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More "Ass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grown from very small beginnings, and are now to be found in every port where English-speaking seamen congregate. They began when, as the saying was, the sailor {172} earnt his money like a horse and spent it like an ass. They flourish when the sailor is much better able to look after himself. But their help is needed still; and what they have done in the past has not been the least among the influences which have made the common lot of the seaman so very much better ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... up to us, mounted on a Lion; when he came to the others, I found him of the common Size with the Inhabitants of our Globe; he had on his Head a Crown of Bays, which in an Instant chang'd to a Fool's Cap, and his Lion to an Ass. He drew from his Breast a Rowl like a Quire of Written Paper, which using as a Sword, he set upon the others, and dispers'd them. Some ran over the Sea, as on dry Ground; others flew into the Air, and some sunk into the Earth. ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... would be a relief to talk, and I feel I could trust you. Still, it's only fair to tell you I didn't at the beginning. I was an opinionated ass, ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... that affection for faithful animals which we meet with in Cowper, Burns, and other poets of the Romantic Revival. In the sincerity of its emotion it is poles apart from the studied sentimentality of the famous lament over the dead ass in Sterne's Sentimental Journey; indeed, in spirit it is much nearer to Burns's "Death of Poor Mailie," though Browne is wholly lacking in that delicate humour which Burns possesses, and which overtakes the tenderness of the poem as the lights and shadows overtake one another among the ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... applies] to land kept for pasture. An ass and a camel are [in this respect] the same as ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... mischief's done. Listen!" Again he pointed to the ceiling, but his eyes set on Captain Alec with a queer, rueful, humorous expression. "I was an ass to ask you in. But I'm no good at it, that's the fact. I'm always giving the show away!" he grumbled, half to himself, ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... circuses, and moral menageries, and go from town to town, announcing their arrival by that terrific combination of steam-whistles which is called in the West a Cally-ope. What an advance upon the old system of strolling players and the barn! "Then came each actor on his ass." On the Ohio he comes in a comfortable stateroom, to which when the performance is over he retires, waking the next morning at the scene ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... immediately. I will endeavour to remember what I can (under protest), and to write what I can (also under protest), and what I can't remember and can't write, Louis must remember and write for me. He is an ass, and I am an invalid, and we are likely to make all sorts of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... to his own account, was the first American to attempt the raising of mules. Soon after the Revolution he asked our representative in Spain to ascertain whether it would be possible "to procure permission to extract a Jack ass of the best breed." At that time the exportation of these animals from Spain was forbidden by law, but Florida Blanca, the Spanish minister of state, brought the matter to the attention of the king, who in a fit of generosity ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... man coming to the Cogia asked him for the loan of his ass. 'Stay here,' said the Cogia, 'whilst I go and consult the animal. If the ass is willing to be lent, I will let you have him.' Thereupon he went in, and after staying for a time came out and said, 'The ass is not willing, and has said to me, "If you lend me to others I shall overhear ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... other great words Truth, and Justice; do. The salt has lost its savour, the meaning has escaped from the term; we know nothing of what people will do when they aspire to Liberty. The holiness of liberty is desecrated by the sign of the ass's hoof. Fixed principles, either of opinion or action, seem clearly gone out of the world. The principle of Destruction is in the place of the principle of Re-integration, or of Radical Reform, as we called it in England. I look all round and can sympathise ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Roger, and stopped suddenly, and then wondered why he stopped, and told himself he was an ass. ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... freely made her acquainted with the real state of my mind, and{126} given her the reasons therefor, it might have been well for both of us. Her abuse of me fell upon me like the blows of the false prophet upon his ass; she did not know that an angel stood in the way; and—such is the relation of master and slave I could not tell her. Nature had made us friends; slavery made us enemies. My interests were in a direction opposite to hers, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... that here no religious triumph was, or could have been, contemplated by Lord Ellenborough. On this point we need no other evidence than that of Joseph Hume, who, combining the properties of Balaam and his ass, often brays out a blessing when he intends a curse. He tells ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... Doe. Don't be a sloppy ass," I said, feeling that I had been fairly trapped into deserting a fellow-victim, ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... "Don't make an ass of yourself, Roy," Lance flashed out: but his hands were shaking: his lips were shaking. He was no longer ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... has admitted that he has become 'a good dull mule,' [15] he avows that he is now a very strange beast, an ass, an actor,a hermaphrodite, and a fool; and that he more especially relishes this latter condition of his, for in all other forms, as Jonson makes him confess, he has 'proved ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... Brougham states in his 'Memoirs' that the Queen resolved to reject the advice of Parliament without consulting her lawyers. In one of Lord Brougham's letters written at the time he calls Wood 'the ass and alderman called Thistle-wood,' and attributed to him the intrigue which brought the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... I cried. "You don't know what a stew I've been in. I'll switch on the light. I've been thinking of you and nothing else for the last hour. I—I was ass enough to think something had ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... parliament, with a clyster-pipe in front of him and his seat upon a close stool. Moliere and Swift, votaries of Cloacina, were anticipated in the climax of Count Culagna's attempt to poison his wife, and in the invention of the enchanted ass so formidable by Parthian discharges on its adversary. Over these births of Tassoni's genius the Maccaronic Muse of Folengo and his Bolognese predecessors presided. There is something Lombard, a smack of sausage in the humor. But it remained for the Modenese poet to bring this Mafelina into ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... of whom was a native of Bologna and the other a citizen of Imola. No blood was shed. In the evening the Asinaria was presented, together with a wonderful moresca in which appeared fourteen satyrs, one of which carried a silvered ass's head in his hands, in which there was a music-box, to the strains of which the clowns danced. This play of the satyrs was followed by an interlude performed by sixteen vocalists,—men and women,—and a virtuoso from Mantua who played on three lutes. In conclusion there ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... I bear] [T: don't appear] I do not think this emendation necessary. He first says, that his wrongs and blows prove him an ass; but immediately, with a correction of his former sentiment, such as may be hourly observed in conversation, he observes that, if he had been an ass, he should, when he was kicked, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... case of the unskilful physician, if it led to loss of life or limb his hands were cut off, a slave had to be replaced, the loss of his eye paid for to half his value; a veterinary surgeon who caused the death of an ox or ass paid quarter value; a builder, whose careless workmanship caused death, lost his life or paid for it by the death of his child, replaced slave or goods, and in any case had to rebuild the house or make good any damages due to defective ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... me. She was trembling like a leaf. I saw I had made an ass of myself and attempted to repair ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... contrary, are ordinarily distinguished by a kind of sandal; which, however, is always taken off when they come into the presence of, or have occasion to pass, a person of any consideration of the other sex. It is not uncommon to see a man on a journey, mounted idly on an ass; whilst his wife is pacing many a weary step on foot behind him; and moreover, perhaps, carrying a supply of provisions or culinary utensils. Yet it is not to be supposed, that the man is despotic in his house; the voice of the female ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... daughter, an angular and severely-visaged spinster; "Look at this fool!—this staring ape! All the sauce on the carpet! Wish he had to pay for it! He'll take an hour to get a cloth and wipe it up! Why did you engage such a damned ass, eh?" ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... seem to have here one of those droll bullies who are good for naught but to figure in a comedy; an ass in a lion's skin, whose roar is nothing worse than a bray. Come, my man, own up frankly that you were afraid of that same ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... ass," observed Jim irritably. "There are some things that aren't any too becoming to college kids—however, you can forgive them! But when it comes to an ass like Hazzard chasing to every beauty show, and taking good ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... skin.... Mille diables! the woman who is to follow after me might give them a clue! Think of an old campaigner like me infatuated enough to tie myself to a petticoat tail!... Why take her? I must leave her behind. Yes, I could make up my mind to it; but—I know myself—I should be ass enough to go back to her. Still, nobody knows Aquilina. Shall I ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... Madame du Barry, the Duke Chatelet, the two Rabauts, members of the convention, Kersaint and Noel, members also, are all guillotined. The ex-minister Claviere kills himself in prison. One hundred and fifty persons guillotined at Dunkirk. The festival of an ass celebrated at Lyons, in derision of religious worship. Collot d'Herbois informs the convention of the massacres which he has executed at Lyons. The right wing of the Austrian army takes 1200 prisoners, and kills 1700. The Prince of Conde ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... to cut. The Voles had destroyed the entire crop in a single night. A miller in the neighbourhood of Velestino reported that he went to his field early one morning, cut a measure of corn, loaded it on his ass, and brought it to his mill. When he returned to his mill with a second load he found scarcely a vestige of the first remaining. Thinking it had been stolen he kept watch for the thief; but suddenly, to his great astonishment, hosts of ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... disease proved to be the pip. Indeed, this convenient word pest, was indiscriminately applied to all diseases which the people did not understand. It reminded me of La Fleur, in the Sentimental Journey, who, when he could not get his horse to pass the dead ass, cried "Pest!" as the dernier resort of his vocabulary of exclamations. In the afternoon, we made a short halt at a venda within twelve miles of Botaes, to refresh ourselves, which was kept by an Englishman named John M'Dill, who had formerly ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... the multitude to let them know what had happened; when it would appear that Joe had notched his seventh century, or that Reggie had been run out when he was just getting set, or, as sometimes occurred, that that ass Frank had dropped Fry or Hayward in the slips before he had scored, with the result that the spared expert had made a couple of hundred ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... slowly and thoughtfully, "that your view is the right one, Mr. Brett. There is much more in this business than meets the eye, and any man who believes that Jack Talbot would mix himself up in it must be a most determined ass. Of course, such people do exist, but they shouldn't be in the police force. You are going on ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... be a silly ass!" Trent insisted. "We've a hard journey before us, and you'll need all the strength in your carcase to land in Buckomari again. Here, you've dropped some of your ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the ambulance. I'd be waiting still if that ass of a policeman hadn't insisted that I was ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... blithering ass of me. You know, I was fearfully keen on her, and I've passed up all sorts of fluff so as to do the decent; but when that brute Heckles-Jennings advised me to-night to be sure and sit out a dance with Marian because she was such hot stuff, he said . . . Of course, ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... seaside, undressed himself, and cast in his nets. As he drew them toward the shore, he found them very heavy, and thought he had a good draught of fish, at which he rejoiced; but a moment after, perceiving that instead of fish his net contained nothing but the carcass of an ass, he was much vexed. ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... one man in a hundred who'll give a chance like that to a young ass that's played the goat as ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... 'em in trooper, we've fought 'em in dock, and drunk with 'em in betweens, When they called us the seasick scull'ry-maids, an' we called 'em the Ass Marines; But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo, We sent for the Jollies—'Er Majesty's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too! They think for 'emselves, an' they steal for 'emselves, and they never ask what's to do, But they're camped an' ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... It is said, That some of his disciples having prevailed upon him to come to a sacrifice, he drank so much pure wine, that he died five days afterwards. There are other authors, however, will have it, that he died of immoderate laughter, seeing an ass eat figs out of a dish, and upon which he commanded they ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... the ground, unable to move, one of the servants of the company came up and broke the lance across Don Quixote's ribs. It was not until a countryman came by that the Don was extricated, and then he had to ride back to his own village on the ass of the poor labourer, being so stiff and sore as ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Could I give you better proof the awe in which our Duke was held? Any man is glad to be seen escorting a very pretty woman. He thinks it adds to his prestige. Whereas, in point of fact, his fellow-men are saying merely "Who's that appalling fellow with her?" or "Why does she go about with that ass So-and-So?" Such cavil may in part be envy. But it is a fact that no man, howsoever graced, can shine in juxtaposition to a very pretty woman. The Duke himself cut a poor figure beside Zuleika. Yet not one of all ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... snobs," declared Herbert, "impress women by just keeping still. Griswold pretends the reason he doesn't speak to you is because he's too superior, but the real reason is that he knows whenever he opens his mouth he shows he is an ass." ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... company along the road: donkeys numberless, camels by twos and threes; now a mule-driver, trudging along the road, chanting a most queer melody; now a lady, in white veil, black mask, and yellow papooshes, bestriding her ass, and followed by her husband,—met us on the way; and most people gave a salutation. Presently we saw Ramleh, in a smoking mist, on the plain before us, flanked to the right by a tall lonely tower, that might ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... should be thankful to myself for that. Any person I will take in hand I make a clean job of them the same as I would make of any other thing in my yard, coach, half coach, hackney-coach, ass car, common car, post-chaise, calash, chariot on two wheels, on four wheels. Each one has the shape Thomas Hearne put on it, and it in his hands; and what I can do with wood and iron, why would I not be able to do it with flesh and blood, and it in ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... and bootless boast For which he paid full dear; For while he spake, a braying ass Did sing most loud ...
