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More "Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dear," he said from within. "I am so sorry I disturbed you! But the reason is rather an amusing one: I fell asleep and dreamt that I was fighting that fellow again who insulted you, and the noise you heard was my pummelling away with my fists at my portmanteau, which I pulled out to-day for packing. I am occasionally liable to these freaks in my sleep. Go to bed and think ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... consented she returned to Paris and wrote the following cablegram from her own mother's house: "You have acted as a good son and a faithful husband. Bring back with you the mother of our (sic) child." And so, the author evidently feels, it all ended happily. His book is an interesting and amusing presentment of an older civilisation, but if it won't strain the Entente I am bound to say that I disagree ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... by the king's order, to a hut constructed of corn stalks of a square form, and a flat roof, supported by forked sticks; but out of derision to the Christian, Ali had ordered the wild hog before mentioned to be tied to one of the sticks, and it proved a very disagreeable inmate, the boys amusing themselves by beating and irritating the animal. Mr. Park was also again tormented by the curiosity of the Moors. He was obliged to take off his stockings to exhibit his feet, and even his jacket and waistcoat ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... was "his Majesty" while this work was being done? How was it with Catharine? We hear of no regrets, no misgivings; that she was calm, collected, suave, and unfathomable as ever; but that Charles, in a strange, half-frenzied state, was amusing himself by firing from the windows of the palace at the fleeing Huguenots. Had he killed himself in remorse, would it not have been better, instead of lingering two wretched years, a prey to mental tortures and an inscrutable malady, before ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... centres of flame, and all is soon stagnation, cold, and darkness. The "tripod of life" a French physiologist called these three organs. It is all clear enough which leg of the tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you exactly what the difficulty is;—which would be as intelligible and amusing as a watchmaker's description of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It is enough to say, that I found just what I expected to, and that I think this attack is only the prelude of more serious consequences,—which expression means you very well ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... interested to note how persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He suspected that it was all a feverish anodyne ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... made various excursions into the interior, visiting Simpheropol and Baktchiserai. I travelled to Simpheropol with a pretty large party, and had a very amusing journey. My companions were young and full of fun, and tried hard to persuade the Russians that I was Queen Victoria, by paying me the most absurd reverence. When this failed they fell back a little, and declared that I was the Queen's ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... that," Scott answered shortly. "Moreover, she is fully capable of taking care of herself. But Miss Bathurst is not. She is a mere child in many ways, but she takes things hard. If you are merely amusing yourself at her expense—" ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... began to twinkle with a new and amusing interpretation. "Ah!" she cried, "are you the gentleman ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... amusing anecdote, and in the wish to prepare future Authors, as young as I then was and as ignorant of the world, of[812:3] the treatment they may meet with, I will add, that the Person[812:4] who by a twice conveyed recommendation (in the year 1797) had urged me ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the best masters as models for the students, and proposed several of those in the Orleans collection. This recommendation was not relished, and in 1799 Barry was expelled from the academy, soon after the appearance of his Letter to the Dilettanti Society, a very amusing but eccentric publication, full of enthusiasm for his art and at the same time of contempt for the living professors of it. After the loss of his salary, a subscription was set on foot by the earl of Buchan to relieve him from his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... invited to theatrical entertainments, quite as amusing, and almost as refined as any which his celestial Majesty can command to be exhibited before a foreign ambassador. The king of Yourriba made a point of our traveller staying to witness these entertainments. They were exhibited in the king's park, in a square space, surrounded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... brig he hailed her harshly and asked if the master was on board. Schultz, smart and neat in a spotless white suit, leaned over the taffrail, finding the question somewhat amusing. He looked humorously down into Heemskirk's boat, and answered, in the most amiable modulations of his beautiful voice: "Captain Allen is up at the house, sir." But his expression changed suddenly at the savage growl: "What the devil are you ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... He and Voules had made the acquaintance of the lieutenant of the neighbouring coastguard station, who, having seen a great deal of service, and being a merry fellow, with a fund of anecdote, was an amusing companion. Lieutenant Hilton had several times been invited to dine at the hall, an honour he highly appreciated, although it cost him a long trudge there and back, over a somewhat wild region, with the risk of encountering some of the lawless characters of the neighbourhood, who looked upon him ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... to be ill-balanced, and the cargo had to be shifted. As this was being done she detected a number of swords hidden below the bags of kernels. Her eyes flashed, and the people scattered out of the way as she pitched the arms out on the beach. With a meekness that was amusing the men scrambled into their places and the canoe shot into the river, Mary taking a paddle and wielding it with the best of the men. The journey was made through dense darkness and drizzling rain, and occupied ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... calling at The Durdans, the home of Wilkins' former pupil, Lord Berkeley, found there a remarkable group, Petty, Rooke, and Wilkins, amusing themselves with "contrivances for chariots, and for a wheel for one to run races in,"—the first forms possibly of a hansom, and a cycle. "Perhaps," continues Evelyn, "three such persons were not to be found elsewhere in Europe for parts and ingenuity." Lord Rosebery, we may safely ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... I was thinking of the good-humoured face of Mrs McShane, which was much better than being in high company, and forgetting her entirely. Let me alone for amusing myself after my own fashion, O'Donahue, and that's all I wish. I suppose you have heard nothing in your travels about ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... the early part of the commercial period may be read in almost every book of the time, expressed in various degrees of dull or amusing pedantry, and show a naif arrogance and contempt of the times just past through which nothing but the utmost simplicity of ignorance could have attained to. But the times were stirring, and gave birth to the most powerful individualities in many branches of literature, ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... was a dance around the apple-basket, and a dance in which every man kissed every other man's vrow, and in which the Dominie joined, and was as jolly as any of his flock. And they danced to the music of a fiddle, played by Lame George, who lived up in the mountain. Then the Dominie told a number of amusing stories, and the school-master sang them several of his best songs, and ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... this matter, that the Provincial Secretary, at the period alluded to, was an official in the Colonial Office, and had never seen Canada, although he afterwards received from the province a pension of L400 a year, in consideration of his long and valuable services; and it is in a high degree amusing to find Mr. Ryland informing this functionary "decidedly" and "frankly", that he had acted wisely in not asking for an increase of salary, although it was a different thing to solicit additional assistance in an office where the public business was constantly increasing! Mr. Ryland and a ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... at nine last night and has never turned up since," Kelson said with an air of telling an amusing story. "Poor Host Dipper is taking it quite tragically, notwithstanding the satisfactory point in the case that the egregious Henshaw's elaborate kit still remains ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... both of you. Her father don't believe there is a man after her at all. Jane's just sitting on the fence, in fact, and waiting to see if she can't shake him off me. And if I'm turned down, then you'll be turned down. 'Tis rather amusing in a way." ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... sulphur came to his nose as the waiter bent over the table to light the gas above him. "Would Monsieur like to see the journal? There is a most amusing story about—— The ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... them at irregular intervals with various calibres, and trips across resembled the noble game of running the gauntlet. This portion of night reliefs was naturally particularly exciting. The late Lt.-Col. Marshall, V.C., when second in command to the 6th L.F's., provided an amusing story for the division one day when a couple of officers failed to salute him in the middle of Putney Bridge, he walking calmly across, and they—obviously hurrying. He pulled them up and strafed them duly, then, to force his point, he stood on the bridge and caused them to pass him two or three ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... the delights in store for her. He laughed and joked perpetually during that last day, and promised the girl that he would take a vacation while she was gone and visit his old colonel in Virginia, which she knew was the rarest pleasure he could enjoy. And now he stood upon the deck amusing them all with his quaint sayings and appearing so outwardly jolly and unaffected that only Patsy herself suspected the deep grief that was gripping his ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... surprise and withering scorn cast on those who despise their goods: but they show no concern when the buyers turn up their noses at them. Little girls run about selling cups of water for a few small fishes to the half-exhausted wordy combatants. To me it was an amusing scene. I could not understand the words that flowed off their glib tongues, but the gestures were too expressive ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... humour was to be found? Yet here is Miss JESSIE CHAMPION writing a whole book, The Ramshackle Adventure (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), all about the comical vagaries of a cheap car—a history that, while it has inevitably its dull moments, has many more that are both amusing and full of a kind of charm that the funny-book too often conspicuously lacks. I think this must be because almost all the characters are such human and kindly folk, not the lay figures of galvanic farce that one had only too much reason to expect. For example, the owner of the car ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... thirty sheets, written, as he says, 'in a hurry,' but, as Fitzjames declares, with 'only two slips of the pen, without an "erasure," in a handwriting which fills me with helpless admiration,' and in a style which cannot be equalled by any journalist in England. 