studied nature,—out of a barrel, to be sure, that came twice a week from Long ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... poses—-melodramatic, in fact—and do unlikely things. But this fault is the fault of a great nature, grandeur exalted into grandiosity, till the heroes of these plays, "Hernani," "Marion Delorme," "Le Roi d'Amuse," loom and stalk across the scene like epic demigods of more than mortal stature and mortal passions. But Hugo was not only a great dramatist and a great poet, but a most clever playwright. "Hernani" ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... parish where he could have been better served with viversthat I must say and also that the steam from the kitchen is very gratifying to my nostrils;and if ye have ony household affairs to attend to, Mrs. Griselda, never make a stranger of meI can amuse mysell very weel with the larger ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... restless.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, he is only locally at rest. A chymist is locally at rest; but his mind is hard at work. This gentleman has done with external exertions. It is too late for him to engage in distant projects.' BOSWELL. 'He seems to amuse himself quite well; to have his attention fixed, and his tranquillity preserved by very small matters. I have tried this; but it would not do with me.' JOHNSON, (laughing) 'No, Sir; it must be born with a man to be contented to take up with little things. Women have a great advantage that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... being warned by Ellen from philandering if she so much as talked five minutes to any marriageable man under eighty or over eighteen. She had always laughed at the warning with unfeigned amusement. This time it did not amuse her—it irritated her a ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is peculiarly painful to the sick. And when a patient has compulsory occupations to engage him, instead of having simply to amuse himself, it becomes doubly injurious. The friend who remains standing and fidgetting about while a patient is talking business to him, or the friend who sits and proses, the one from an idea of not letting the patient talk, the other from an idea of amusing him,—each is equally ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... the old Norman should not prove sufficient— sufficient to convince the English nation of his divine right, and that of his heirs for ever, to dispose of it and its weal at his and their pleasure, with or without laws, as they should see fit. A pretty scene this to amuse a king with, whose ancestor, the one from whom he directly claimed, had so lately seated himself and his line by battle- -by battle with the English people on those very questions; who had 'beaten them in' in their mutinies with his single sword, 'and taken all from them'; ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... were no such things in Peking. But Nelly was quite lively although she was shut up in a compound all the time. She would have been ashamed to feel dull and cross, for she had once heard the Minister's wife say, 'Nelly Grey is an intelligent child and has sense enough to amuse herself.' Since then she had felt that she must not let the lady change her opinion. Besides, there were several other foreign[1] children in Peking whom Nelly saw from time to time. In her compound, living next door, was Baby Buckle. He had only been there six months, for that was his age, ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... the enjoyment of wealth, and of high social standing, and wholly given up to the pleasures of this world, knowing that one of his slaves was religious, and happening to see him in the garden near the porch of his house, called him up rather to amuse himself than for any serious purpose. When the slave came to him, cap in hand, he said, "Tom, what do you think of me; do you believe I will be one of the elect ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... about the size and weight of Job; the other was a young puppy of good family, whose tastes had unfortunately led him into such low society. Seeing the mild expression of Job's face, and confident in their own prowess, they resolved to amuse themselves at his expense, and to this end drew near to him. Unobserved by their intended victim, with a rapid motion they endeavoured to push him head foremost into the river, Master Puppy having dexterously seized hold of his tail to ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... fisherman's cottage.[FN430] She found the young girl, Muhammed's sister, sitting alone, and thus addressed her: "My dear, why are you thus alone and sad? Tell your brother to fetch you the rose of Arab Zandyk, that it may sing to you and amuse you, instead of your being thus lonely and low-spirited." When her brother came home, he found her displeased and asked her, "Why are you vexed, my sister?" She replied, "I should like the rose of Arab Zandyk, that it may sing ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... lieutenant, sitting down in the chair John Hadden used to occupy. "First, I must tell you that I am going away to sea. I have a mother who is a great invalid, and requires the constant attendance of a sensible, good-tempered Christian woman who can read to her, and talk and amuse her. I know no person so well qualified for the post as you are. My sister, who lives with her, thinks so likewise, and will be most thankful to have your assistance. In this way, if you will accept our offer, you yourself will be well provided for. Now, with ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... to shoot, and need take no precautions. But, in fact, a farmer, whether he has liberty or not, can usually amuse himself occasionally in that way. If his labourer sees him quietly slipping up beside the hedge with his double-barrel towards the copse in the corner where a pheasant has been heard several times lately, the labourer watches him with delight, and says nothing. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Negro Minstrels last night. First-rate talent never goes begging in our city." George sips his coffee and smiles. Wonderfully clever these editors are, he thinks. They have nice apologies for public taste always on hand; set the country by the ears now and then; and amuse themselves with carrying on the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... leave such a matter in your hands. It was not likely that among your acquaintances there was one whom I would have cared to welcome to my house. But that you should have gone to your employees—that, indeed, is funny! You do amuse me ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the time of the halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a firebrand by the unburnt end and start off on a run through the camp; the other would follow at speed, trying to trip up the first, to collar him or push him over, and so force him to drop the brand. The second would ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the back of the sun, please your Majesty," said Capricious. "They play games all day long to amuse their new Queen, and they never quarrel except for the right to do things for her little Majesty. If she stays there much longer it will soon be impossible to distinguish a wymp from ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... happened that Fred knew this fact, for he had many a time seen the butcher's boy going and coming. Gabe had a big whistle, and used to amuse himself as he walked to and from home in trying to get the airs from the popular ragtime ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... strengthening his views by this French sentence. "C'est bien pour un garcon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could amuse himself in this way," he added in Russian—but pronouncing the word with a French accent—having noticed that Zherkov could ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... incubation; and Siegfried Wagner conducts. With infinite labour Wagner built this magnificent theatre, the most perfect machine in the world for the reproduction of great art-works; and Mrs. Wagner has given it as a toy to her darling son that he may amuse himself by playing with it. And, like a baby when it gets a toy, Siegfried Wagner is breaking it to pieces to see what there is inside. Unless it is taken from him until he has spent a few years in learning to play upon instead of with it, Bayreuth will quickly be deserted. Already it is ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... correctly a great number of tunes. So he dismounted and selected from the bush a small violin that seemed to have a sweet tone. This he carried with him, under his arm, thinking if he became lonesome he could amuse ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... of what Maxence heard; and people did not fail to add ironically, that he need not rely upon the paternal fortune to amuse himself. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... Sir Felix, science has no nationality." The Admiral was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and kept a microscope to amuse his leisure. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... beside him on the green cloth, and by day as he wandered feebly along the Promenade des Anglais with Pauline he grew silent, feeding his sick heart with this new fancy. One day he said to his wife:— 'Let us run over to Monte Carlo and see the playing; it will amuse us; and the gardens are lovely. You will be delighted with the place. Everybody says it is the most beautiful spot on the Riviera.' So they went, and were charmed, but Georges did not play that day. He stood by the tables and watched, while Pauline, too timid to venture into the saloons, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... style and construction. And he has a convincing way of handling his facts that compels belief in the most incredible of stories. Lieutenant JONES was a prisoner in the hands of the Turks at Zozgad, and to amuse himself and his fellow-prisoners he raised a "spook" which in time gained such a reputation that it had the Turkish officials almost hopelessly at its mercy. From being merely a joke his spook soon began to suggest, to him a way of escaping from the camp, and then, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... had said to amuse him; but he evaded the question, as Janet was evidently listening. Later on, when the former was at the piano, and he pretending to turn over, he whispered,—"I wonder under whose window I was making such a lovely ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Then come downstairs and amuse yourself looking about the house. There are some interesting things in the parlours, and if you are musical, you will find a piano that cost one thousand dollars. When I am away, there are no skeletons in this house, so you ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... very good," Selingman declared amiably. "That is the way I like to hear you talk. To amuse oneself is good, but to work is better still. Have you, by ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "I amuse you, don't I? Well, I'm not always so all-fired funny," drawled the creature, lowering ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... the rajah sent up for me, to amuse himself by threatening me. He would hardly venture to do more, until he is sure that Holkar has defeated