— R. Caldecott's First Collection of Pictures and Songs • Various
... seated in the mind of Julian, after it had been purified from the errors and follies of his education. His sentiments were changed; but as it would have been dangerous to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct still continued the same. Very different from the ass in Aesop, who disguised himself with a lion's hide, our lion was obliged to conceal himself under the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced the dictates of reason, to obey the laws of prudence and necessity." [29] The dissimulation of Julian lasted about ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... that man in brown, leaning against the pillar! He is a painter, and a man of genius; but the greatest ass existing!' ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... seen of lone Hunilla she was passing into Payta town, riding upon a small gray ass; and before her on the ass's shoulders, she eyed the jointed workings of the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... with it?" roared Carrier. "Last year I rode a she-ass that could argue better than you! In the name of—, what has that to do ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... world of fools has such a store, That he who would not see an ass, Must bide at home, and bolt his door, And break ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various
... The applicant must always be a little ashamed of his name; they learn that, you know, from the way in which they are addressed by employers. Well, I'll give you a hint. Tell him he's an ass, or he wouldn't have needed ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... and trudge along in the wet and the wind. It would be equally absurd to sit in his limousine and be unhappy about the misery of the world. "I didn't create it, and I can't recreate it. And if I'm helping to make it worse, I'm also hastening the time when it'll be better. The Great Ass must have brains and spirit kicked ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... zoology, botany and all kingdoms ending in some kind of y, just to serve his purpose successfully. And the writers of the Scriptures are not exempted to this rule, inspired as it were, they mentioned almost every known and unknown animal which our forefather Noah saved in his Ark, and if the ass plays so an important part in the Book of books, Germania surely is entitled to some consideration in the history ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... straw on the ground. A little above, on the right stands St. Dominic, and behind the Virgin on the left a female saint kneels, her hands clasped in prayer. In the background beneath a humble shed are the bull and the ass, and four ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... without some qualms, the inhabitants made trial of the flesh of a horse accidentally killed. Next an ass, and then the mules, of which there was a considerable number, were brought to the shambles. The butchers were now ordered to sell this new kind of meat, and a maximum price was fixed. For a fortnight the supply of cats held out, after which rats and mice became the chief staple of food. Dog-flesh ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... chair and looked at her intense face with a smile. "Tell you that in some way I had Kinney's authority to use his facts? Well, I should have done that yesterday if you had let me. In the first place, Kinney's the most helpless ass in the world. He could never have used his own facts. In the second place, there was hardly anything in his rigmarole the other day that he hadn't told me down there in the lumber camp, with full authority to use it in any way I liked; and I don't see how he ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... other fellow like the very devil? I'll tell you straight, Polson,' said De Blacquaire, in his old-mannered drawl, 'I'd have seen you damned and done for before I'd have reached out a finger to save you. And I think that you are the blamedest kind of an ass and a duffer to have pulled me out. And yet I don't know—I'm not so cursed certain that ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... for the great Fred. It all depended as to whether Larsan's discoveries tallied with Rouletabille's reasoning or not. When they did he would exclaim: "He is really great!" When they did not he would grunt and mutter, "What an ass!" It was a petty side of the noble character of ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... country.(1041) "He slept with his fathers," is all the Scripture says of his death. Jeremiah had prophesied, that he should neither be regretted nor lamented; but should "be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem:" this was no doubt fulfilled, though it is not known in ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... an hour that ass Twemlow will be here,' he thought, looking at the office dial over ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... I needed no formidable weapon, an old halter would answer my purpose fully, for of course my readers know that this loud-voiced authority, this much feared power, this braying denouncer of men's private, social, or moral attitudes is only our friend the ass in a pretty well-fitting lion-skin, not nearly so dangerous as timid souls imagine, a nuisance certainly, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get; And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou art poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none; For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... excited him: ineffably, grotesquely simple, it had yet come to him only within a day or two. No, he wouldn't tell me what it was; he would give me the night to guess, and if I shouldn't guess it would be because I was as big an ass as himself. However, a lone man might be an ass: he had room in his life for his ears. Ray had a burden that demanded a back: the back must therefore now be properly instituted. As to the editorship, it was simply heaven-sent, being not at all another case of The Blackport Beacon but a case ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... fact that she glanced toward him twice in rapid succession, after which Cheever glanced toward him, too. He understood then that she had been sufficiently struck by him to ask his name, and judged that Billy would treat him to some such pardonable epithet as "awful ass," in order to keep her attention on himself. In this apparently he didn't succeed, for presently they began to saunter in Claude's direction. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... prose or rhyme; Some sneerin say 'at tha'lot my brother, Maks me choose thee for mine; Well, let 'em sneer owd Neddy lad, Or laff at my selection, Who fail to see ther type i' thee Are void o' mich perception.— Ther's things more stupid nor an ass, An things more badly treated, Tho' we ait beef, an' tha aits grass, May be we're just related. Throo toil an' trouble on tha jogs, An' then like ony sinner, Tha dees, an' finds a meal for th' dogs;— We furnish ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... Motley, taking out a fresh cigar and a match and proceeding to put them to their respective uses,—"Imagine the vision that appeared to Balaam's ass—and how ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... angry with her because she hesitated. She was creating an unnecessary disturbance among them. She had, he thought, been now wooed long enough, and, as he told his wife more than once, was making an ass of herself. Mrs. Fenwick was not quite so hard in her judgment, but she also was tempted to be a little angry. She loved her friend Mary a great deal better than she loved Mr. Gilmore, but she was thoroughly convinced that Mary could not do better than accept ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... for four or five hours; she then made an attempt to run away, but, from weakness, fell to the ground. Though unable to rise, the whip was a second time applied, when Kafa ordered that she should be placed on an ass. Unable to sit on it, she was carried afterwards on a ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Don't be an ass, Ronnie," said Dennis, cheerfully. "With the utmost respect, as you barrister chaps would say, I hadn't noticed your departure from the requirements of conventional hospitality. I wouldn't have missed this for all the world and a bit ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... captain in the Royal Navy, then at Malta, was shipped on board a frigate, bound from Gibraltar for that island. The vessel struck on some sands off the Point de Gat, and the ass was thrown overboard, in the hope that it might possibly be able to swim to the land. Of this, however, there did not seem to be much chance, for the sea was running so high, that a boat which left the ship ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... shock of surprise that was Balaam's when the first great critic proffered his opinion." ... The inference ... is that all the world, competent and incompetent together, must receive the painter's work in silence, under pain of being classed with Balaam's ass.... ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows, The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare, Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... Whity. "Because I made the fellow. He—why, he is my joke, the biggest scream I ever put over—my joke, understand? And now this adumbrated ass of a Quigley, who's been sent on here from St. Louis to take the city desk, he falls for Virgie as a genuine personage. Not only that, but picks me out to cover this phony tea of his. And the stinging part is, if I don't I get ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... antique times admired Silenus old That oft appeared set on his lazy ass, How would they wonder if they had behold Such sights as from the myrtle high did pass? Thence came a lady fair with locks of gold, That like in shape, in face and beauty was To sweet Armide; Rinaldo thinks he spies Her gestures, smiles, and glances ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... say, "I will have it so?" You will, without shame, see your daughter sacrificed to the mad visions with which the family is possessed? You will confer your wealth on a man because of half-a-dozen Latin words with which the ass talks big before them—a pedant whom your wife compliments at every turn with the names of wit and great philosopher whose verses were never equalled, whereas everybody knows that he is anything but all that. Once more I tell you, it is a shame, ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... have argued the point had not there been another interruption and after a moment he left, shrugging his shoulders a trifle, and condemning himself as an ass for his failure to remember who this "Mabel" was. The failure rendered him doubly keen, for it was a part of his business training, self-imposed, to remember names and faces. He went to his own hotel and for an hour ran through the pages of his blue book. It ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... A bird, apt while on shore to throw its head backwards, and make a strange noise, somewhat resembling the braying of an ass. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... art an Ass then, a dull old tedious Ass; th' art ten times worse, and of less credit than Dunce Hollingshead the Englishman, that ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Nan, un hoo bitterly cried, Wilt be one o' th' foote, or tha meons to ride?' 'Odsounds! wench, I'll ride oather ass or a mule, Ere I'll kewer i' Grinfilt os black as te dule, Booath clemmink {58} un starvink, un never a fardink, Ecod! it would drive ony ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... of soldiers, statesmen, philosophers, artists, musicians and priests is advancing in triumphal march, bearing a huge idol, the challenge and the boast of heathenism. Across the pathway of the procession is an ass, whose bridle is held by a reverent looking man and upon whose back is a fair young mother with her infant child. It is Jesus, entering Egypt in flight from the wrath of Herod, and thus crossing the path of aggressive ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... like it very much, Hare. Once a prophet heard an ass speak in order to warn him. But since then, except very, very rarely in dreams, no creature has talked to a man, so far as I know. Perhaps you wish to warn me about something, or others through me, as the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... for two hours, until the approach of night and weariness made me stop short at the house of a farmer, where I had a bad supper and a bed of straw. In the morning, I bought an old overcoat, and hired an ass to journey on, and near Feltre I bought a pair of boots. In this guise I passed the hut called the Scala. There was a guard there who, much to my delight, as the reader will guess, did not even honour me by asking my name. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and five years old. Our tent was pitched on the slope of the Mount of Olives, near the Bethany road. While we sat there one morning, a great noise of shouting was heard, and presently we saw one riding on an ass, followed by a great company, crying 'Hosanna!' As we drew nearer, we heard them say that it was Jesus of Nazareth; and, when we saw His face, we knew that it was He, by the wonderful eyes, though it was the face of a bearded man, and not of ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... However, here was the phial. I drew the cork, inhaled for a moment the hard dry odour of poppies, and prepared to drink. But just at that moment I seemed to hear a horrid little laugh coming out of the bottle, and a voice chuckled at my ear: 'You ass, do you call that original?' It was so absurd that I burst out into hysterical laughter. Here had I been about to do the most 'banal' thing of all. Was there anything in the world quite so ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... about him. How many times we have seen them at fairs buying all sorts of things to please him; it was out of all reason the way they indulged him, and so folks told them. The little Cambremer, seeing that he was never thwarted, grew as vicious as a red ass. When they told pere Cambremer, 'Your son has nearly killed little such a one,' he would laugh and say: 'Bah! he'll be a bold sailor; he'll command the king's fleets.'