'And this you do by way of amusing yourself while you are governing an empire in war-time,' and yet compliment me for writing at leisure moments during my vacations! Fitzjames, however, does his best to keep pace with his correspondent. Some of his letters ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... could not see Roger have his nightly bath. It was impossible for Mr Blackshaw to quit his arduous and responsible post before seven o'clock in the evening. Later on, when things were going more smoothly, he might be able to get away; but then, later on, his son's bath would not be so amusing and agreeable as it then, by all reports, was. The baby was, of course, bathed on Saturday nights, but Sunday afternoon and evening Mr Blackshaw was obliged to spend with his invalid mother at Longshaw. It was on the sole condition of his weekly presence thus in her house ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... far from amusing to awake some zero morning and find the house without water because the well pipe has frozen. It can be thawed with a blow pipe but that means calling a plumber or a handy man who happens to have a tool ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... parodying a well-known guide book to British restaurants, so the unknown authors of The Merry-Thought had some notion, however discontinuous, of parodying the nation's polite literature. Were not Pope and Swift famous for their distinguished miscellanies? What could be more amusing than a collection of poems that represented a different poetic ideal—a collection of verse with none of the pretensions to artistic merit claimed by the superstars of the poetic world—the spontaneous productions of nonpoets in moments of idleness or desperation. ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... were held over the Aquarium; for there was never an end of things that might be told of old and new discoveries connected with what was in it. The conversations diverged often to other matters, religious or scientific as the case might be; and were clever, bright, interesting, or amusing accordingly—and invariably. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... It was amusing to observe Mark's look of astonishment when immediately afterwards a party of grotesque figures appeared clambering over the bows. The first was an old fellow with a long white beard, a gold paper crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand, and dressed ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... of entertainment for me to ask almost anybody with whom I happened to be conversing, for his opinion on some great subject or of some noted personage; for the reply was always to me unique, sometimes very amusing, and not infrequently instructive. On the way for the second time from our evening meal to my room, I stopped for a moment in the "Gentlemen's sitting-room," where I in part overheard a conversation ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... making L150 suffice for L200, or perhaps it has to plan out the heads of a very important letter. We meet a pretty woman, and away that undisciplined, sagacious brain runs after her, dropping the scheme or the draft letter, and amusing itself with aspirations or regrets for half an hour, an hour, sometimes a day. The serious part of our instinctive self feebly remonstrates, but without effect. Or it may be that we have suffered a great disappointment, which is definite and hopeless. Will the brain, like a sensible creature, leave ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... very well belong to Christmastide. It is said that, wishing to know what the Danes were about, and how strong they were, King Alfred one day set out from Athelney in the disguise of a Christmas minstrel, and went into the Danish camp, and stayed there several days, amusing the Danes with his playing, till he had seen all he wanted, and then went back without any ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... aged eighty-one, and for fifty years he had lived but to record the dialogues of Socrates. It was curiosity that first attracted this fine youth to the old man—Socrates was so uncouth that he was amusing. Plato was interested in politics, and like most Athenian youths, was intent on having a good time. However, he was no rowdy, like Alcibiades: he was suave, gracious, and elegant in all of his acts. He had been taught by the Sophists ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Note.—An amusing anecdote is related, by Miss Edgeworth, of a bishop, who, descending to his kitchen to superintend the dressing of a turbot, and discovering that his cook had stupidly cut off the fins, immediately commenced sewing them on again with his own episcopal ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... time the jailer had tired of sticking pins in the General, and was amusing himself by carefully pulling the Nome's whiskers out by the roots, one at a time. This enjoyment was interrupted by the Grand Gallipoot sending for ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... me,' says he. 'I'm due to dine with little Boney tonight at eight sharp, and I must be up to time. Truth is I'm not in the Little Corporal's best books just now. He caught Josephine and me amusing ourselves in the rose-walk at Malmaison last week; and he wasn't ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... instead of working with us, was employed in watching the natives; though he pretended all the time not to be taking any notice of them, but to be amusing himself by playing a number of strange antics calculated to excite their curiosity. This, after a time, he succeeded in doing. The man, having directed his companions to retire to a distance,—for the purpose, as we supposed, of placing them out of danger,—advanced ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... districts, Jack varied the entertainments by a lecture on the properties of guano, which he threw in for nothing, and which was highly appreciated by the agricultural interest. Jack's books were principally works of travel. His Journey to the Fountains of the Niger is generally esteemed highly amusing, if not instructive: it was knocked off at Highbury; and his Wanderings in the Mountains of the Moon, written in Little Chelsea, has been favourably reviewed by many well-informed and discriminating organs of literary intelligence, as the work of a man evidently ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... seats again, and then he commenced thundering out one of the songs the soldiers used to sing on the march. Several Mexicans came running up from the camp to ask if anything was the matter, Rube's yell having reached their ears. They were told it was only those mad Americanos amusing themselves, and with many angry threats of the different sort of yells we should give next day, they sauntered off again. "That's rather a good thing," Rube said to me when he stopped making a noise. "If any sound ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... know most of the villagers; and being a quaint child, with a lively and amusing curiosity, which some little refinement and good-breeding stayed from degenerating into impertinence, I was, I ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... English contractor why he used no wheelbarrows in his work. He had some hundreds of stalwart navvies employed carrying dirt in small wicker baskets to an embankment. He said the men would not use them. Some said it broke their backs. Others discovered a capital way of amusing themselves by putting the barrow on their heads and whirling the wheel as rapidly as possible with their hands. This was a game which never grew stale. The contractor gave up in despair, and went back to the baskets. But it is in the official regions that tradition is most powerful. In the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... responsible for its realization in paint. The artists compete with each other for a prize which is awarded for the best design, the judges being the artists themselves. It is the art of the poster, art with a purpose of the most definite kind. The result is sometimes amusing, interesting, startling, but, whatever else it does, hammers home a ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... sleeping, he was amusing him self in a quaint way at the back of his cage. He had a small lassoo made of cord, and was throwing it at an object near the wall at a distance of ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... to see us last evening, and talked for about two hours in a very amusing and interesting style, his topics being taken from his own personal experience, and shrewdly treated. He spoke much of Greenough, whom he described as an excellent critic of art, but possessed of not the slightest inventive genius. His statue of Washington, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of shoes, upon the Mussel shoals. He then found occasion to talk of the thousand and one mishaps that had occurred upon the aforesaid Mussel shoals; and thence branched off into the various modes of water-carriage which the enlightened inhabitants of Alabama were accustomed to employ. After amusing us for some time with long histories concerning steam-boats and keel-boats, barks and flat-boats, broad-horns, dug-outs, and canoes, he glided into some canal-making scheme, which was to connect the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... rapidly, and he was now receiving twenty times more letters than all the other mail in Orangeville combined. It was amusing to see how the letters were addressed. They read, "Dr. Penloe, Rev. Dr. Penloe, Rev. Penloe, Penloe, Esq., Prof. Penloe, D.D., and LL.D." Letters came to him from every state in the Union. Here ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... be objected by some that in providing those outlets for the destitute, we should in the end only aggravate the difficulty by enormously increasing the population. This reminds one of the gigantic folly of the miser with his hoards of gold. An amusing eastern anecdote is told of one who having gone two or three miles to say his prayers to a mosque suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to put out an oil lamp before leaving home. He at once retraced his steps and on reaching his house called out to the servant girl to be sure ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... no vocation for a nun. I—there is a huge rock half-way down the hill with a clear view of this place. I have spent hours there, watching these lawns and verandas, and the things you all did. It all seemed so amusing and, and happy. You see, where I lived there were almost no white people except my father and a priest at the Catholic mission. So I learned to know Phillida ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... life in the Atrium, each thronged by the most fashionable ladies in Rome, who competed for invitations. Her vogue in no way spoiled Terentia, who played with just as much zest for her co-inmates of the Atrium, or when she was entirely alone amusing herself at the organ. Teaching her, playing with her, listening to her, took up a good deal of Brinnaria's time and came to be a great ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... found himself looking into the face of a German officer who was amusing himself by kicking ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... Quaere a place in Florence? One of the commentators, with characteristic carelessness, states that the places mentioned in the preachment of Fra Cipolla (an amusing specimen of the patter-sermon of the mendicant friar of the middle ages, that ecclesiastical Cheap Jack of his day) are all names of streets or places of Florence, a statement which, it is evident to the most ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the two was amusing, or would have been had not the atmosphere been so surcharged with passionate feeling, for Rhett Sempland was six feet high if he was an inch, while Fanny Glen by a Procrustean extension of herself could just manage ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... boasting also about his doings, as he could not help doing and remain himself. Mixed up with his own exploits, and his daily triumphs as a lobbyist, especially in the matter of the new University, in which Harry was to have something handsome, were amusing sketches of Washington society, hints about Dilworthy, stories about Col. Sellers, who had become a well-known character, and wise remarks upon the machinery of private legislation for the public-good, which greatly ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... had also formed a portion of Annatoo's pilferings. It seems she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. But after amusing herself by again and again counting over the leaves, and wondering how so many distinct surfaces could be compacted together in so small a compass, she had very suddenly conceived an aversion to literature, and dropped the book overboard as worthless. Doubtless, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... And since these stalwarts can do so much, it is well that there should also be one who does nothing, to the end that they may have the more to do." With these and similar pleasantries Fra Sebastiano was always diverting himself, being a man who was never anything but humorous and amusing; and, in truth, a ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... stories for children from three to eight years, tells of the adventures of the four-footed creatures of our American woods and fields in an amusing way, which delights ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... occasion! Her spun-gold hair was marveled at, but her eyes—surely they were lent by a god