us. However, as you say, there is very little chance ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... yourself—of the poor painted thing which has risen from the contents of small tubes smeared over a bit of canvas! My funny little dear delight! Will you always amuse me, I wonder? I hope you will. Nobody else can. Why, the gorse there will grumble next and think I love my poor, daubed burlesque of its gold better than the thing itself. If I find pleasure in the picture, how much the more must I love the soul of it? You see, I'm ambitious. You ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... company and tell them you've broken out of prison, which they certainly won't like. For by rights all the aristocrats ought to go to the "Gartine," or whatever you call it, so that we can have "egalite" and liberty, and we poor fellows can amuse ourselves instead of having all the good times used up by the great gentlemen!' Then he looked at me as if he would like to kill me, but he couldn't do that, so he tried to talk me round with promises. Dear me! what didn't the man promise me! A bag full of money, and a ...
— The Story Of The Little Mamsell • Charlotte Niese
... the stories reproduced in Chapter XVII. as examples of the less crude forms of humour appreciated by the people. These stories are repeated again and again, without failing to amuse those who are perfectly familiar with them. AEsop's fables transposed into a Bornean key were, we found, much appreciated. In a large proportion of the entertaining stories of the Kayans, as well ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... brave sirs, The player's art is to amuse, Instruct, or to confuse By too much good advice, But poorly given: That no one follows, because, forsooth, 'Tis thrown at him, neck and heels. The drama, pure and simple, is forgot In ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... historians as a measure of securing that the King might not have the uncomfortable alternative of cutting short his splendours at home. This purpose, if it was gravely entertained at all, and not one of the proposals of change with which, when need comes, the impecunious of all classes and ages amuse themselves to put off actual retrenchment, never came to anything. And very soon there arose complications of various natures which threw all Christendom into an uproar. Henry VIII, young, arrogant, and hot-headed, succeeded his prudent father in England, and the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... removed; the court and the spectators dispersed to dine and amuse themselves; the reporters rushed off to carry their last copy to the evening newspapers; and the great tide of life swept by on its appointed course. No foundering, ship on its iron-bound coast, no broken heart that sinks beneath its waves, disturbs the law-abiding ebb and flow ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Indian woman, the mother of the boy whom Nanking had desired to amuse, threw herself between the upraised spears and the laughing widow's son. She shouted something very earnestly, and then stretched herself at Nanking's feet. All the other Indians also flung themselves down in fear or revulsion of feeling, and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... you going now?" inquired Lindsley, who was not quite satisfied with this lucid explanation—as though fellows engaged in a mutiny would care to amuse themselves ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... like them. They amuse me, you know, and somehow, though it may be disloyal for me, as a naturalized Englishwoman, to say so, as a rule they comport themselves much better than the ordinary British tourist. Of course, the country is not so accessible for the Americans; it's out of the reach ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... it were, a frame to the living picture. When she rises, the elastic cushion resumes its pristine form. The least movement is sufficient to cause the seat to rise or fall, and I have often seen ladies amuse ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... trait of taking a chance for possible gain led the colonists to amuse themselves at games and sports, in which they invariably added a wager to lend zest to the occasion. This practice, generally prevalent in England, quite naturally was extended to the Colony, as the English established themselves with all their customs and habits ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... on the other hand, proposes to give us an accurate picture of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse us, or to appeal to our feelings, but to compel us to reflect, and to understand the occult and deeper meaning of events. By dint of seeing and meditating he has come to regard the world, facts, men, and things ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... minded to go and make the excuses of his son, the Duke of Anjou, who had returned to France." According to the most intelligent of the chroniclers of the time, the Continuer of William of Nangis, "some persons said that the king was minded to go to England in order to amuse himself;" and they were probably right, for kingly and knightly amusements were the favorite subject of King John's meditations. This time he found in England something else besides galas; he before long fell seriously ill, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Have I not thought of it all?' cried Gladys, with a great mournfulness. 