—Another time, 'Pierre Cambremer, did you know your lad very nearly put out the eye of the little Pougard girl?'—'Ha! he'll like ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... logic to put us in training for the laws of creation. How does the step forward from one species to a higher species of an existing genus take place? The ass is not the parent of the horse; no fish begets a bird. But the concurrence of new conditions necessitates a new object in which these conditions meet and flower. When the hour is struck in onward nature, announcing that all is ready for the birth of higher form ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... an ass. The idea that this animal was sacred to the Jews was so prevalent among 'the Gentiles' that Josephus takes the trouble ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... said "Oh thine honour the clerk whatever thou wilt." "Take from me then five hundred piastres and bring the person that gave thee the veil to receive the money." So the broker fetched the woman and the Copt, who was a great man, called the police and said, "Take this woman and fetch my ass and we will go before the Pasha," and he rode in haste to the palace weeping and beating his breast, and went before the Pasha and said, "Behold this veil was buried a few days ago with my daughter who died ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... it, Larry,' said Tom, touching him on the shoulder. 'We can't trust her and the mother under one roof. We must take her to the hospital. It's low water to-night, and you can get the ass-cart across the sand. You'll take her, Larry, an' I'll stay an' see ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... funniest thing of all. It was as soon as I was wounded. It was like getting out of bed in the morning. I had hardly slipped a leg out of life than I wanted to draw it in again. I had been so well off, and never thought of it, ass that I was! I can still see myself, as I came to. The ground was all torn up around me, worse even than the bodies themselves lying in heaps, mixed pell-mell like a lot of jack-straws; the ground simply reeked, as if it was itself bleeding. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... their hearts, they believe it useful to politics; necessary to restrain the ungovernable fury of the passions; thus hypocritical superstition, in order to mask to superficial observers, its own hideous character, like the ass with the lion's skin, always knows how to cover itself with the sacred armour of utility; to buckle on the invulnerable shield of virtue; it has therefore, been believed imperative to respect it, notwithstanding it felt awkward under these incumbrances; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... about now till Chemistry and Geology. Here comes old Wotherspoon. Now we shall know who is strongest in second aorists. I shouldn't wonder if Peak takes both Senior Greek and Latin. I heartily hope he'll beat that ass Chilvers.' ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... threatening destiny, but hardly nearer to it than one is in the stalls to the stage. My moments of real concern for Dacres were mingled more with anger than with sorrow—it seemed inexcusable that he, with his infallible divining-rod for temperament, should be on the point of making such an ass of himself. Though I talk of the stage there was nothing at all dramatic to reward my attention, mine and Emily Morgan's. To my imagination, excited by its idea of what Dacres Tottenham's courtship ought to be, the attentions he paid ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... where he told his story in the following manner to his fellow-servants: "Finding," says he, "that my master was in danger of being thrown over the bridge, I fearlessly rode near him; when, to my very great surprise, I found that my master's horse (which was young and skittish) was frightened at an ass, which stood grazing near the corner of the wall." "Are you sure it was an ass, Jervais?" asked the servants, staring one at another, half frightened themselves. "Are you quite sure of it?" "Yes," replied the man; "for, as soon as my master had got by, I rode up to it; and, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... of the romance I have inflicted on your obliging attention, and I am now to tell you your comments were fully justified and I have writ myself down an ass and invoked as fine a lampoon as Pope could write in gall and vinegar. "Sappho" will be as nothing to it, and indeed that I, that know the world or should know it, should behave so like a country bumpkin new ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... seem not to have had the slightest veneration for him, as they had for some other animals. I am led to believe, then, that it was his great usefulness in crossing the sandy deserts that led to his production. It is a proof, also, that where the ass was at hand there also was the horse, or the mule could not have been produced. Any people with sufficient knowledge to produce the mule would also have had sufficient knowledge to discover the difference between him and the horse, and would have given the preference ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... usual left boot on this morning, and have had an hour's walk. It was in a gale of wind and a simoom of dust, but I greatly enjoyed it. Immense enthusiasm at Wolverhampton last night over "Marigold." Scott made a most amazing ass of himself yesterday. He reported that he had left behind somewhere three books—"Boots," "Murder," and "Gamp." We immediately telegraphed to the office. Answer, no books there. As my impression was that he must ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... let Michaelmas pass, Grizzling hair the brain doth clear— Then you know a boy is an ass, Then you know the worth of a lass, Once you have come ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to leave the hotel as quickly as possible. I packed a small handbag, and told the hotel-keeper on my way downstairs that he could keep my things until I paid my bill. Then I walked to Leyland Hoop, where I had an appointment with Peggy, as you know. I seem to have acted as a pretty considerable ass all round," said the young man, with a rueful smile. "But I had a bad gruelling from shell-shock. I wouldn't mention this, but it's really affected my head, you know, and I don't think I'm always quite such a fool as this story makes ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... 'spending it like an ass,' Jack, to give you a portion of mine. But there will be other opportunities to talk of this. It is a sign of returning to the concerns of life, Rose, that money begins to be of interest to us. How little did we think of the doubloons, or half-eagles, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... said the Bishop. "Well, Dick, Providence makes use of strange instruments—the jawbone of an ass has a certain Scriptural prestige. I dare say you reached poor Gresley where I failed. I certainly failed. But, if it is not too much to ask, I should regard it as a favor another time if I might be informed beforehand ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... "Silly ass," said Laddie. "If a jaguar was only nine feet long and the boa-constrictor was thirty-five feet long, then there would be a lot sticking out of the jaguar's mouth. ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... political, city rivalry, class antagonisms). The "mass of fools" was a complete parody of the mass, with mock music and vestments and burlesque ceremony. In the "mass of innocents" children took the place of adults and carried out the ceremony as a parody. At the "feast of the ass" an ass was led into church and treated with mock respect. This last degenerated into obscenity, indecency, and disorder. Bulls and edicts against it were long vain. It was popular as a relief from restraint.[2087] It continued the function of the Saturnalia, which had been ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... whether there's anything intoxicating in the trifle!... I don't mind a boy talking in that wild way. A clever, intelligent lad ought to talk revolutionary stuff, but when a man reaches Palfrey's age and is still gabbling that silly-cleverness, then the man's an ass. There's ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Orleans Princes, was thinking of starting a racing stable, and finished up by believing that he really was a fashionable man, and strutted about, and was puffed out with conceit, as he had probably never read La Fontaine's fable, in which he tells the story of the ass that is laden with relics which people salute, and so takes their bows ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... that wrapped his waist by a suspender of gaudy worsted, which he turned every moment to look at on his naked shoulder. The greater number, however, were as unconscious of any covering for use or ornament, as a pig or an ass. ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... "but that is rather running wild; a donkey and an ass are the same thing, Stevey, my lad. If the captain says a few things to cut your comb a little, they will do you good; and I am as certain as that I am sitting here that he will end by saying, 'There, my boy, ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... xiv.—a prophecy which has been distorted by expositors through a too literal interpretation—the image is, in vers. 5, 6, individualized by the mention of particular wild beasts—the hind and the wild ass. Joel himself indicates that the beasts in this description must, in general, be understood figuratively, by using in ver. 18 the word [Hebrew: nawmv], which can be explained only by "become guilty," "suffer punishment." (Compare Is. xxiv. 6: "Therefore curse ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... but with all the other domestic animals there are, perhaps, as good reasons for deriving them from native species as for considering them to be of foreign origin. The hog of the present breed, may indeed be of continental origin; so may the present cat, horse, and ass. Nevertheless, the hog, cat, horse, and ass, whose bones are found in the alluvial deposits, may have been domesticated. The Devonshire, Hereford, and similar breeds of oxen may be new; but the bos longifrons may have originated some native breeds, ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... he cried in his exasperation. "Garratt Skinner! If I had not been an ass, I should ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... very like it," said Lord Lufton; "and I tell you fairly that I am not in a humour to endure any more of this sort of thing. Some years ago I made an ass of myself through that man's fault. But four thousand pounds should have covered the whole of what I really lost. I have now paid more than three times that sum; and, by heavens! I will not pay more without ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... is a theological novel. It is, without any doubt, the most brilliant of Chesterton's novels; it is an argument between a Christian ass and a very decent atheist. Atheists, if they are sincere, are on the way to becoming good Christians; Christians, if they are insincere, are on ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... guardian. No, the poor devil wrote now and then to an old retired butler of his late father, somewhere in the country, forbidding him at the same time to let any one know of his whereabouts. So that worthy old ass would go up and dodge about the Moorsom's town house, perhaps waylay Miss Moorsom's maid, and then would write to 'Master Arthur' that the young lady looked well and happy, or some such cheerful intelligence. I dare say he wanted to be forgotten, ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... continued in that posture for two hours, recommending to God his own flock and the whole church with so much earnestness and devotion, that several of those that were come to seize him repented they had undertaken the commission. They set him on an ass, and were conducting him towards the city, when he was met on the road by Herod and his father Nicetes, who took him into their chariot, and endeavored to persuade him to a little compliance, saying: ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... brown pathway, that, with careless flow, Sinks, and is lost among the trees below. Still must it trace (the flattering tints forgive) Each fleeting charm that bids the landscape live. Oft o'er the mead, at pleasing distance, pass [a] Browsing the hedge by fits the pannier'd ass; The idling shepherd-boy, with rude delight, Whistling his dog to mark the pebble's flight; And in her kerchief blue the cottage-maid, With brimming pitcher from the shadowy glade. Far to the south a mountain-vale retires, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... 