for the event! They were bluer than the water of Himalayan lakes; bluer than turquoise, sapphire, the sky, or any other blue thing you can think of—laughing blue,—loving, understanding, likable, amusing blue—two jewels that outshone all the other jewels in the durbar ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... letters, now resident in Europe, who spent many years in North Carolina, has said to the writer that he had noted, in the course of a long life, at least a thousand instances of white persons known or suspected to possess a strain of Negro blood. An amusing instance of this sort occurred a year or two ago. It was announced through the newspapers, whose omniscience of course no one would question, that a certain great merchant of Chicago was a mulatto. This gentleman had a large dry goods trade ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... slept in the trench, slept heavily. I put my equipment under me, that kept the damp away from my bones. In the morning Stoner told an amusing story. During the night he wanted to see Bill, but did not know where the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Inn, Coventry, and next day reached the Hall at Ashby Saint Ledgers, where the widowed Lady Catesby held her solitary state. Lady Catesby (nee Anne Throckmorton) and her worthy son were not on the best terms, having found it necessary or amusing to sue one another in his Majesty's Law Courts; and shortly before this, Lady Catesby had been to Huddington to request Robert Winter's assistance in making peace with her son. He was now on his way to advise her, and had heard nothing of the proceedings ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... An amusing incident is related in Forster's "Life of Dickens," which shows how entirely unknown was smoking among women of the middle and upper classes in England some ten years after Queen Victoria came to the throne. Dickens was at Lausanne ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... at most, To meet his eye, with the other trophies, Now outside the hall, now in it, To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen, At the proper place in the proper minute, {190} And die away the life between. And it was amusing enough, each infraction Of rule—(but for after-sadness that came) To hear the consummate self-satisfaction With which the young Duke and the old dame Would let her advise, and criticise, And, being a fool, instruct the wise, And, childlike, parcel out praise ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... an indifferent child aroused or a hostile one conquered to affection by a beguiling tale, you can hardly appreciate the truth of the first statement; but nothing is more familiar in the story-teller's experience. An amusing, but—to me—touching experience recently reaffirmed in my mind this power of the story to establish ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... continually reproved, and even obliged to undergo real penance. An iron cross was placed at my back to make me hold myself upright, and my limbs were enclosed in a kind of wooden box, to straighten them. I must however think that they were already quite straight enough. All that was not very amusing for me, who thought myself already a young lady. Since Barbara's marriage I had myself been asked in marriage, and the prince palatine had not treated me as if ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... being now given over to monks and nuns. Then I recollect how a rarely-dark annular eclipse of the sun convulsed the whole school, bringing smoked glass to a high premium; and there was a notable boy's library of amusing travels and stories, all eagerly devoured; and old Phulax the house-dog, and good Mr. Whitmore an usher, who gave a certain small boy a diamond prayer-book, greatly prized then, though long since lost, and suitably inscribed for him "Parvum parva decent;" ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... observe, not in a tragic, adventurous, or military story, but merely as the further enlivenment of a narrative intended to be amusing; and as a properly representative average of the statistics of civilian mortality in the center ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... because, when he read over her shoulder, she always turned the page before he was ready. And his decision that Dickens's characters were never gentlemen, and her saying perhaps that was why he was so amusing. And then how he got the book from her and went on reading while she went away for her lawn-tennis shoes, and when she came back found he had only two more pages to read, and then he would ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... which forms a lair for tigers and many other wild beasts, and so close do these tigers approach to Rangoon that one was recently shot inside the great pagoda, in which it had taken refuge. While there I heard of an amusing adventure which befell the keeper of the lighthouse at the mouth of the Rangoon River. He was enjoying a morning stroll along the beach, reading a book as he walked, and, as the sun was bright, he held ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... that she recognized that her hopes, and those of the friend to whose safety she had already sacrificed so much, had just received their death-blow, she gave a quick order to the girl who, taking the child by the hand, sat down on the steps Mrs. Carew now quitted and laid herself out to be amusing. ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... that I won't speak the word, and he mustn't throw the business over. It is quite amusing I tell him, and I hope he'll win his bet. As for the picture—he may pay as he chooses. But about the proper introduction—Heaven knows where I shall be in a fortnight. My brother loves to make up his mind the night beforehand, where ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Lady Audley is rather late in the half-century as a "skit" on Miss BRADDON's celebrated novel. Now and then I found an amusing bit in it, but, on the whole, poor stuff, says ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... proposed that they should try throwing sticks, provided for the purpose, at a row of penknives, and if any one knocked a knife over it would be his. This was amusing for a little while; but when no one could get anywhere near a knife, the boys grew tired of trying, especially as they each had to pay ...
— Archie's Mistake • G. E. Wyatt
... a few days the novelty began to wear off, and I began to get tired of my own company. I still made the most of my elbow-room in class and at meals, but it ceased to be amusing. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... every reason to be glad that I detained her, for she not only made my meeting with the equerries easy and pleasant, but was full of odd entertainment herself. She has a large portion of whimsical humour, which, at times, is original and amusing, though always eccentric, and frequently, from uttering ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... she asked. I looked intently at the spot from which the sound seemed to come: a perfectly solid stone block less than three feet from my right shoulder. It must have been very amusing. She ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... for recurrence of similar appearances. To illustrate this by one instance:—how pleasing is it to have a ready and frequent opportunity of watching, at the outlet of a lake, the stream pushing its way among the rocks in lively contrast with the stillness from which it has escaped; and how amusing to compare its noisy and turbulent motions with the gentle playfulness of the breezes, that may be starting up or wandering here and there over the faintly-rippled surface of the broad water! I may add, as a general remark, that, in lakes of great ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Miss Elaine, rising from his knee, with much coldness, "I hardly understand you, I think. If you find it amusing (and you seem to) to pretend that I——" she said no more, but gave a slight and admirable toss of the head. "And now I am very sleepy," she added. ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... has got into me. I have lately learned terribly well how to be idle. I am afraid to think how long it is since I wrote to my mother or to Mary. Heaven help them—poor, patient, trustful creatures! I don't know how to tell you what I am doing. It seems all amusing enough while I do it, but it would make a poor show in a narrative intended for your formidable eyes. I found Baxter in Switzerland, or rather he found me, and he grabbed me by the arm and brought me here. I was walking twenty miles a day in the Alps, drinking milk in lonely ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... replies were considered necessary testifies both to the popularity of Absalom and Achitophel with the layman in politics and to the Whigs' fear of its harming their cause. Settle's was of course a mercenary pen, and it is amusing to note that after ridiculing Halifax here he was quite prepared to publish, fourteen years later, Sacellum Apollinare: a Funeral Poem to the Memory of that Great Statesman, George Late Marquiss of Halifax, and on this count his place among Pope's Dunces seems ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... a theatrical journal, and he presently looked up from it to say: "I hear the second play at the Athenee is amusing." ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... horses they all entered the house, nor was there naturally any want of conversation. Cadurcis had much information to give and many questions to answer. He was in the highest spirits and the most amiable mood; gay, amusing, and overflowing with kind-heartedness. The Doctor seldom required any inspiration, to be joyous, and Lady Annabel was unusually animated. Venetia alone, though cheerful, was calmer than pleased Cadurcis. Time, he sorrowfully observed, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Bautru is amusing, Franks; but he's nothing to Vandy. 'Homme incomparable!' On the whole I find Menage rather dull. The Countess? what an accomplished liar that woman is! She seems to have stepped out of Tallemant's Gallery. Concerning the Countess, I suppose you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Isn't he too amusing? I brought him up as much to help dear Chad as for any other reason. But he is incorrigible at times and I fear I shall have to send him back to his mother. I thought the livery might increase his self-respect, ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is so characteristic and amusing, that we copy it verbatim et literatim:—The author of "Whims and Oddities" has the honour of informing the public, that, encouraged by the popularity of the Ballads in the first and second series of that work, he intends to communicate a succession of similar vocal crotchets, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... herself. The other horses all knew too if there was any failure or mistake, and the offender was closely watched by them, and in some way reproved by them if they could get the opportunity, and at times this little by-play became very amusing. ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... whole, a most amusing episode," he said. "We are not a penny the worse—nay, we are immensely gainers. Our philosophy has been exercised; some of the turtle is still left—the most wholesome of delicacies; I have my staff, Anastasie has her new dress, Jean-Marie is the proud ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been written of late about the pessimistic spirit pervading modern reformative literature. When an earnest writer presents a gloomy picture of life as it really is, he is frequently judged by that most shallow of all standards, "Is it pleasing or amusing?" His fidelity to the ideal of truth is often overlooked or dismissed with a flippant word. We all know that great and dangerous evils exist and menace our civilization. They are growing under the fostering influence of the "conspiracy of silence"; ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... an amusing enough contraption honey," said he, "but what makes you stand out there in the hot sun staring at them that way? It's ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... often amusing, and it is sometimes politically profitable, to picture the City of Washington as a madhouse, with the Congress and the Administration disrupted with confusion and indecision and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the stamp of truthfulness, they illustrate their authors' lives with marvellous lucidity, and they are full of interest as stories. But it is to the contrast which they present that our attention should be chiefly drawn. Other biographies may be as interesting and amusing. None show in a more marked manner two distinct natures endowed with genius for one art, and yet designed in every possible particular for different branches of that art. Alfieri embodies Tragedy; Goldoni is the spirit of Comedy. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... explained. "Has he exhibited any contempt or ridicule at what I have said?" This gentleman assured him that he had never heard Byron allude to the subject in any way which could induce him to suspect that he was merely amusing himself. "But, on the contrary, he always names you with respect. I do not, however, think you have made much impression on him: he is just the same fellow as before. He says, he does not know what religion you are of, for you neither adhere ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... at last ended by the Edict of Nantes issued after Henry of Navarre became Henry IV. of France. Besides the political bearing of the letters, they give a picturesque account of Court life at the end of the 16th century, the fashions and manners of the time, piquant descriptions, and amusing gossip, such as only a witty woman—as Marguerite certainly was—could inject into such subjects. The letters, indeed, abound in sprightly anecdote and small-talk, which yet have their value in lightening ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... see that the lectures being both amusing and instructive must be conducive to the expansion of the mind, at the same time making an agreeable change in the general ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... beginning. From the concealment of her lofty bluebell Maya commanded a splendid view of the social life coming awake beneath. Watching it she forgot, for the moment, her anxiety and mounting homesickness. It was too amusing for anything to be safe in a hiding-place, high up, and look down on the doings of the ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... come here!" cried Matty eagerly; "there's nothing amusing to look at on the counters of Conjunction or Preposition, but Interjection has something very funny! Look at these gutta-percha balls shaped like faces, some showing pleasure—some horror—some surprise; just give them a little squeeze, and hear ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover that they live near each other and that they ought to have known each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck anyone else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when I met her at last and could talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, the man of ill luck ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... did not pursue the subject. In fact, we were too much taken up with the interesting and amusing sights that met our gaze in that singular forest; insomuch that on several occasions I neglected my peculiar duty of watching Jack, and was only made aware of my carelessness by hearing him shout, "Hallo! Bob, look alive!—I'm over!" when I would suddenly ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... signal! They heterodyned it right back along my own beam. They'll be landing in a week. I don't think I'll take this manuscript with me. I couldn't use it—and somehow I don't feel like burning it. Maybe I'll make a time capsule out of it. It will be amusing to speculate about what sort of a reaction it'll provoke, providing it is ever read. I can see them now, huge-headed humans, wrinkling their noses and saying "Intelligent algae—fantastic—the man must have ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... rhetoric is not oppressive, is the account of the sea fight at the end of Act III. Even when Harris followed his original most closely, we seem to hear the actor, speaking in a new tongue, in a more relaxed and colloquial rhythm. The reader will find it both amusing and instructive to compare the two versions of Act II, scene ii. The new cadences do more than merely prove that Harris had no ear for ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... better times, if we lived in them, I could certainly arrange this matter more according to my own fancy; and there is nobody who could not make to himself some theory on this subject, the very framing of which is an amusing occupation of the mind, and for which it then acquires a parental fondness. But now, if ever, and here if in any matter, stare super vias antiguas is the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... men—some of them with grey heads and beards—as they marked time or tramped along singing this childish twaddle, would have been amusing if it had ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... yet a singularly childish look—who urged that he come to his cabin to minister to a sick friend. He knew the fellow for one that the village of Edom called "daft" or "queer," yet held to be harmless—to be rather amusing, indeed, since he could be provoked to deliver curious harangues upon the subject of revealed religion. He remembered now that the man's face had stared at him from far back in the church the night before—a face full ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... want of uniformity in the preachers of his sect, all being under the 'Act of Uniformity,' is very amusing and instructive!!—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... taking up her position by the curtain almost opposite the door, "don't introduce me. I like to look on. The amusing thing," she went on, addressing Mr. Salvin, who, owing to his lameness, was accommodated with a chair, "the amusing thing about a party is to watch the people—coming and going, coming ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... she complained; "you know how weary I get when you ignore me." He gazed down at her untouched. "I have left Lao-tze for Greece," he replied. She found this stupid and said so. "Has he been no more amusing than this?" she asked Linda. "But then, you are a child, it all intrigues you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... forget to tell of an amusing little comedy of error played at the Opera-house this season (1752). All Paris was agog to see the famous English—or rather Irish—beauty, my Lady Coventry, newly arrived in the Capital. She was one of the Gunning sisters, over whom all London had already lost its head ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... walls. Suvaroff was fascinated by these dancing shadows. They seemed familiar and friendly. He sat sipping his brandy, now, with a quieter, more leisurely air. The shadows were indescribably fascinating; they were so horrible and amusing! He began to wonder whether their antics would move him to laughter if he sat and drank long enough. He had a feeling that laughter and sleep went hand in hand. If he could but laugh again he was quite sure ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... dull; but suggests the possibility of its containing an agreeable surprise. An amusing anecdote to this effect ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was beating the other. So the next day he went to the wood, and he cut a hurl; and he was all that day and the next shaping it; and his mother asked was he going to a match, and he said he was only amusing ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... the same with his charity. He was always putting favourable constructions on people's motives and believing good things of them, even when other people could find very little ground for doing so. In all sincerity he would carry this sometimes to amusing lengths. Reference has been made to this already, but the following further illustration of it may be added here. One day, when in company with a friend, the conversation turned on a meeting at which Dr. Cairns had recently been ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... Man's Plea, was written in the spirit of the parliamentary address. It was of no use to pass laws and make declarations and proclamations for the reform of the common plebeii, the poor man pleaded, so long as the mentors of the laws were themselves corrupt. His argument was spiced with amusing anecdotes to show the prevalence of swearing and drunkenness among members of the judicial bench. Defoe appeared several times afterwards in the character of a reformer of manners, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose. When the retort was made that his own manners ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... They had left their ship, perhaps without leave, and were amusing themselves upon the island. The men in our boat watched them, and presently landed cautiously and surrounded them. They made a gallant struggle, but were captured at length. And now they have been brought to ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... figures called tarascas gamboled about; and the auto, which was more like our operas than any other composition of the Spanish stage, was begun by a loa, written or sung. After this came the play, then an amusing interlude, followed by music and sometimes by a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... never thought in the way of pride or vanity. But of her feet and ankles she was both proud and vain—in a reserved, wholly unobtrusive way, be it said, so quietly that she had passed unsuspected. There was reason for this shy, secret self-satisfaction, so amusing in one otherwise self-unconscious. Her feet were beautifully formed and the curves of her instep and ankle were beautiful. She gave more attention now to the look of her shoes and of her stockings than to all the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... unfortunately, when you try not to speak in jest you are amusing—just as when you wish to avoid seriousness you sometimes say ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... come, and I cease remembering anything. "Hal will be home for Easter; he will bring two or three of his friends with him from Cambridge," she says. And straightway she falls to devising schemes for amusing the boys. When is she ever occupied, but with plans ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she answered cheerfully and managed to conceal her terror. Then the Beast asked her how she had been amusing herself, and she told him all ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Anonymous
... wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... has taken Nell from her saddle and is in the reception room where he finds you grouped and gazing at him in a manner rather trying even to his soldierly gravity, and decidedly amusing to the wise fairy, who glances at him with a laugh and betakes herself ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... of the bird's peculiarities. The song not only varies in individuals, but in different localities, which may be one reason why no two ornithologists record it alike. Doubtless the chief reason for the amusing differences in the syllables into which the songs of birds are often translated in the books, is that the same Notes actually sound differently to different individuals. Thus, to people in Massachusetts the white-throated sparrow seems to say, "Pea-bod-y, Pea-bod-y, ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... place and after a while turned his eyes to the other quarter, where the elements of air and water managed to make between them so comparatively poor an opposition. Even his American novelist was more amusing than that, and he prepared to return to this author. In the great curve which it described, however, his glance was arrested by the figure of a young lady who had just ascended to the deck and who paused at the ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... less amusing, but was not less appreciated by the rank and file. Riding one morning near Front Royal, accompanied by his staff, Jackson was stopped by a countrywoman, with a chubby child on either side, who inquired ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... character appears to weave naturally into the tale of fiction, it becomes as much a beacon, as is a vehicle of amusement. We consider this to be the true art of novel-writing, and that crime and folly and error can be as severely lashed, as virtue and morality can be upheld, by a series of amusing causes and effects, that entice the reader to take a medicine, which, although rendered agreeable to the palate, still produces the same internal benefit as if it had been presented to him in its crude state, in which it would either be ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... before that a private governess has no existence, is not considered as a living and rational being except as connected with the wearisome duties she has to fulfil. While she is teaching the children, working for them, amusing them, it is all right. If she steals a moment for herself she is a nuisance. Nevertheless, Mrs. Sidgwick is universally considered an amiable woman. Her manners are fussily affable. She talks a great deal, but as ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... professions of duty and proposals of reconciliation only for the insidious purpose of amusing and deceiving, was equally reprobated. It was