'But don't you think if they had some pleasant place of their own, where they could meet together of an evening, and read or work or amuse themselves, they ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... and sending out to every place from which by any means whatever something expensive could be procured at that time of day he satisfied his hunger (the corpse was still lying in the building) and then proceeded to amuse himself by dicing. Among his companions was Pylades the dancer. The next day we went up to visit him, feigning in looks and behavior much that we did not feel, so as not to let our grief be detected. The populace, however, openly ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... not? Miss Hathaway was her aunt,—her mother's only sister,—and the house was in her care. There was no earthly reason why she should not amuse herself in her own way. Ruth's instincts were against it, ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... fez, A par hasard queuqu' goutt' sous l'nez, L'tremblement s'met dans la cambuse; Mais s'il faut se flanquer des coups, Il sait rendre atouts pour atouts, Et gare dessous, C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse! Des coups, des coups, des coups, C'est l'zouzou ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... myself to work. The nights were long, and the sordid eagerness of my keeper, notwithstanding his ostentatious generosity, was great; I therefore petitioned for, and was indulged with, a bit of candle, that I might amuse myself for an hour or two with my work after I was locked up in my dungeon. I did not however by any means apply constantly to the work I had undertaken, and my jailor betrayed various tokens of impatience. Perhaps he was afraid I should not have finished it, before I was hanged. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... nearly all of the unwritten literature of the Caucasian mountaineers may be referred to one or the other of three great classes. First. Literature which is intended simply to amuse or entertain, including popular tales, beast-fables, anecdotes, riddles and burlesques. Second. Literature which grows out of, and afterward reacts upon, the popular love of glory, of war, of adventure and of heroism, including historical ballads, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... fifty feet; that's about as far as our present capital will carry us. As to the ownership of the ground, we needn't quarrel about that at this stage of the game. You've given us notice; and you've also given us permission to amuse ourselves if we want to. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... I never was deceived, Covilla, which beyond all boasts were base, Nor that I never loved; let this be thine. Illusions! just to stop us, not delay; Amuse, not occupy! Too true! when love Scatters its brilliant foam, and passes on To some fresh object in its natural course, Widely and openly and wanderingly, 'Tis better! narrow it, and it pours its gloom In one fierce cataract that stuns the soul. Ye hate the wretch ye make so, while ye ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... am sorry to say Mr. Roscorla is right. It was a foolish trick—I did not think it would be successful, for my hitting the size of her finger was rather a stroke of luck—but I thought it would amuse her if she did find it out after an hour or two. I was afraid to tell her afterward, for she would think it impertinent. What's to be done? Is she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... accepted the courtesy. And while the too insistent band paused between one murdered Wagnerian fragment and another, they continued a conversation which seemed to amuse ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... accuracy of the accounts beyond cavil. But if external evidence be wanting, and internal evidence be fatal to the truthfulness of the writings, then it will become our duty to remove them from the temple of history, and to place them in the fairy gardens of fancy and of myth, where they may amuse and instruct the student, without misleading him as to ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... power, to know Love transient, power an unreal show; Who treads at ease life's uncheer'd ways— Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise! Rather thyself for some aim pray Nobler than this, to fill the day; Rather that heart, which burns in thee, Ask, not to amuse, but to set free; Be passionate hopes not ill resign'd For quiet, and a fearless mind. And though fate grudge to thee and me The poet's rapt security, Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from chance, have conquer'd fate. They, winning room to see and hear, And to men's business ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... so all was well. Inside it looked tremendous, and we looked at our grimy selves in a glass for the first time for three months; no wonder Ponting did not recognize the ruffians. He photographed a group of us, which will amuse you some day, when it is permissible to send photos. We ate heartily and had hot baths and generally civilized ourselves. I have since concluded that the hut is the finest place in the southern hemisphere, but then I could not shake down to it at once. I hankered for a sleeping-bag ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... said Annette, shocked and sad, moving from the door. Suddenly she turned, and laid a hand on Julie's arm. "Come and see my sweet Cecilia," she said. "She is gay; she will amuse you." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... furniture. The mistress of the house, the negress said, would soon be home; and pointing me to some books that stood upon a dusty table, and interposed between a dilapidated sofa and an old fashioned tte—tte, bid me amuse myself. Then she gave me a broken fan, and seemed very generally anxious to make me comfortable. I took a seat in a dyspeptic arm chair, that kept up a curious clicking, and after waiting for some time, perplexed a little at first, consoled myself that others had troubles, perhaps worse than mine. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... inform me what proportion of the labour and resources of England are at this moment devoted to the means of life, and what proportion to superfluities, luxuries and the means of death. But it is a very simple matter with which the reader, who is doubtless a better arithmetician than I am, may amuse himself, to estimate the number of married women of reproductive age in the community, and allowing anything in reason for illegitimate motherhood and nothing at all for infertile wives, to satisfy himself that the total cost which ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... says I am to go as far as I like," she informed Joy, half-amusedly. "Mother never seems to want any help at home, thank goodness, and all I have to do over there is to amuse little friends who drop in. You get tired of that after awhile. I told Clarence to send away any suitors who ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... laughing face and the kind glance of his bright eyes; and the parents, while they regarded the young man with some scorn for loving children more than their elders, were content that the girls and boys had found a playfellow who seemed willing to amuse them. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... pen of Aesop, and dedicate it to you, in acknowledgment of your honor and your goodness.[6] If you read it, I shall rejoice; but if otherwise, at least posterity will have something with which to amuse themselves. ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... hired. A curious provision occurs in the statutes of New College, Oxford (1380). The founder gives his permission to the scholars, for their recreation on festival days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs and other entertainments of decent sort, and could recite poems, chronicles of kingdoms, the wonders of the world, and such like compositions, provided they befitted the clerical character. At Winchester College—where minstrels were often employed—and ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... the enjoyment of firecrackers, etc., there are a few games to amuse the children on this day. If a party has been planned for the Fourth, the rooms should be appropriately decorated for ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... him with a rubber in his own house twice a week; and this practice was maintained to his death. It was a striking testimony to the affection which he inspired. In those years I was a pretty frequent visitor, and, on my way to the house, I used to bethink me of stories which might amuse him, and I used even to note them down between one visit and another, as a provision for next time. One day Payn said, "A collection of your stories would make a book, and I think Smith and Elder would publish ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Bob. "It doesn't hurt me, and it may amuse him." His gaze travelled across the busy paddocks. "Well—I'm just staggered," he said. "The least I can do is ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... is," he grumbled. "What's going on with us is of no importance—a mere sensational story to amuse the readers of the papers—the superior contemptuous Europe. It is hateful to think of. But let ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Vices, if winnow'd well, form'd to gratify their Proud, Lazy, Superiority, at the Expence of all the Publick Duties incumbent on mankind, whom they pretend to Purge from his Passions, to make him happy, by that means to amuse our Curiosity with Chymera's, whilst we lost our real Good, will still naturally flow from those Springs of Pleasure, Honour, Glory, and Noble Actions, the Passions given us by Heaven for our common Good. But their own Practice generally shew'd the Vanity of their ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... that we no longer can give our children food, and I cannot bear to see them die of hunger before my eyes; I am resolved to lose them in the wood to-morrow, which may very easily be done, for, while they amuse themselves in tying up fagots, we have only to run away and leave them without their ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... shortly. "Nice little place—what I saw of it.... Lovely view from the police-station." He leaned against the mantelpiece and lighted a cigarette. "It may amuse you to know," he added, "that the expiation of your crime took us six and a half hours and cost five ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... intoxicating to know, as she did know, that he was thinking, as she was, of what they would say when they next had a moment together; that, whatever she wore, he found her worth watching; that, whatever her mood, she never failed to amuse and delight him! Her rather evasive beauty grew more definite under his eyes; she bubbled with fun and nonsense. "You little fool!" Ella would laugh, with an approving glance toward Susan at the tea-table, and "Honestly, Sue, you were ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... governor, and followed him every-where like a dog. His favourite station was at a window of the sitting-room, which overlooked the whole town; there, standing on his hind legs, his fore paws resting on the ledge of the window, and his chin laid between them, he appeared to amuse himself with what was passing beneath. The children also stood with him at the window; and one day, finding his presence an encumbrance, and that they could not get their chairs close, they used their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
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