1796, that the French people in general were royalists at heart, and utterly averse to the general overthrow of their institutions by the legislative mob at Paris, or, as Mirabeau comprehensively called them, 'that Wild Ass of the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the shelter of the cave, The ass with drooping head Stood weary in the shadow, where His master's hand had led. About the manger oxen lay, Bending a wide-eyed gaze Upon the little new-born Babe, Half worship, half amaze. High in the roof the doves were set, And cooed there, ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... Thursday evening? I never dance; they all make game of me because they know I come here on the chance of seeing you again. I'm a fool! I know that! You just amuse yourself here with me, and then you go away, back to your friends—and forget! And I hang about round here, like the silly ass that I am!" ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stick to this one or throw up my situation. Besides, I'm not goin' to submit to have the half of my rent cut off. I can't stand it. Like old Shylock, I mean to stick to the letter of the bond. Now, is it 'to be, or not to be?' as Hamlet said to the ass." ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... the earth, did not reach China or the Indies. On Wahab observing that the next was Moses, with his rod, and the children of Israel; the emperor agreed that their country was of small extent, and that Moses had extirpated the ancient inhabitants. Wahab then pointed out Jesus upon the ass, accompanied by his apostles. To this the emperor said, that he had been a short time upon earth, all his transactions having very little exceeded the space of thirty months. On seeing the image of Mohammed riding ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... We soon struck up a conversation, and his "Cockney" sure did sound funny to me; he was one of the sappers, and when he found that I had left the Infantry to join them he was disgusted. "Well," said he, "you are a bloomin' ass. Why, blime me, mite, this here's the worst bleedin' job in the Army; a man digs till the sweat rolls off, and all he gets for it is a bleedin' shilling, and he has to give six-pence of that to the old woman; blime, it doesn't leave ye enough for bacca, and all ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... be a tremendous fellow and as healthy as possible. You can imagine, a little, the effect of it all on Clare. I don't suppose there's any girl in London been so wrapped in cotton wool all her life, and that old ass of a father and still more irritating ass of a mother would go on wrapping her still if they had their way. The fuss they've both made about this whole business is simply incredible—especially when the man's a doctor and brings Lord knows how many children into the world every week ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... in Italian banter, appears to have taken the position of the ass with us in England, as a dull, heavy beast, a fool. Michael Angelo's answer was, as it were: "It is according to the asses you mean; if it be these asses of Bolognese doubtless they are much bigger; if ours of Florence they are much smaller. ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... will not be voluntary, Knox. I shall be kicked out as an incompetent ass; for, respecting the connection, if any, between the narrative of Colonel Menendez, the bat wing nailed to the door of the house, and Mr. Colin Camber, I have not the foggiest notion. In this, at last, I have triumphed over Auguste Dupin. ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... number a few servants who have submitted only through indifference, cowardice or stupidity: the uncertain and craven horse, who responds only to pain and is attached to nothing; the passive and dejected ass, who stays with us only because he knows not what to do nor where to go, but who nevertheless, under the cudgel and the pack-saddle, retains the idea that lurks behind his ears; the cow and the ox, happy so long as they are eating, and docile because, for centuries, they ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... egregious display of incapacity which followed; but Hazlet rather piqued himself on his indifference to the poor blind heathen poets, on whose names he usually dealt reprobation broadcast. "Like lions that die of an ass's kick," those wronged great souls lay prostrate before ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... to fire, and our scarlet waistcloathes out and silk pendants, but he did not come. My Lord and we at ninepins this afternoon upon the Quarterdeck, which was very pretty sport. This evening came Mr. John Pickering on board, like an ass, with his feathers and new suit that he had made at the Hague. My Lord very angry for his staying on shore, bidding me a little before to send to him, telling me that he was afraid that for his father's sake he might have ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... came in, tumultuous, and ordered him down, and Blake and Curbit, and the rest of the card party, came tearing after them, and berated him for an absurdity, and implored him not to be an ass. And then a bright tongue of flame licked in through the transom behind him, and the door panels burst from the heat, and all the room at his back suddenly blazed with fire, and then went up the cry from that agonized girl, at sound of which Lanier started and strove to climb to the little ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... The genius, however, paid no attention to my prayers, but said sternly, "That is the way in which a genius treats the woman who has betrayed him. If I chose, I could kill you also; but I will be merciful, and content myself with changing you into a dog, an ass, a lion, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... in their welcome,' he went on, quite disregarding my remark: 'it was the wettest night we have had for an age. I was quite savage when I found the horses had been taken out of their warm stables: the coachman was an ass, as I told him.' ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... you make yourself a consumed ass," he said. "You want those dollars considerably more than we do, and we've got quite a few of them doing nothing in the ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... An' 'oo may you be, to learn me manners, you bloomin' (h)ignorant Scotch (h)ass. You give me (h)any of your (h)imperance an' I'll knock y're bloomin' block (h)off, I will." And Mr. Wigglesworth, throwing himself into the approved pugilistic attitude, began ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... head like music, and it softened his heart, so that almost nothing could bring him to earth except the recitations of Teed, who crashed through the classics like a bull in a china-shop or, as Litton's Greeks put it, like an ass among beehives. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... them, the defence only that small part which is shut up in their walls. And he felt most strongly at this time that hard fighting was needed. "It is a pity" he writes to Mr. Ludlow, "that telling people what's right, won't make them do it; but not a new fact, though that ass the world has quite forgotten it; and assures you that dear sweet 'incompris' mankind only wants to be told the way to the millennium to walk willingly into it—which is a lie. If you want to get mankind, if not to heaven, at least out of hell, kick them out." And again, a little later ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Sam. xii. 3, and ride out among your tenantry, my dear people, repeating, as you pass their stables and their cattle-stalls, "Behold, I am old and grey-headed; behold, here I am: whose ox have I taken? Whose ass have I taken? Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed?" I charge you to write to me here at once, and be plain with me, and tell me whether your salvation is sure. I hope for the best; but I know that your reckonings with the righteous Judge are both many and deep.' That ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... adorned the Sentimental Journey, but the similarity of motif here in the treatment of animal fidelity is pure coincidence. Certainly the method of using the episode is not reminiscent of any similar scene in Sterne. Just's dog is not introduced for its own sake, nor like the ass at Nampont to afford opportunity for exciting humanitarian impulses, and for throwing human character into relief by confronting it with sentimental possibilities, but for the sake of a forceful, telling and immediate comparison. Lessing was too ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... America. I never made her acquaintance, but I saw her act in Montreal every night of her engagement there. I couldn't keep away—yet I didn't want to meet her. I thought perhaps if I did I should be ass enough to fall in love. That is the truth. A good many fellows of my acquaintance, and others I'd heard of, had fallen in love, and had been flirted with till the lady was sick and tired of them. After that they were very sorry for themselves. I never ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... account. I lead an easy life, though, and I don't care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever I go, be it on this side of the mountains or the other. And I am proud to say I am the most conceited ass ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his secret to his wife, who decided to circumvent the Evil One by the exercise of her woman's wit. Mounting her donkey, she rode into the castle, bidding all her men follow her. Satan waited on the alert. But the Countess amid great laughter pinned a kerchief upon the ass's head, covered it with a cap, and, leading it to the window, made it thrust ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... got the music from him, but he was already at the piano, parodying, from memory, the conventional accompaniment and sentimental words of the song. "And this," he said, "from the learned ass who is not yet convinced that the FEUERZAUBER is music, and who groans like a dredge when the last act of SIEGFRIED is mentioned. Wendling and Wagner! Listen to this!—for once, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... vacation, he was handed over from the one pedagogue to the other, of those whose names were renowned for the Busbian system of teaching by stimulating both ends: he was horsed every day and still remained an ass, and at the end of six months, if he did not run away before that period was over, he was invariably sent back to his parents as incorrigible and unteachable. What was to be done with him? The Littlebrains had always got on in the world, somehow or another, by their interest and connections; but ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... or even founds the whole conception—it establishes the heroine. There are certainly feminine persons, sometimes not disagreeable, who play conspicuous and by no means mute or unpractical parts in both Greek and Latin versions of the Ass-Legend; but one can hardly call them heroines. There need be no chicane about the application of that title to Chloe or to Chariclea, to Leucippe or to her very remarkable rival, to Anthia or to Hysmine. Without the heroine you can hardly have romance: the novel without her (though ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... with a smile, as he leaned back and regarded his work with his head very much on one side, and his eyes partially closed, after the manner of knights of the brush, "I'm not offended, because I'm just as much of an ass as you are ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... never forget. There is something sometimes almost past description or belief in the way a chastised child clings to and kisses the hand that chastised it. But poor old Spare-the-Rod never had experiences like that. And young Obstinate, having been born like Job's wild ass's colt, grew up to be a man like David's unbitted and unbridled mule, till in after life he became the author of all the evil and mischief that is associated in our ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... but the beast, perceiving that no good wind was blowing, ran away along the road to Bremen. "There," thought he, "I can be town musician." When he had run some way, he found a hound lying by the roadside, yawning like one who was very tired. "What are you yawning for now, you big fellow?" asked the ass. ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... of the army believe in this plan for teaching chaplains their business. Having accepted a civilian parson as a volunteer, they dump him down in a camp without instruction or advice, without even so much as a small red handbook on field tactics to guide him. There he splutters about, makes an ass of himself in various ways, and either hammers out some plan for getting at his job by many bitter failures, or subsides into the kind of man who sits in the mess-room with his feet on the stove, reading novels and smoking ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... species of open market-cart drawn by two horses, and in which it was necessary that my fair friend and myself should seat ourselves side by side upon straw: there was no choice, and as for Miss Bingham, I believe if an ass with panniers had presented itself, she would have preferred it to remaining where she was. We therefore took our places, and she could not refrain from laughing as we set out upon our journey in this absurd equipage, every jolt of which threw us from ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... everywhere is the most manageable matter, simple as a question in the Rule-of-Three: multiply your second and third term together, divide the product by the first, and your quotient will be the answer,—which you are but an ass if you cannot come at. The booby has not yet found-out, by any trial, that, do what one will, there is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal repeater, and no net integer quotient so much as ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... on the opening of the boxes, by reason of Mr Snowton having privily conveyed into them various changes of apparel for the use of my excellent wife, as also for each of the three girls. To Charles he also sent the image of an ass, which, by touching a certain string, did open its mouth and wave its ears in a manner most curious to behold, wherewith the infant was infinitely delighted, as was I, without inquiring at that time into the exquisite mechanism whereby the extraordinary demonstrations were produced. But in ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... "Thou ass!" the Prince continued. "Not to know that the kinswoman of the Roman Emperor, under this roof by treaty with the mighty Amurath, his son the negotiator, is our guardian! When the storm shall have spent itself, and the waters quieted down, she will resume her journey. Then—it ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... shady lane, and each gave the other a merry word and passed their way; now he saw a fair lady upon an ambling pad, to whom he doffed his cap, and who bowed sedately in return to the fair youth; now he saw a fat monk on a pannier-laden ass; now a gallant knight, with spear and shield and armor that flashed brightly in the sunlight; now a page clad in crimson; and now a stout burgher from good Nottingham Town, pacing along with serious footsteps; all these sights he saw, but adventure found he none. At last ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... Benjamin entreats the Man Would mount, too, quickly as he can: The Sailor—Sailor now no more, 255 But such he had been heretofore— To courteous Benjamin replied, "Go you your way, and mind not me; For I must have, whate'er betide, My Ass and fifty things beside,—260 Go, and I'll ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... I was punished for it. I heard it said that that little imbecile La Brede borrowed money from his little sister to lavish it upon that Sarah. This was so unnatural that you may believe it first disgusted, and then irritated me. One day at the club I could not resist saying, 'You are an ass, La Bride, to ruin yourself—worse than that, to ruin your sister, for the sake of a snail, as little sympathetic as Sarah, a girl who always has a cold in her head, and who has already deceived you.' 'Deceived me!' cried La Brede, waving his long ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... when I was in Italy I had dealings and spoke with him, and that I said to you that he had a great facility for speaking languages, but that otherwise he was no good. Because I have seen him several times in the Papal chapels with a certain air of an ass and certain grimaces of a blockhead that cannot happen to a man of talent. I am told, moreover, that he is a spy, and that for that reason he was given the hat. I know, moreover, that he has not written anything at all. For that reason I do not wish to take the ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... second of my story tells of how the monks of a neighboring abbey finally consented to bury the body; when the abbot returned, however, he was very angry at what they had done, and gave the friars some orders. They dug up the body of the poor old boatman, tied it to the back of an ass, and turned the animal loose. The body was finally thrown off at the place of public execution (directly under the gallows), and there it was buried and remained. Meanwhile the daughter, Mary, was having more trouble. ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... manliness need take but little pains to procure respectful recognition. If it is genuine, others will see it, and respect it. The lion will always be acknowledged as the king of the beasts; but the ass, though clothed in the lion's skin, may bray loudly and perseveringly indeed, but he will never keep the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... and communicating knowledge to each other) which are mysteries to us. The terror of dogs in 'haunted houses' and of horses in passing 'haunted' scenes has often been reported, and is alluded to briefly by Mr. Tylor. Balaam's ass, and the dogs which crouched and whined before Athene, whom Eumaeus could ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... "Ass!" Frederick mentally exclaimed, disgusted with himself for what he again believed was his illusion. Yet the silence weighed upon him dreadfully. Seized by a wild instinct, he could not help but suddenly rush forward, merely to ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Captain, imagining, perhaps, that I was going to rally him on his implied connection of himself with the three-legged animal he had mentioned, "no you don't—it wouldn't be funny; and besides, I'm not donkey enough to stand much of that ass FLICKERS. So just you pitch into him, and the rest of 'em, my bonny boy, next time you put pen to paper." At this moment my cheerful friend observed a hansom that took his fancy. "Gad!" he said, "I never can resist ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... Cross' is a theological novel. It is, without any doubt, the most brilliant of Chesterton's novels; it is an argument between a Christian ass and a very decent atheist. Atheists, if they are sincere, are on the way to becoming good Christians; Christians, if they are insincere, are on ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... then five hundred piastres and bring the person that gave thee the veil to receive the money." So the broker fetched the woman and the Copt, who was a great man, called the police and said, "Take this woman and fetch my ass and we will go before the Pasha," and he rode in haste to the palace weeping and beating his breast, and went before the Pasha and said, "Behold this veil was buried a few days ago with my daughter who died unmarried, and I had none but her and I loved ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... "Pasterns!—oh, you ass you! Pasterns! you poor; base, contemptible, crawling reptile, as if we trampled you under our hooves—oh, you scruff of the earth! Stop, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... muscles but splendid vitality. If we are to test vitality in muscular terms at all—that in itself being a quite indefensible assumption—we must do so in terms of endurance, and not in terms of horse power or ass power, at any ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Commandment, which made him scrupulous as to using any animal on Sunday; and even when, in bad weather, or for visitors, the larger carriage was used, he always walked. He was really angry with Griff that morning for mischievously maintaining that it was a greater breach of the commandment to work an ass than a horse. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like you, Johnny—an ass," I replied, and left him wondering why, if he was an ass and I was an ass, one ass should marry Donna Antonia, and not both ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... exactly what each of the others did; and he was between them all, he was in the midst. Such perceptions made occasions—well, occasions for fairly wondering if it mightn't be best just to consent, luxuriously, to be the ass the whole thing involved. Trying not to be and yet keeping in it was of the two things the more asinine. He was glad there was no male witness; it was a circle of petticoats; he shouldn't have liked a man to see him. He only had for a moment a sharp thought ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... therein a lion, the fiercest and most horrible in the world, and two serpents that are called griffons, that have the face of a man and the beaks of birds and eyes of an owl and teeth of a dog and ears of an ass and feet of a lion and tail of a serpent, and they have couched them therewithin, but never saw no man beasts so fell and felonous. Wherefore the damsel biddeth you go by that way, by everything that you have ever loved, and that you fail her not, for she would fain speak with ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... That its Imperial Head towards Heav'n may shoot. When Lordly Sanedrims with Kings give Law, And thus in yokes like Mules together draw; From Judahs Arms the Royal Lyon raze, And Issachars dull Ass supply the place. If Kings o're common Mankind have this odds, Are Gods Vicegerents; let 'em act like Gods. As Man is Heav'ns own clay, which it may mould For Honour or Dishonour, uncontrould, And Monarchy is mov'd by Heav'nly Springs; Why is not Humane ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... opinion in the bad old days, didn't you?" he said lightly. "When we danced and made love at the Grafton Galleries." She flushed a little, but did not lower her eyes. "Such a serious girl you were too, Margaret; I wonder how you ever put up with a brainless sort of ass like me." ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Observe that scene i. takes up Bottom and his fellows, the group not as yet brought into relation with the fairy group, and initiates them in the magic of fairy land by means of the new but appropriate head Puck bestows upon Bottom. Why is Bottom picked out for this favor? The 'ass-head' as a symbolic piece of stage furniture. Show how this transformation makes the mismating of Titania with Bottom more gross and obvious to the audience; also how this is the next direct effect ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... the apostle say—hey? We must die to live. A straight tip! Well—! I shall obey the apostolic injunction gladly. I'm going to die to-night. Don't jump like that, you old ass; let me finish. I'm going to die to-night, but you and I are going into the saloon business all the same. Yes, my boy, and we'll tend bar ourselves, and keep our eyes on the till, and have our own bottle of the best, and be perfect gentlemen. Come on, let's ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... But that tale is not worth a rake-stele.* *rake-handle Pardie, we women canne nothing hele,* *hide Witness on Midas; will ye hear the tale? Ovid, amonges other thinges smale* *small Saith, Midas had, under his longe hairs, Growing upon his head two ass's ears; The whiche vice he hid, as best he might, Full subtlely from every man's sight, That, save his wife, there knew of it no mo'; He lov'd her most, and trusted her also; He prayed her, that to no creature She woulde tellen of his disfigure. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... with painted reins, thou curb'st The lynxes in thy chariot yok'd abreast: Thy steps the Satyrs and Bacchantes tread; And old Silenus; who with wine o'ercharg'd, With a long staff his tottering steps sustains: Or on a crooked ass, unsteady sits: Where'er thou enterest shout the joyous youth, Females and males immingled: loud the drums Struck by their hands resound;—and loudly clash The brazen cymbals: soft the boxen flutes ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... garran^, garron^; jennet, genet^, bayard^, mare, stallion, gelding; bronco, broncho^, cayuse [U.S.]; creature, critter [U.S.]; cow pony, mustang, Narraganset, waler^; stud. Pegasus, Bucephalus, Rocinante. ass, donkey, jackass, mule, hinny; sumpter horse, sumpter mule; burro, cuddy^, ladino [U.S.]; reindeer; camel, dromedary, llama, elephant; carrier pigeon. [object used for carrying] pallet, brace, cart, dolley; support &c 215; fork lift. carriage &c (vehicle) 272; ship &c 273. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... an afternoon like this you might as well shut those children up in a family vault. Twenty of them, all breathing carbonic acid gas, besides yourself—and that ass!" ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the idea was taken (Vitruvius says) from a woman's hair, curled; but its lateral processes look more like rams' horns: be that as it may, it is a mere piece of agreeable extravagance, and if, instead of rams' horns, you put ibex horns, or cows' horns, or an ass's head at once, you will have ibex orders, or ass orders, or any number of other orders, one for every head or horn. You may have heard of another order, the Composite, which is Ionic and Corinthian mixed, and is one of the worst of ten thousand forms referable ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... for his usefulness, they seem not to have had the slightest veneration for him, as they had for some other animals. I am led to believe, then, that it was his great usefulness in crossing the sandy deserts that led to his production. It is a proof, also, that where the ass was at hand there also was the horse, or the mule could not have been produced. Any people with sufficient knowledge to produce the mule would also have had sufficient knowledge to discover the difference ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... arrangements, and ruffianly contests and violent enmities sprang up amidst the feasts and the games in which kings and knights nearly every evening indulged in the plains round about Messina. One day there came amongst the crusaders thus assembled a peasant driving an ass, laden with those long and strong reeds known by the name of canes. English and French, with Richard at their head, bought them of him; and, mounting on horseback, ran tilt at one another, armed with these reeds by way of lances. Richard found himself opposite ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Sancho had watched for auguries when they took the road to Toboso, I began, between jest and earnest, to feel a similar anxiety. It was gratified, and by a more poetical phenomenon than the braying of the dappled ass or the neigh of Rosinante. The sun, then just above the horizon, shone faintly through the fog, and formed a species of rainbow in the west, bestriding my intended road like a gigantic portal. I had never known before that a bow could be generated between the sunshine ...