insisted that, on the contrary, these had from the beginning told them honestly, openly and bravely, without disguise or reserve, and declared to all the world, that they never would ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... when some of the gentlemen present would rather not be amongst the aspirants, it is amusing to see them retire behind the others, hoping to escape without offence against the rules of good breeding. Should one of these be called by the lady superior, he will probably give himself awkward airs, and endeavour to be as little engaging as possible. The maiden generally looks modest ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... but we in India shift and are transferred so often that, at the end of the second year, the Dead have no friend only acquaintances who are far too busy amusing themselves up the hill to attend to old partners. The idea of using a Cemetery as a rendezvous is distinctly a feminine one. A man would have said simply, 'Let people talk. We'll go down the Mall.' A woman is made differently, especially ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... and other strictly family affairs women were allowed to take part; and we have an amusing fragment of Menander as to how, on such rare occasions, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... to the fair in a motor, but a slight delay occurs on the way. How they finally arrived at the fair ground and their amusing experiences are ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... Mandan and put into intelligent English, was as follows:— The boy belonged to the Pawnee Loups, whose tribe lived on the Wolf Fork of the Platte. One day, in company with several of his young comrades, he had gone down to the river to indulge in the luxury of a swim, and while they were amusing themselves in the water, a raiding band of the Tetons came suddenly upon them, making a prisoner of him while the others managed to make their escape. He was instantly snatched up, tied on a horse, and hurried away. The animal he rode was led by one of the band, and goaded on by another ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... she would write a letter or two first. And she had written her letters, but still felt no inclination to sleep. Then there fluttered across her memory somehow the conversation she had held with Mr. Furnival in the morning. It would be amusing, she thought, to cheat him out of some of those six-and-eightpences he pretended to think so much of. It would be still more amusing, next time the subject of her will was recurred to, to give his arm a little tap with her fan, and say, "Oh, that is all settled, ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... is bunched and off for the lines. You begin climbing again, gulping to clear your ears in the changing pressure. Surveying the other machines, you recognize the pilot of each by the marks on its side—or by the way he flies. The distinguishing marks of the Nieuports are various and sometimes amusing. Bert Hall, for instance, has BERT painted on the left side of his plane and the same word reversed (as if spelled backward with the left hand) on the right—so an aviator passing him on that side at great speed will be able to read the name ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... improved system, of her own invention, which, in some of its parts, has been successfully introduced into several female seminaries, with advantage. This plan combines singing with a great variety of amusing and graceful evolutions, designed to promote both health ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... century. A copy of his work is preserved in the Book of Ballymote, which was compiled in the year 1391. There is certainly evidence enough to prove the fact of the melee, and that this was not a "legend invented from the tenth to the twelfth centuries." It is almost amusing to hear the criticisms of persons utterly ignorant of our literature, however well-educated in other respects. If the treasures of ancient history which exist in Irish MSS. existed in Sanscrit, or even in Greek or Latin, we should find scholars devoting their lives and best intellectual ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... that," she said. "We got back all right the last time. What I want to know is what are we to do next? I see no way out of this hall, and though it's rather nice, it's not very amusing. Dudu, I wish you would sit still—you keep giving little juggles on my head that are very uncomfortable, and make me feel as if I had a hat on that was always ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... businesses which depended on them personally. Compulsion has cut the knot and eased their consciences. They'll make fine soldiers! But we want more—more!" And then follows talk on the wonderful developments of training—even since last year; and some amusing reminiscences of the early days of England's astounding effort, by which vast mobs of eager recruits without guns, uniforms, or teachers, have been turned into the magnificent armies now ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of October 8th, reviews his book of travels, which has been republished in England, and reviews it seriously. We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this tribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can hardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very first day of his enlistment, and willing to begin as garcon d'aerodrome; the joke about the German airplane sunk so deep in the wet ground that it would have to be dug out, and the surprise of the pilot; the delight over Raymond's promotion; the amusing allusion to sea-sickness by the man who had no equal in air ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... twenty-four is as far advanced as a captain of forty. Between Selkirk and myself, if the wealth is on my side, on his will be gratitude and little attentions. At all events, I prefer a young husband who will whisper words of love in my ear, to amusing myself by pouring out drink for my lord and master, while he smokes his pipe, with his feet on the brands. Was it not thus that icicle, dressed in blue, called Stradling, talked to me of the pleasures of marriage? And what a name! But Mistress ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... the following pages to the public, the author has been principally influenced by a desire of uniting useful information with that which he hopes may prove amusing to the reader, endeavouring as much as possible to keep in view the spirit of the title "How to enjoy Paris;" and having been accustomed to hear such constant and bitter murmurings from the English, in consequence of their having been so frequently imposed ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... startlish with having to stand in the rain and chill night air, in the open road, while the debates were going on as to the best method of attaching them to the sunken vehicle,—when once put back into their own traces, they took to rearing and kicking instead of proceeding. It is by no means amusing to sit in a diligence behind five plunging horses, on a cliff-road,—one edge of which overhangs the sea, and the other consists of a deep ditch or water-way, beneath a sheer upright rock,—"when rain and wind beat dark December"; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... politicians and the men who are running things. Everything is in miniature, you see, in a little nation like this, which, although only as large as one of our smaller States, has a King and court, diplomats, and army, and foreign policy. All in the family, so to speak, and the chanteuse will sing amusing verses about the prime minister as if she really knew what he was going to do, and, curiously enough—for things are sometimes very much in the family, indeed, in these little capitals—maybe ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... after-deck. Miss Proctor leaned her back against the low gunwale astern. The men disposed themselves about her. They talked with a great deal of laughter; but Bobby did not find their conversation amusing. Finally they began to entreat Mr. Bradford to play his banjo. That young gentleman became suddenly afflicted ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... jeering and reviling, there were now those who remarked that 'perhaps the chap was no worse than the rest of us,' whilst others were glad they had been stopped in time, for only a few weeks before a man had been killed, whilst standing in the pillory, by those who were only 'amusing' themselves in much the same fashion as folk on ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... custom at the ranch to have an entertainment of some sort at the ranch afterward. This was started for the purpose of amusing the buyers with cowboy tricks and that sort of thing, but it had developed into something far greater, until now all the world was invited to the barbecue and the "doings" afterward. No one ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... large sacks, mercifully clean. An individual in charge, wearing a faded blue suit and a two days' growth of stubbly beard, told them briefly to help themselves, and then take their sacks to the barn and fill them with hay. Preparing their own mattresses was a new experience, but an amusing one. It was fun stuffing the sweet-smelling hay into the rough canvas bags, and more fun still carrying the bulky bedding back over fields and stiles to the tents. Here, amid a chaos of unpacking, they at last disposed their belongings to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... when the young go out of the nest on their first foraging that the parents, full of a crass and simple pride, make their indescribable chucklings of gobbling, gluttonous delight. The little ones would be amusing as they tug and tussle, if one could forget what it is they ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... Without amusing our selves with what Notes are most Musical, to lye behind, we will come to the matter of Fact; for those Methods of Peals that are prick't on Six, may be the same upon Eight, Observing only, ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... had expected, but added that they would be better able to judge to-morrow at twelve. Claudius and Margaret exchanged a few sentences, with tolerable tact and indifference; but, for some occult reason, Mr. Barker undertook to be especially lively and amusing, and after the dinner was somewhat advanced he launched out into a series of stories and anecdotes which served very well to pass the time and to attract notice to himself. As Mr. Barker was generally not very talkative at table, though frequently epigrammatic, his sudden eloquence ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... from Livingstone during my absence. His letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not indicated a vein ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... duke themselves, but they didn't want Blakely's mother to have him; Blakely's mother and Mrs. Sanderson-Spear, and Mrs. Tudor Carstairs. In a way, it was better than a comic opera; it was fearfully amusing. ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... replied the favorite, "and you must find some amusing disguise and procure masks for him and for me and, if you like, for yourself too. He wants to join the revel as a satyr and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tea-dances or pow-wows in times of peace, the squaws and children joined in, and it was a very amusing sight to watch them. We often went three miles to look at a tea-dance, and I found it as attractive and interesting as a big circus would be to the children of a civilized place. But I had then no idea of the war- dance. ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... a swarm of other manuals and popular works have appeared since, excellent in their way, and almost beyond counting. But all honour to those, and above all to Mr. Gosse and Mr. Johns, who first opened people's eyes to the wonders around them all day long. Now, we have, in addition to amusing books on special subjects, serials on Natural History more or less profound, and suited to every kind of student and every grade of knowledge. I mention the names of none. For first, they happily need no advertisement from me; ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... the school-days well enough at first; chiefly because I devoted myself entirely to play and refused work. Besides, there was something amusing in the novelty of the thing, and there was much interest in the mischief that could be done in school; also in the deeds of daring and violence that could be done out of it, with the able assistance of a score or so of boys of almost every age and ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... according to the character of the crew, of the commander of the vessel, or of the poor fellows about to undergo the unpleasant and dreadful process of an introduction. They were generally of a harmless and amusing character, one of which was to bring them before old Neptune, and put them through the process of shaving. The chin, and the greater part of the face, would be plastered over with a composition made of tar and train oil, laid on thickly with a large tar brush. The razor was often fabricated ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... magnifying glasses through which age has the reputation of looking backward, nor the clever young men of to-day who write about that delectable decade and no doubt deplore my indiscretion in being alive to write about it myself, to show me how very much more amusing and interesting life was then ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... objected that the possession of clairvoyance destroys all privacy, and confers a limit-less ability to explore the secrets of others. No doubt it does confer such an ability, but nevertheless the suggestion is an amusing one to anyone who knows anything practically about the matter. Such an objection may possibly be well-founded as regards the very limited powers of the "test and business clairvoyant," but the man who brings it forward ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... looked at him as she spoke. But when he uttered the single word shoe, she turned as pale as a ghost; all her wisdom could not help her, for he had guessed rightly. Oh, how pleased the old king was! It was quite amusing to see how he capered about. All the people clapped their hands, both on his account and John's, who had guessed rightly the first time. His fellow-traveller was glad also, when he heard how successful John had been. But John folded his hands, and thanked God, who, he ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... thought. A conceit or fancy may be wholly unfounded, while a conception always has, or is believed to have, some answering reality. (Compare REASON.) An intellectual fancy or conceit may be pleasing or amusing, but is never worth serious discussion; we speak of a mere fancy, a droll or odd conceit. An emotional or personal fancy is a capricious liking formed with slight reason and no exercise of judgment, and ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that the report of Count Markof to his Court, describing this new and rare show, is a chef-d'oeuvre of wit, equally amusing and instructive. He is said to have requested of his Cabinet new and particular orders how to act—whether as the representative of an independent Sovereign, or, as most of the other members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, like ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... that at Chartres was rising,—is unlike any other, and shows how much the French architects valued their lovely French creation. On its octagonal faces, it carries upright batons, or lances, as a device for relieving the severity of the outlines; a device both intelligent and amusing, though it was never imitated. A little farther from Paris, at Senlis, is another fleche, which shows still more plainly the effort of the French architects to vary and elaborate the Chartres scheme. As for Laon, which is interesting ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... detail of such proceedings would only swell my narrative, without amusing my reader; I shall therefore content myself with observing, that things remained in this state till the 14th of March, when the long-looked for frigate at length arrived, and on the 15th, the first division of the army embarking, set sail for England. The wind, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... replied. "It really is such a pity. One so seldom meets any one worth talking to who doesn't know everything there is that shouldn't be known about everybody. About Count Sabatini, for instance, I could tell you some most amusing things." ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... well that nobody likes to be bored, but I think it would be better to be bored to extinction than to mortify and pain people by rejecting their society because they are not intensely amusing or distinguished, or even because they are intensely ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... had followed had been peaceful and amusing. He could not detect in any one of them a sign of the approaching shadow. They had been lazy days. His duties had been much more simple than he had anticipated. He had not known, before he tried it, that it was ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... There ought to be another word for her kind of popularity. Genevieve is clever, you know, and she's awfully funny," she continued, smiling as she remembered Genevieve mimicking Miss Langton in a temper; "anybody who is amusing can be popular," she ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... laughed Mrs. Val. 'Upon my word, my dear, it is amusing to hear you take it up. However, I assure you I meant nothing but what was kind and friendly. Come, Clementina, we have been sitting here a most unconscionable time. Will you allow me, my dear, to ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... that follow them, must always have corresponded with the stresses or absence of stress which would naturally be made apparent by the voice of an ideal reciter; and to me, as to some other people, the question has proved amusing of how far in English verse Latin prosody could be reproduced. Many attempts have been made at deciding this question by experiments. The most remarkable of these are two which were made by Tennyson. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... brother George's lively journals, written when he was abroad. You remember how we used to laugh over them when he sent them home? Well, when I was begged to give them an evening, I resolved to try one of those amusing journal-letters, and chose the best,—all about how George and a friend went to the different places Dickens describes in some of his funny books. I wish you could have seen how those dear girls enjoyed it, and laughed ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... situation. It was plainly her interest that the king's party should prevail, and nothing could have engaged her to stop their progress, or even forbear openly assisting them, but her intention of still amusing the queen of Scots, by the hopes of being peaceably restored to her throne. See, further Strype, vol. ii. Append. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... Nothing of me but my eyes was visible as I walked in. The landlady received us; two minutes later, my little friend (ever, I fear me, on the look-out for such guests as might prove amusing) made her appearance. Dinner and the wine were ordered. I sat down in the private room. A ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Colette displayed so genuine an interest in his friendship with Christophe that he went so far as to tell her the whole story, and even about certain of their amicable misunderstandings, which, at a distance, seemed amusing, and he took the whole blame for them on himself. He also confided to Colette Christophe's artistic projects, and also some of his opinions—which were not altogether flattering—concerning France and the French. Nothing that he told her was of any great importance ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... a nicer. It was called "A Tour Round my Garden," and some of the little stones in it—like the Tulip Rebecca, and the Discomfited Florists—were very amusing indeed; and some were sad and pretty, like the Yellow Roses; and there were delicious bits, like the Enriched Woodman and the Connoisseur Deceived; but there was no "stuff" in it ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... difference in their stations, clothes, and manners, Daniel and his young relatives met as equals. It would have been amusing to see anyone—even the Countess of Chell, who patronized the entire district—attempt to ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... it is, and have been going on like anything to Lizzie over her carelessness. Mrs. Cooper's walked up the village with Laura about some extra meat that's wanted, and when I came through for your tea if that girl hadn't let the kitchen fire right out!—Amusing herself down in the stable-yard, I expect, Mrs. Cooper being gone.—And the business I've had to get a ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... &c.—the oscillations by which they ultimately relaxed and tied up the law, just as their erring conscience, or the necessities of social life prevailed, would compose one of the interesting chapters in this science. But the Jewish relaxation is the most amusing: it coincides altogether with the theory of savages as to property, which we have already noticed under the head of Piracy. All men on earth, except Jews, were held to be fair subjects for usury; not as though usury were ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... are brooding lovers of knowledge in this world who are fonder of their own than of any other company. But most people can only think half thoughts and need other people to complete them. It is amusing enough to knock a ball against a wall, and a wonderful help in the perfection of strokes, but it is far more amusing to face somebody across a net and play ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... at the eyrie. Cecil and Miss Violet have made fast friends, and Duke, the greyhound, looks on approvingly, though with an amusing tint of jealousy. The child has forgotten her wounds, has had some berries, cake, and milk, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... relates an amusing instance of the universal charity of the kindly Dyer. Lamb once suddenly asked him what he thought of the murderer Williams,—a wretch who had destroyed two families in Ratcliff Highway, and then cheated the gallows by committing suicide. "The desperate attempt," says Talfourd, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... a few amusing results followed. Among a certain class in England a regular panic broke out, and in Holland and Belgium even the masses of the people became suspicious of gold and disliked to take it in payment. ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... guests came except those we desired to compromise. The invitations having been sent at short notice, it was amusing to read the notes and letters of excuse, which Sallenauve ordered to be brought to him in the salon as they arrived. As he opened each he took care to say: "This is from Monsieur the sub-prefect; this from the procureur-du-roi; ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... an opposition waiting patiently during several months for its principles to turn up would be amusing in times less critical than these. Nor was this the worst. If there might be persons malicious enough to think that the Democratic party could get along very well without principles, all would admit that a candidate was among the necessaries of life. Now, where not only ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... with the greatest alacrity, and my daughter was enabled, towards the close of the day, to enjoy the pleasure of again amusing the ship's company. I repeat it, that no present was ever received by me with more sincere gratitude. I greatly reproach myself for having neglected to make inquiries after the worthy seaman, who was only known on board by the ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... was Barbara who laughed. The idea of Eugenia's being managed instead of managing other people was amusing. Besides, it was unlike her to talk so fast and ask so many questions without giving ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... You see I know all about it, and told Mr. Carrington the story of every paper as we went on. It was quite amusing, I assure you." ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... advance in the cause of education for women, and reviewed the progress in each particular branch of science. Letters from various parts of the world were read by Mrs. Griffing and Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, the latter of whom demonstrated in an amusing and forcible manner that the women of our country did not form a part of the "people," according to the various banners and posters displayed about the streets in reference to the coming election. Woman did want ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "The really amusing thing about you is that you don't at all know how little brains you have," was the polite broadside delivered him as Violet began to sip the clear coffee from ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sugar-plums; she will then shut her eyes and see with ours, for have we not paid our tribute-money? Yes, gold is the passport to society; a chimney sweep, with pots of gold, would find a glad welcome where the beggared son of a belted earl would be driven forth. But, after all, 'tis an amusing age, and one must adapt oneself to one's time. I own there are some unpleasantnesses, as when one meets, as Mrs. Ross-Hatton did, a maid-servant from her mother's household; one would grow used to these mongrels in time, I suppose, as this is the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... behind the German lines and that the gunners were searching for a German battery. But I might as well have been observing a gang of Italians at blasting operations in the Montclair Mountains. And the officer with me said: "Our children are just amusing themselves." ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... me and master to Lady Griffinses,—I amusing myself with the gals in the antyroom, he paying his devours to the ladies in the salong. Miss was thrumming on her gitter; my lady was before a great box of papers, busy with accounts, bankers' books, lawyers' letters, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... times. Even people, "qui ne se rendent pas," have deigned both to run and to shout, "Sauve qui pent" at odd times of sunset; though, for my part, I have no pleasure in recalling unpleasant remembrances to brave men; and yet, really, being so philosophic, they ought not to be unpleasant. But the amusing feature in M. Michelet's reproach, is the way in which he improves and varies against us the charge of running, as if he were singing a catch. Listen to him. They "showed their backs," did these English. (Hip, hip, hurrah! three ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... found that, she found something to entertain her. She not only received Mr Ewing when he called, but talked to him at the gate when he went past—and he went past several times a day. Now, when the situation at home had grown desperate, and she was looking all ways for means to save herself, his amusing infatuation became a matter for serious thought. COULD she? She was a hard case, but even she wavered. He was probably sixty, and she was eighteen. Oh, she couldn't! But when, after Miss Keene's departure, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... asked. There was a trace of a smile on his face and a glow of what seemed to be amusement in his eyes as he listened, though Hanson could see nothing amusing in the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... soldier's canteens, and huts and buffets, and Hospitals, which show a little Londoner saying to a meek member of the aristocracy "washing up," "Nar, then, Lady Halexandra, 'urry up with them plaites," and we have an amusing little play of the same kind. The society girl who washes down the Hospital steps, and washes up for hours, and carries meals up and down stairs in her work, week after week, and month after month, and year after year, in our Hospitals, knows what work is now, and the soldier who is served, ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... as the dirty, ill-dressed servant of the court tailor), and who is not even present as a suitor. Her suitors, princes, have passed before her for three days. After the marriage the prince keeps up the disguise. His brothers by way of amusing themselves at his expense take "Stupid Peppe," as they call him, to the wood to shoot birds; he shoots a great number, while they run here and there and cannot find one. They agree to let him brand them with black spots on their shoulders, on condition ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... cloathed, from which the foregoing description must have been taken.[3] Being desirous to make prisoners of some of these giants, Magellan gave orders for this purpose to some of his crew. Accordingly, while amusing them with toys, they put iron shackles on their legs, which at first they conceived had been fine ornaments like the rest, and seemed pleased with their jingling sound, till they found themselves hampered and betrayed. They then fell a bellowing like bulls, and imploring the aid of Setebos in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... at this long before some of the wise blackbirds saw through it, and resented it with proper spirit. One of them would turn savagely after the sparrow who followed him, and the knowing rascal always took his departure. It was amusing to see a blackbird working seriously on a grain, all his faculties absorbed in the solemn question whether he should succeed in cracking his nut, while two or three feathered pilferers stood as near as they dared, anxiously waiting till the great work should be accomplished, the ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... his ideas to be embarrassed by any concern as to his appearance. He talks about himself with energetic gaiety. He talks to other people with a sweet forbearance (implying a kindly consideration for their stupidity) which infuriates those whom he does not succeed in amusing. They either lose their tempers with him or try in vain to ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... asked Pontellier, looking lazily and amused from one to the other. It was some utter nonsense; some adventure out there in the water, and they both tried to relate it at once. It did not seem half so amusing when told. They realized this, and so did Mr. Pontellier. He yawned and stretched himself. Then he got up, saying he had half a mind to go over to Klein's hotel and play a ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... and hid behind the curtain, but the old woman came to the window and closed it. The chevalier did not expect this denouement. There was nothing for him but to close his window also, and to come back and put his feet on the hobs. This was not amusing, and the chevalier began to feel how solitary he should be in this retreat. He remembered that formerly he also used to play and draw, and he thought that if he had the smallest spinet and some chalks, he could bear it ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... down from your head," advises the dry, quiet voice. "But don't tear up the papers!—they're too amusing to lose." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... in the difficulties thus presented by it, bas-relief involves more direct exertion of intellect than finished solid sculpture. It is not so, however. The questions involved by bas-relief are of a more curious and amusing kind, requiring great variety of expedients; though none except such as a true workmanly instinct delights in inventing, and invents easily; but design in solid sculpture involves considerations of weight in mass, of balance, of perspective ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... glancing, intelligent, smiling eyes spoke fastidiousness and discrimination. Her voice was low and soft, with a vibrating sound in it, and she laughed often and easily, being very ready to see and enjoy the amusing side of life. But observation and emotion alike were instinctively veiled by a quiet, reposeful manner, so that she made herself further popular by appearing retiring. Edith Ottley might so easily ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... wull didna end here, for he insisted on takin' us a'—Nosey amang the lave—to the nearest public, where he gi'ed us a frien'ly glass, and we keepit tawking about monkeys, and what not, in a manner at ance edifying and amusing to hear.—Blackwood's Magazine. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... the truth of the parts to the beauty of the whole, the inmost nature of things to the exterior impression. Now, directly the substance is subordinated to form, properly speaking it ceases to exist; the statement is empty, and instead of having extended our knowledge we have only indulged in an amusing game. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he said, "Well, come in. It's rather amusing, Leila. Sit down. I've had James Penhallow here to say his wife's breaking down. I've had Mrs. Penhallow here to say James Penhallow is ill. Except the maids and the cats and you, all Grey Pine is diagnosing one another. And now, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... is one thing I would have altered. If He intended us for such a rough life, He should have made the human frame capable of going longer without food. To a poor soldier marching from Moscow to have to stop every three hours and gnaw a piece of horse that has died—and raw—it is not amusing." ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... long—although the task would be amusing—to call the roll of Daudet's novels written after "Fromont and Risler" had revealed to him his own powers, and to discuss what fact of Parisian history had been the starting point of each of them and what notabilities ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Scots, certain Welsh Princes, and those of Munster, Ulster, Leinster and Connaught, beside his hostages. At the same time Malachy, with the shadow, of independence, kept his unfrequented court in West-Meath, amusing himself with wine and chess and the taming of unmanageable horses, in which last pursuit, after his abdication, we hear of his breaking a limb. To support the hospitalities of Kinkora, the tributes of every province ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... first, if they could no shake me enough to make me stop singing, and they liked me the better when they found I would no stop. The soldiers soon began to laugh, but the joke was not all on me, and I could see that they understood that, and were pleased. Indeed, it was all as amusing to ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... adherents came to do him honour at his birthplace, over 500 of them on decorated horses having met him at Sisak station the previous evening. When I asked him what he had to say about the two afore-mentioned remarks he gave me an amusing account of how the interviewer had appreciated the various samples of wine which he (Radi['c]) had just brought down from his vineyard. The conversation lasted for about four hours, and in the course of it Radi['c] mentioned that a certain ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... pearls for the occasion, so that, as Prosperi reports, her jewels made almost as fine a show as those of the duchess. Nor was this rivalry in clothes and jewels limited to the royal ladies themselves. Our lively friend, Duchess Leonora's maid of honour, Teodora, gives Isabella an amusing account of the keen emulation that existed between the Milanese and Ferrarese ladies who were to accompany the two duchesses to Venice.[37] Beatrice's ladies each wore long gold chains, valued at two hundred ducats apiece, and her chief maids of honour had been provided ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... Well aware that the safety of their own precious carcasses depends on their returning to Khorassan with a receipt from the Khan of Ghalakua for my safe delivery, there is little reason to fear actual violence from them, and their childish attempts at extortion by other methods will furnish an amusing and instructive ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... yet another cause which increases the difficulty of describing undergraduate life with truth. There are very many varieties of undergraduates, who have very various ways of occupying and amusing themselves. A steady man that reads his five or six hours a day, and takes his pastime chiefly on the river, finds that his path scarcely ever crosses that of him who belongs to the Bullingdon Club, hunts thrice a week, ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... ones can wander with interest through coloured pictures and easy fairy tales. Among the coloured picture series, the Old Mother Hubbard of 1793, with its contrast, Old Mother Hubbard of To-day, is very amusing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... a Saturday afternoon in early winter, and the cadets of Colby Hall Military Academy were out in force to enjoy themselves on the smooth ice of the lake, near which the school was located. The cadets had been amusing themselves in various ways, playing tag and hockey, and in "snapping the whip," as it is called, when Gif Garrison, at the head of the athletic ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... but firm reasonableness of some of the representatives of the more considerable powers. The committee meetings were, in fact, not only more effective than the Assembly meetings, but more stimulating, more amusing. ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... becomes as much a beacon as it is a vehicle of amusement. We consider this to be the true art of novel writing, and that crime and folly and error can be as severely lashed as virtue and morality can be upheld, by a series of amusing causes and effects, that entice the reader to take a medicine, which, although rendered agreeable to the palate, still produces the same internal benefit, as if it had been presented to him in its crude state, in which it would either be refused ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... Brazil which they had not conquered to the king of Portugal, who agreed to leave that part which they had conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing about, with such good allies. But the Dutch government soon began to oppress the Portuguese colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves with complaints, took arms against their new masters, and by their own valour and resolution, with the connivance, indeed, but without any avowed assistance from the mother country, drove them out of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... not quite one of the inner circle, you know. But we like him. He is really clever and very amusing. He is one of the heads of the Medical Faculty of our London University. All medical men, you know, wear that purple. But, of course, people who are paid by fees for doing something—" She smiled away the social ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... to women. When you sit alone and silent you are defending in your mind the poor women from attacks which cannot possibly touch them. I wonder what can touch them? But to soothe your uneasiness I will point out again that an Irrelevant world would be very amusing, if the women take care to make it as charming as they alone can, by preserving for us certain well-known, well-established, I'll almost say hackneyed, illusions, without which the average male creature cannot get on! And that condition is very important. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I shall be—we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it sounds very reasonable. Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety, than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the matter—that is, if he is free. And yet—" He turned and frowned thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how the boy is supporting himself all this ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... part was a representation of "The Babes in the Wood," which went very smoothly, and appeared to suit the general taste of the spectators. Then followed a "skeleton dance," and next we gave with the puppets an amusing harlequinade by clown, pantaloon, and butterfly. Yes, and here the real fun of the evening came in. The butterfly took a great deal of catching. Mr Howard and his good lady and myself were leaning over a rail (behind the scenes, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... "we have been regretting your absence particularly this evening, because we are navigating the North Sea, where you have been so often tossed to and fro, and we thought it quite possible you might have met with some amusing or instructive incidents in your travels along the coast, which would agreeably relieve the tedium of our voyage. Now I see no reason why you should not accompany your friend to Scotland, and charm us with a soul-stirring ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... mean the use of a word in vulgar Latin with another meaning from that which it has in formal Latin. We are familiar enough with the different senses which a word often has in conversational and in literary English. "Funny," for instance, means "amusing" in formal English, but it is often the synonym of "strange" in conversation. The sense of a word may be extended, or be restricted, or there may be a transfer of meaning. In the colloquial use of "funny" we have an extension of its literary sense. The same is true of "splendid," "jolly," "lovely," ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... first carriage closed with a snap, there was a relaxing of ceremony, and an interchange of congratulations, earnest, though somewhat amusing. For when Hervey raised his eyes to the despised mother's face, he saw there the soft features of Mrs. Raynor, while his father smiled in contented expectancy. His own ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... work for anyone from cover to cover, the hard piety, the snobbishness, the brutality of taking the children to the old gallows and seating them before the dangling remains of a murderer, while the lesson of brotherly love is impressed are shocking when they are not amusing; but to the child the doings of the naughty and repentant little Fairchilds are engrossing; and experience proves to us that the twentieth-century child is as eager for the book as were ever ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic story of ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Montezuma is transformed into a barbarous Indian chief, and the city of Mexico becomes a rude Indian village, situated among the islands and lagoons of an everglade which afforded unusual facilities "for fishing and snaring birds." One goes so far as to maintain this with considerable vehemence and amusing unconsciousness of absurdity. He is sure that Montezuma was nothing more than the principal chief of a parcel of wild Indian tribes, and that the Pueblos are wild Indians changed to their present condition by Spanish influence. There is something in ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Clissold, and as a rule were ridden, the sea having only recently frozen. The exercise ground had lain on the boulder-strewn sand of the home beach and extending towards the Skua lake; and across these stretches I soon saw barebacked figures dashing at speed, and not a few amusing incidents in which horse and rider parted with abrupt lack of ceremony. I didn't think this quite the most desirable form of exercise for the beasts, but decided to leave matters as they were till our pony ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... to the incursions of this time into politics, which, if not much happier, were more amusing. The chief monument of them is the long unreprinted Friendship's Garland, which has always had some fervent devotees, and is very characteristic. It so happened that the period when Essays in Criticism, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... he had shown when entering it. Dr. Martineau had thrust him back from his intenser prepossessions to a more generalized view of himself, had made his troubles objective and detached him from them. He could even find something amusing now in his situation. He liked the immense scope of the theoretical duet in which they had indulged. He felt that most of it was entirely true—and, in some untraceable manner, absurd. There were entertaining possibilities in the ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... my finger for the world. You are my world, Dora. If you approve, then I am game. I shall be all right in a few days, and then—then I'll go and do my bit of time, and see the inside of Sing-Sing. It'll be amusing. There's a cab. That's ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... same time, and Alick and Terence accompanied Jack to that often-talked-of and well-loved home of his in Northamptonshire. It must not be forgotten that they had in their train the most sensible of travelled apes. Master Queerface, who, by his amusing antics and performances, and extraordinary monkeyish sagacity, gained the admiration of the whole surrounding neighbourhood. There they remained for some weeks, when, after Alick and Terence had paid a short visit ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... more like a rough than an ill-natured rag; but the whimpering unseen victim seemed to have no kick in him: and Roy could only sit there wondering helplessly what people were made of who found it amusing to hurt and frighten other people, who had ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... show how easily I could disarm and kill them. This practice excited some interest in Kua-ko, who had a little more of curiosity and geniality and less of the put-on dignity of the others, and with him I became most intimate. Fencing with Kua-ko was highly amusing: no sooner was he in position, foil in hand, than all my instructions were thrown to the winds, and he would charge and attack me in his own barbarous manner, with the result that I would send his foil spinning ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... showed no sign of fatigue. High-spirited and intensely amusing, it seemed to promise many more—for into almost old age he had carried the imagination and energy in which as a very young man we saw his resemblance to the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... to laugh at the amusing figure I cut after I had really ceased to have any deep feeling in the matter. It was then I took it into my head to be a Blighted Being. This was about two weeks after the spectral ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... badly sharpened axes that had hacked, without destroying, Messieurs de Chalais and De Thou upon the scaffold. She recovered herself, however, and said, "I was perfectly right in saying you were a witty woman, for you are making the time pass away most agreeably. This joke is a most amusing one, for I have never ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... discovered a few centuries ago, that the time would come when I should write upon this subject, in the very land, and almost on the very spot that gave birth to Moses and the Pharoahs, I should have thought him amusing himself with a jest; nevertheless such is the fact. I write this book; on the banks of old Nile, and in sight of ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... the goose eat, and from that on Mr. Pryor laughed until you could easily see that he had very little feeling for suffering humanity. It was funny enough when we fed her, but now that she was bursted wide open there was nothing amusing about it; and to roar when a visitor plainly told you she was in awful trouble, didn't seem very good manners to me. The Princess and her mother never even smiled; and before I had told nearly all of it, Thomas was ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... a likely place ahead there," remarked Larry, who had been amusing himself with a pair of marine glasses Phil had brought along with him; and which promised to be particularly useful, once the motor boat reached the big waters ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... unentertaining, our author has, in this group of faces, ridiculed the want of capacity among some of our judges, or dispensers of the law, whose shallow discernment, natural disposition, or wilful inattention, is here perfectly described in their faces. One is amusing himself in the course of trial, with other business; another, in all the pride of self-importance, is examining a former deposition, wholly inattentive to that before him; the next is busied in thoughts quite foreign to the subject; and the senses ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... guild, but a rather startling, amusing neighbor, who always minds Ins own business and is an ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... above twenty pages to instances of the superstition and credulity of the Jews about the time of Christ. The contents of these pages would be amusing if they did not reveal such deep mental degradation in a race which Christians regard as sacred, because of God's ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... The reproach of being amusing has somewhat dimmed your fame—for a moment. The shadow of this tyranny will soon be overpast; and when "La Curee" and "Pot-Bouille" are more forgotten than "Le Grand Cyrus," men and women—and, above all, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... let at last to a friend and colleague of the Professor. Mrs. Walker doubtless would remember Professor Theobald, who used to come and stay at Craddock Place rather frequently some years ago, a big man with beard and moustache, very learned and very amusing. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... pause. "Is there anything amusing about being loved?" she thought; "what patient women the great coquettes of the world must have been! How I wish I were a crisp intelligent old maid, with a talent perhaps for gardening ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... obtains absolution. On his return to the hall he solaces the ladies with comely carols and all kinds of joy (ll. 1866-1892). The dark night came, and then the lord of the castle, having slain the fox, returns to his "dear home," where he finds a fire brightly turning and his guest amusing the ladies (ll. 1893-1927). Gawayne, in fulfilment of his agreement, kisses his host thrice.[1] "By Christ," quoth the other knight, "ye have caught much bliss. I have hunted all this day and nought have I got but the skin of this foul fox (the devil have the goods!), and that is full poor ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... Grangers had been no whit behind in sanguinary reprisals. He remembered seeing this same Jase Vaughn, now riding unsuspectingly toward the loaded rifle, at a corn shucking once. Ralph then thought him a very jolly, amusing fellow. ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
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