— Passages From a Relinquised Work (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... all his property between his three children. This was very easy, as he had nothing to leave but his mill, his ass, and his cat; so he made no will, and called in no lawyer. The eldest son had the mill; the second, the ass; and the youngest, nothing but the cat. The young fellow was quite downcast at so poor a lot. "My brothers," said ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... a little innocent, ignorant child then," he said; "of course you could not understand. I was an ass and a brute and a ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... ever looked on mankind in the lump to be nothing better than a foolish, head-strong, credulous, unthinking mob; and their universal belief has ever had extremely little weight with me.... I am drawn by conviction like a Man, not by a halter like an Ass." ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out to be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... don't stand there like an ass, man. Get to the ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... on right: the Star above. Just above the Virgin in the picture the head of an Ox and an Ass may ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... gazed at him helplessly, then lowered it again, but she did not speak. The kitchen was silent, but an obbligato to this drama, like the bray of the ass in the overture to "Midsummer Night's Dream," came from the drawing-room, where Freddy Mordaunt was now ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... completely scar'd; Last night, quoth he, as I came home, I heard a noise in Prescott's[33] room. I went and listen'd at the door, As I had often done before; I found the Juniors in a high rant, They call'd the President a tyrant; And said as how I was a fool, A long ear'd ass, a sottish mule, Without the smallest grain of spunk; So I concluded they were drunk. At length I knock'd, and Prescott came: I told him 't was a burning shame, That he should give his classmates wine; And he should pay a heavy fine. Meanwhile ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... How cleverly she had deceived him, and what an ass he had been! She had been playing with him all the while, and as he paced the floor, revolving what course to pursue, he wondered how he could have been so simple. True, she was different from any woman he had ever met, but dazed though he was by her sudden change of front, he ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... The little vixen! Saw I was getting tired of it, and took care to strike first. Clever—but a trifle crude. But I'm free now. Unfortunately my freedom comes too late. PODBURY's Titania is much too enamoured of those ass's ears of his—How the brute will chuckle when he hears of this! But he won't hear of it from me. I'll go in and pack and be off to-morrow ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various
... and the ruffian crew, who escaped to the United States, now constitute a kind of nucleus for the "Lone Star," "Filibustero," and other such pests of the community to gather round, being ready at any moment to start on a buccaneering expedition, if they can only find another Lopez ass enough to ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... had done their search, and the spoil was brought on deck, we thought we had found all that we should need. "As for me," said my wife, "I have brought good news, for I find we have still on board a cow, an ass, two goats, six sheep, a ram, a pig, and a sow, and I have found food for ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... "A Reader" is quite characteristic. That individual probably knows as much about the Bible as a wild ass' colt, and is requested at this time to keep a proper distance. When a body is trying to find out and pay attention to a lady, it is not good manners for "A Reader" to be thrust ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... no enemy of Christianity ever attacked it more radically than by attributing the power of miracles to Beelzebub, the prince of the devils! M. Huc reminds us of a preacher whom we once heard, in an enlightened capital, explaining the miracle of speech in Balaam's ass, by reminding his congregation that parrots—nay, even bull-finches, have been made to speak, and therefore why not an ass? It never occurred to him, that in the impossibility of the thing the miracle consisted. There is a little of the same ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Queen's Mask; presented several times before their Majesties, 1640. For the plot see Apuleius's Golden Ass. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... with his hands plunged into the pockets of his old study coat, and his eyes fixed on his visitor's face, he thus acquitted himself—"Maurice, my young friend, I am and have been a most confounded ass." ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... dear brother! Poor dear friends of the family! Poor dear Tabbies and Grimalkins. Poor dear everybody except the woman who is going to risk her life to create another life! Tavy: don't you be a selfish ass. Away with you and talk to Violet; and bring her down here if she cares to come. [Octavius rises]. Tell her we'll stand ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... wonderfully. To which he replied that with the gauds of worldly success he had no concern. The editorials I criticised were joyous and ebulliently hilarious compared with those which might be expected in the future. If we could find some blithesome ass to pay him for the Herald enough money to take him out of our scrambled Bedlam of a town, bring the idiot on, and he (Giddings) would arrange things so we could have our touting done as ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... which the god consented to do, only he must bathe in the waters of the Pactolus, the sands of which ever after were found mixed with gold; appointed umpire at a musical contest between Pan and Apollo, he preferred the pipes of the former to the lyre of the latter, who thereupon awarded him a pair of ass-ears, the which he concealed with a cap, but could not hide them from his barber, who could not retain the secret, but whispered it into a hole in the ground, around which sprang up a forest of reeds, which as the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... but half a grain; Which made some take him for a tool That knaves do work with, call'd a fool. For 't has been held by many, that As Montaigne, playing with his cat, Complains she thought him but an ass, Much more she would Sir Hudibras, (For that the name our valiant Knight To all his challenges did write) But they're mistaken very much, 'Tis plain enough he was no such. We grant although he had much wit, H' was very shy of using it; As being loth to wear it out, And therefore ...
— English Satires • Various
... flowers in charge, and he said he would take care of them. By the bye, Phyl,' and Reginald gave a wondrous spring, 'I have it! I have it! I have it! If he is not in love with Miss Weston you may call me an ass for the ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first, perhaps, just at first it goes to your head a bit. Then you get sick of it, and you don't want ever to have any more of it again. And all the time it makes you feel such a silly ass." ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... undertook at once to obey. God's command. He took two young men with him and an ass laden with wood for the fire; and he went toward the mountain in the north, Isaac, his son, walking by his side. For two days they walked, sleeping under the trees at night in the open country. And on the third day Abraham saw the mountain far away. And as they drew near to ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... console and advise, to rouse his courage and his spirits. She told him it was that horse which gave the advantage to his neighbor. While he went trudging on foot, wearying himself, and wasting his time, people came, grew weary, and would not wait. She offered, therefore, to borrow her neighbor's ass for him; and advised him to ride out daily a little way. It would look as though he had business in the country. It would look as if his time was precious; it would look well, and do his health good into the bargain. Hans liked her counsel; it sounded well—nay, exceedingly discreet. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... is not considered good form to kick a steward for knowing an ass when he meets one, Staff could no more than turn away, disguise the unholy emotions that fermented in his heart, and ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... you see through me!" Surely it was an easy thing to say; but what he did say was "Thank you." Then to himself he said, "Ass, ass, ass!" ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... wonderful story of the Peau de Chagrin, the hero becomes possessed of a magical wild ass' skin, which yields him the means of gratifying all his wishes. But its surface represents the duration of the proprietor's life; and for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks in proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at length life and the last handbreath of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... present,) a Frenchman of credit, and vouching for his statement by the whole weight of his name and personal responsibility, (M Simond, now an American citizen,) records the following abominable scene as one of no uncommon occurrence. A woman was in some provinces yoked side by side with an ass to the plough or the harrow; and M. Simond protests that it excited no horror to see the driver distributing his lashes impartially between the woman and her brute yoke-fellow. So much for the wordy pomps of French gallantry. ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a ass, Fred!" said the banjo, aggrieved. "How the blazes could a man blow his dog's nose, unless he muzzled it with a handkercher, and then twisted its tail? He played the clarinet, I say; and my father played the musical glasses, which was a form of harmony pertiklerly genial to him. Amongst ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... presented as shocking cases as any country, even where slavery is tolerated. An eye-witness to the fact, who has since published it in print, told me, that in France, before the revolution, he had repeatedly seen a woman yoked with an ass to the plough; and the brutal ploughman applying his whip indifferently to either. English people, to whom I have occasionally mentioned this as an exponent of the hollow refinement of manners in France, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... and Protestants differ. 61. But the common people believe in possession. 62. Ignorance on the subject of mental disease. The exorcists. 63. John Cotta on possession. What the "learned physicion" knew. 64. What was manifest to the vulgar view. Will Sommers. "The Devil is an Ass." 65. Harsnet's "Declaration," and "King Lear." 66. The Babington conspiracy. 67. Weston, alias Edmonds. His exorcisms. Mainy. The basis of Harsnet's statements. 69. The devils in "Lear." 70. Edgar and Mainy. Mainy's loose morals. 71. The devils tempt with knives and halters. 72. Mainy's seven ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... with another chance of becoming one of "the good men." These transmigrations of the soul were rather numerous. The human soul did not always pass directly from the body of a man into the body of another man. It occasionally entered into the bodies of animals, like the ox and the ass. The Cathari were wont to tell the story of "a good Christian," one of "the Perfected," who remembered, in a previous existence as a horse, having lost his shoe in a certain place between two stones, as he was running swiftly under his master's spur. When he became a man he was curious ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... commission of savants to the steppes of Siberia. There, on the vast plains, immense geometrical figures were to be traced by means of luminous reflectors; amongst others, the square of the hypothenuse, vulgarly called the 'Ass's Bridge.' 'Any intelligent being,' said the mathematician, 'ought to understand the scientific destination of that figure. The Selenites (inhabitants of the moon), if they exist, will answer by a similar figure, and, communication once established, ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... whit, Master Christian. I remember well enough that my roundheaded father-in-law, Fairfax, had the island from the Long Parliament; and was ass enough to quit hold of it at the Restoration, when, if he had closed his clutches, and held fast, like a true bird of prey, as he should have done, he might have kept it for him and his. It had been a rare thing to have had a little ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... up in that county and had quit the farm and gone into the tin mill because they could earn twice as much making tin as they could farming. A worker at work is hard-headed enough to know that when an orator tells him he is not working and not earning any money, the orator is an ass. These lies about fake factories hurt the Democrats by turning all the mill Democrats into Republicans. This is the only method I have ever used in campaigning. The Republicans carried the town. When, two years ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... he said ruefully, "she called me a liar. And I fancy I jolly well deserved it," he added thoughtfully. "Clayton, my boy, I know you are tired out and unstrung, but that's no reason why you should make an ass of yourself. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... don't think I do," replied Billy. "They were so awfully stupid that I didn't pay much attention to them. I explained that those marks,"—pointing to the drawing—"represented doors; yet the silly ass couldn't understand how the servants got from their room to the kitchen, nor how they brought our meals from the kitchen to the living-room without going outside and walking round the house. And he couldn't understand how you and I got ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... fine girls!" reflected Mr. Hamshaw. "Healthy, vigorous, full of life, and not a bit spoiled. Hang it all, I'm an ass to act like this! But I can't help it. A man is never too old to learn or to love. I'll play hob with some of these young dandies before I get through. Hamshaw, you've got to win one of these girls. But which one? There's the ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... motion into her extreme parts, or to hatch a counterfeit life with the crafty and artificial heat of jurisdiction. But it is observable that so long as the church, in true imitation of Christ, can be content to ride upon an ass, carrying herself and her government along in a mean and simple guise, she may be as she is a Lion of the tribe of Judah; and in her humility all men, with loud hosannas, will confess her greatness. But when, despising the mighty operation of the Spirit by the weak things ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... of nothing, this great Universe is great to thee. Not by levity of floating, but by stubborn force of swimming, shalt thou make thy way. The Fates sing of thee that thou shalt many times be thought an ass and a dull ox, and shalt with a godlike indifference believe it. My friend,—and it is all untrue, nothing ever falser in point of fact! Thou art of those great ones whose greatness the small passer-by does not discern. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... his yellow teeth. A vague momentary flash of horror came over me. Did I bestride a metempsychosized man-eater, a revenant from the bloody days of Nuka-hiva? In those wicked eyes I saw reflected the tales of transmigatory vengeance, from the wolf of Little Red Riding Hood to the ass that one becomes who kills a Brahman. I gave vent at the same second to a shriek of anguish and struck the animal upon the nose, the tenderest part of his anatomy within reach. He released my foot, whirled, cavorted, and, as I seized a tree ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... in the other the men. The women and children were thirteen in number, and the men five. These received their guests with a barbarous entertainment, but which they considered to be quite a royal one. For they slaughtered an animal much resembling a wild ass, and set before our men half-roasted steaks of it, but no other food or drink. Our men had to cover themselves at night with skins, on account of the severity ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... up the youngsters where they can't get at them; when the truth is that if we all simply quit work and left them the whole range to graze over, they'd bray to have their fodder brought to them in bales, instead of starting out to hunt the raw material, as we had to. When an ass gets the run of the pasture ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... opinion became modified when the poem was published, and (May 3, 1819) he calls it "this unfortunate book."[1] In another place (June 12, 1820) Crabb Robinson says that he implored Wordsworth, before the book was printed, to omit "the party in a parlour," and also the banging of the ass's bones, but, ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... says he, "that my master was in danger of being thrown over the bridge, I fearlessly rode near him; when, to my very great surprise, I found that my master's horse (which was young and skittish) was frightened at an ass, which stood grazing near the corner of the wall." "Are you sure it was an ass, Jervais?" asked the servants, staring one at another, half frightened themselves. "Are you quite sure of it?" "Yes," replied the man; "for, as soon as my master had ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... intoxicating in the trifle!... I don't mind a boy talking in that wild way. A clever, intelligent lad ought to talk revolutionary stuff, but when a man reaches Palfrey's age and is still gabbling that silly-cleverness, then the man's an ass. There's no depth ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... it's a blawsted scheme, you know; but I'm jolly sure I'd make a bleddy ass of myself. I cawn't act, ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... like it when I left the room," said he; "the Mater was very near rolling on the oilcloth, and the Governor dancing and foaming from his mouth. What an awfully old ass you have been, JAB, to go and blurt out everything in print—about your breach of promise case, and getting to know us, and—worst of all—being merely a bogey prince. Naturally, we don't care about being made to look fools. The dear old Mater, you know, is one of those simple, ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... said Joseph. "You should have been announced. Prejudice is a surer card than judgment. The public is an ass." ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... feel himself justified in extracting a slightly pleasurable sensation from the transaction. He will say to himself probably, unconsciously indeed, and with no formed words, that the husband is an ass, an ass if he be in a twitter either for that which he has kept or for that which he has been unable to keep, that the lady has shewn a good deal of appreciation, and that he himself is—is—is—quite a Captain ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... his lips and eyelids were forced open, but he never winked an eyelid or moved a hair of his whiskers. He was thrown about from side to side, remaining perfectly motionless till, at a sign from his master, he jumped up as well as ever, shouldered his gun, and mounted his ass to take his departure. He was promptly ordered to dismount and ask for backshish, which he did, cap in hand. Some of the crowd round about not contributing to his master's satisfaction, the ape took a nasty venomous-looking little snake out of a bag which he carried over his ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... Apuleius was a Latin satirical writer whose greatest work was a romance or novel called "The Golden Ass." The hero is by chance changed into an ass,, and has all sorts of adventures until he is finally freed from the magic by eating roses in the hands of a ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Sight: and that they have neither Organs, nor Reason, to discern, or distinguish Phantoms, from material Bodies: and therefore the old Rabins very subtly conjectured, that the Ass, which carried Balaam, was not a real Ass, but the Devil in Disguise, and subject to the Magical Power of ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... she said, pointing with her fat finger at my insignificant self and addressing her family. "If only I had such a husband or a son, instead of you lumps that God has tied to me like clogs to the heels of a she-ass, I should be happy." ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... admiration and disdain for the great Fred. It all depended as to whether Larsan's discoveries tallied with Rouletabille's reasoning or not. When they did he would exclaim: "He is really great!" When they did not he would grunt and mutter, "What an ass!" It was a petty side of the noble character of ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... all, you ass!" St. Maur objected. "I'm always telling you that you can look the smartest man in England if you choose. You fellows who are habitually dowdy create a most tremendous effect when, for once, you really dress ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... asserted by the following Reflection. Domestick Fowls, the Hen, the Turkey, and Goose are preferable, as more useful, to the singing Bird, and the Parrot. The Ox, that ploughs the Field and brings home the Harvest, the Horse, the Mule, and even the stupid Ass, that carry their Owners, or their Goods and Merchandize, are more to be regarded than the Hound, the Lap-Dog, and various other Animals that seem to have been created only for our Pleasure and Amusement: And the Reason of this is very evident, ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... rather dull, but interesting on the whole. The steamer whistles every minute; its whistle is midway between the bray of an ass and an Aeolian harp. In five or six hours we shall be in Nizhni. The sun is rising. I slept last night artistically. My money is safe; that is because I am constantly pressing my hands on ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... draught to dull His pain. The argument will hardly hold good, for the Greek word translated "gall" can also signify a stupefying drug, and thus Matt. and Mark agree. (3) That in xxi. 2-7, where our Lord is represented as making use of both an ass and a colt for His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The other Synoptists mention a colt only, and it is supposed that the evangelist altered his narrative of the fact in order to make it agree with a too literal interpretation of Zech. ix. 9. It must be admitted ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... well agreed, but on the second we divided again, especially Rulledge and Minver, who held, the one, that his hesitation did Alford honor, and quite relieved him from the imputation of being a chump; and the other that he was an ass to keep quiet for any such silly reason. Minver contended that every woman had a right, whether rich or poor, to the man who loved her; and, moreover, there were now so many rich women that, if they were ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... the city, despite the fact that some of the railways involved were at that very moment under the wing of the Federal courts, despite the laws of the general government affecting the working and management of every one of over a dozen great trunk lines centring in Chicago, Uncle Sam would be ass enough to confide them all to the care of State authorities notoriously dependent upon the masses, and that he would not venture to protect his property, sustain his courts, enforce his laws, demand and ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... vigilance committee from the other schools, and the chaps in it got the dickens of a time. None of them ever came to camp again. I hope Kay's'll try and behave decently. It'll be an effort for them; but I hope they'll make it. It would be an awful nuisance if young Billy made an ass of himself in any way. He loves making an ass of himself. It's a sort of hobby ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... who pursued poor Progne with a drawn sword. Or, to cite a more apposite case, as well might we seek a reliable historical narrative in the following Greek myth. Zeus once gave man a remedy against old age. He put it on the back of an ass and followed on foot. It being a hot day, the ass grew thirsty, and would drink at a fount which a snake guarded. The cunning snake knew what precious burden the ass bore, and would not, except at the price of it, let him drink. He obtained the prize; but with it, as a punishment for his trick, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... is only a delicate intimation from the governor that I'll make another blooming ass of myself with this," commented Bobby, tapping his finger on the check, and placing the letter face downward beside it, where he eyed ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... knows he leaves behind his better part. I love my fellow-men; the worst I know I would do good to. Will death change me so That I shall sit among the lazy saints, Turning a deaf ear to the sore complaints Of souls that suffer? Why, I never yet Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset, Or ass o'erladen! Must I rate man less Than dog or ass, in holy selfishness? Methinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be sin!) The world of pain were better, if therein One's heart might still be human, and desires Of natural pity drop upon its fires Some cooling tears." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... antique times admired Silenus old, Who oft appear'd set on his lazy ass, How would they wonder, if they had behold Such sights, as from the myrtle high did pass! Thence came a lady fair with locks of gold, That like in shape, in face, and beauty was To fair Armida; Rinald thinks he spies Her gestures, smiles, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... nor do I in the least doubt it; and why not, as well as Balaam's ass, speak? and I might add, many other asses, now-a-days; and yet, how might that music be improved by a judicious disposition of its various parts, by the addition of a proper number of sheep and young lambs; 't would then likewise resemble the counter, counter tenor, treble, and ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... only one thing to be done now,' cried she; 'you must demand the skin of the ass he sets such store by. It is from that donkey he obtains all his vast riches, and I am sure he will never give it ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... eaten he discovered that he had forgotten to bring money. It gave him no concern, for he thought that he could slip out with her without paying the reckoning. But the tavern-keeper barred their way, calling them a vile slave and a worthless she-ass. Balthasar struck him to the ground with a blow of his fist. Whereupon some of the drinkers drew their knives and flung themselves on the two strangers. But the black man, seizing an enormous pestle used to pound ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... languorous smoke, like incense, mounted up to the gallery. Viridus' unveiled threat made the necessity for submission come once more into her mind. Other wild men were leading in a lion, immense and lean as if it were a fawn-coloured ass. It roared and pulled at the golden chains by which the knot of men held it. Many ladies shrieked out, but the men dragged the lion into the open space before the dais where the Queen sat unmoved ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... a central part, Mr. Tempest's iron-gray hair was greasily wild—a disarray of romantic ringlets. Eshwell was inclined to fat; Tempest was gaunt and had the hollow, burning eye that bespeaks the sentimental ass. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... a much inferior man being coupled by some sapient review as "biographers,"—"Those two joined!" he exclaimed. "You can't plough with an ox and an ass." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... search revealed nothing of an incriminating character. At length Godfrey was left alone in the cell, which contained only a single chair and a rough pallet. "I have put my foot in it somehow," he said to himself, "and I can't make head nor tail of it beyond the fact that I have made an ass of myself. Was the whole story a lie? Was the fellow's name Presnovich? if not, who was he? By the rage of the general, who, I suppose, is the chief of the police, it was evident he was frightfully disappointed that I wasn't the man he was looking for. Was this Presnovich somebody that girl ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... the church, but the church gate was locked and broken—a calf, two pigs, and an ass, in the church-yard; and several boys (with more of skin apparent than clothes) were playing at pitch and toss upon a tombstone, which, upon nearer observation, he saw was the monument of his own family. One of the boys came to the gate, and told Lord Colambre, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... That one nation has not a right to interfere in the internal government of another nation, is admitted; and in this point of view, France has no right to dictate to England what its form of government shall be. If it choose to have a thing called a King, or whether that King shall be a man or an ass, is a matter with which France has no business. But whether an Elector of the Germanic body shall be King of England, is an external case, with which France and every other nation, who suffers inconvenience and injury in consequence of it, has a ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... is undoubtedly a reference to the caribou, Cervus tarandus. Sagard (1636) calls it Caribou ou asne Sauuages, caribou or wilde ass.—Hist. du Canada, p. 750. La Hontan, 1686, says harts and caribous are killed both in summer and winter after the same manner with the elks (mooses), excepting that the caribous, which are a kind of wild asses, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... cursed be my confounded thirst for general information! Why did I ever know what Kurdaitcha and Interlinia mean? If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be! Suppose I drop the whole affair! But I've been ass enough to let Logan know that I have an idea. Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves. Sufficient for the ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... think he was an addle-pated old ass not to see the thing more clearly. As you'll be coming into the Government before long, we thought that things had better be made straight between you and Sir Gregory. I wonder how it was that nobody but women did see it clearly? Look at ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... name for the wild ass, Equus kiang, indicates his close relationship to the horse, and "kiang" is what he is called by the people of Tibet. The wild ass is as large as an average mule, with well-developed ears, and a ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... the early times of the introduction of tobacco, smokers in many countries were condemned to infamous and cruel punishments; had their noses and their lips cut off, and with blackened faces and mounted on an ass, exposed to the coarse jests of the vilest vagabonds and the insults of the multitude. But now the hangman smokes, and the criminal condemned to death smokes before being hanged. The king in his gilt coach smokes; and the assassin smokes who ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... I have said," I began, fumbling the door-knob. "I suppose I was an ass to think that you might love me. They say that it is a malady. Very well. With a few prescribed remedies I ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... avert the evil eye from the gardens, the people (of Mourzak) put up the head of an ass, or some portion of the bones of that animal. The same superstition prevails in all the oases that stud the north of Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic, but the people are unwilling to explain what especial virtue there ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... Pheasant Captain Rawse of Cowes fell in with us, and that gave us some thirty hands more; and with that handful, my lads, only fifty-three in all, we picked the lock of the new world! And whom did we lose but our trumpeter, who stood braying like an ass in the middle of the square, instead of taking care of his neck like a Christian? I tell you, those Spaniards are rank cowards, as all bullies are. They pray to a woman, the idolatrous rascals! and no ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... was born, he began to cry and bray like an ass. And hearing that sound, the asses, vultures, jackals and crows uttered their respective cries responsively. Violent winds began to blow, and there were fires in various directions. Then king Dhritarashtra in great fear, summoning Bhishma and Vidura and other well-wishers and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of thinking myself the next day an ass, for having missed a good opportunity of spermatizing a fresh cunt; yet for some reason or another it must have been three days before I went ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... husband, and often does not want to. I made none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a girl's nightmare after a day up the river and a supper at the Star and Garter. I might have told the judge he was an ass, but then I should have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than death. The only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law has committed ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... would have been the courteous thing to do. Instead of that, now Samson's spies were nosing about, and only the gods knew what they might discover. The man who had done the murder was safely out of the way— probably in Delhi by that time, or on his way there; but that interfering ass Norwood might be awake for once, and if the murderer should happen to get caught, and should confess—as hired murderers do sometimes—it would need an awful lot of expert lying and money, too, ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... room, and to fling out, one after another, the expressions of his scorn and his self-scorn. "They have no idea of what good faith is, except as something that brings down the house when they register a noble vow. But I don't blame him; I blame myself. What an ass, what an idiot, I was! Why, he could have told me not to believe in his promises; he is a perfectly honest man, and would have done it, if I had appealed to him. He didn't expect me to believe in them, and from the wary way I talked, I don't suppose he thought I did. ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... generally the color of the desert. Thus, for instance, the lion, the antelope, and the wild ass are all sand-colored. "Indeed," says Canon Tristram, "in the desert, where neither trees, brushwood, nor even undulation of the surface afford the slightest protection to its foes, a modification of color which shall be assimilated to that of the surrounding country is absolutely ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... "What's the silly ass up to now? Dancing girl got him—yes? How he does it, I can't think. No looks, no manner, no way with women. Can't stand him myself. How ever can they? Frightful bore, old George is. Well, well, man, I'm waiting. Tell me, tell ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... lawyer," he used to say, "but as a poet, sir, Shakespeare is an ass beside him, and if any one asks you who said so, tell ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... to servitude! Would that your employments were not those of a very menial! Consider: are your duties any lighter than those of a Dromo or a Tibius? As to the studies in which your employer professed an interest when he engaged you, they are nothing to him. Shall an ass affect the lyre? Remove from these men's minds the gold and the silver, with the cares that these involve, and what remains? Pride, luxury, sensuality, insolence, wantonness, ignorance. Consuming must be their ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... almost as hard to explain as the charm of the man your closest woman-friend marries. What she can see in him you cannot for the life of you perceive, while he, on his part, secretly wonders why the woman he loves ever sought friendship with such a pompous, dull ass as you are. Love is blind, so they say. Well, so is friendship—so are relations—blind to everything ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... all his passionate dream was in that sound Which, to the stables round And other tenements, told of packs that weighed On his brown haunches; also that, alas! His true heart sighed for Jenny, that fair ass Who backward still and forward paced With panniers and the curate's children graced. Then, when she took no heed, but turned aside Her head, he shook his ears As much as to say "Great are—as these—my fears." And while ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... remind us of Landor. These lucid intervals in his overweening vanity explain and justify the friendship of Spenser. Yet the reiteration of emphasis with which he insists on all the world's knowing that Nash had called him an ass, probably gave Shakespeare the hint for one of the most comic touches ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... you see, but it wouldn't work. New verger on the job! I weakened. Then I put it in a box and had it addressed to a fictitious man in Bristol, and sent my valet to get it off by express. It went on, and was returned for a better address. You see, my valet—officious ass!—had left his address at the express office. How gauche of him! While we were lying at the dock a messenger came to my state-room with the Bishop's head. I had to take it and pay five shillings and a sixpence for ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... angel in one's way, Who wants to play the ass's part, Bear on his back the wizard Art, And in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... and a brisk Lass, With a thousand of Grigs, should it e'er come to pass, Would make me behave my self just like an Ass. ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... of me. There is always a time in a man's life when he can be made a complete ass of if the woman with the will to make an ass of him happens along coincidently. I fancied myself sated with fame, tired of life, a remote and tragic figure among men—the trail of Byron is over us all. That ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... that I hope a little of your good nursing, with ass's milk, will set me up for another campaign; should the Admiralty wish me to return, in the spring, for another year: but, I own, I think ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... as this, influentially signed, is put into my hands and an answer demanded of me, what sort of answer do I give? The answer I give, ladies and gentlemen, is that I keep a spaniel at home, though not for sporting purposes, and still less for purposes of Physiological Research"—Every time the ass came to these two words he made elaborate ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rest Jesus' claims to be our King on more inward and spiritual grounds, but it stands on the same level as other similar fulfilments of prophecy which meet us in the Gospels; such as the royal entry into Jerusalem, 'riding upon an ass,' in which the outward, literal correspondence is but a finger-post, pointing to far deeper and truer realisation of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... distinction to be made; I fear that as we render to our consciousness an account of our daily fortunes and behavior, we too often weave a tissue of romantic compliments and dull excuses; and even if Pepys were the ass and coward that men call him, we must take rank as sillier and more cowardly than he. The bald truth about oneself, what we are all too timid to admit when we are not too dull to see it, that was what he saw clearly and ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... scornfully.—"Ye tailors of Woodstock!—for what is a glover but a tailor working on kidskin?—I forsake you, in scorn of your faint hearts and feeble hands, and will seek me elsewhere a flock which will not fly from their shepherd at the braying of the first wild ass which cometh from out the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... society with a vengeance if that ass starts in to write about me. Listen to this"—she had pointed out to him the obnoxious paragraph—"If Brewster Drew a diamond flush, do you suppose he'd catch the queen? And if he caught her, how long do you think she'd remain Drew? Or, if she Drew Brewster, would she be willing to learn ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... announcing their arrival by that terrific combination of steam-whistles which is called in the West a Cally-ope. What an advance upon the old system of strolling players and the barn! "Then came each actor on his ass." On the Ohio he comes in a comfortable stateroom, to which when the performance is over he retires, waking the next morning at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... that was Balaam's when the first great critic proffered his opinion." ... The inference ... is that all the world, competent and incompetent together, must receive the painter's work in silence, under pain of being classed with Balaam's ass.... ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... you an animal would be to state the truth"—to which you would agree; and, "To call you an ass would be to call you an animal"—to which you would also agree; from which I might conclude that, "To call you an ass would {30} be to state the truth"—which you might have a vague idea was not true. ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... on a brisk little ass by his side, looked up frequently and with evident pleasure at the merchant's face—not in itself a handsome one with its hollow cheeks, meagre beard and large aquiline nose—for it was lighted up by a pair of bright ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... evil, He was a servant of evil and its dark ruler. Common-sense says, If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself, and his kingdom cannot stand. An old play is entitled, 'The Devil is an Ass,' but he is not such an ass as to fight against himself. As the proverb has it, 'Hawks do not pick ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... the novelist because, as the famous writer explained, "that ancient multi-millionaire, you know, really was an ass"—was to be entrusted with all the available worldly possessions of the little party. An arrangement—the more experienced man carefully pointed out—that, considering the chief characteristics of Croesus, was quite in accord with the customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange, himself, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... when it matters not, Nor where, but mark! the sun was plaguy hot Falling athwart a long and dusty road In which same dust two dusty fellows strode. One was a tall, broad-shouldered, goodly wight In garb of motley like a jester dight, Fool's cap on head with ass's ears a-swing, While, with each stride, his bells did gaily ring; But, 'neath his cock's-comb showed a face so marred With cheek, with brow and lip so strangely scarred As might scare tender maid or timid child Unless, by chance, they ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... guess What books you doat on from your fav'rite mess, Brown and L'Estrange will surely charm whome'er The frothy pertness strikes of weak small-beer. Who steeps the calf's fat loin in greasy sauce Will hardly loathe the praise that bastes an ass. Who riots on Scotcht Collops scorns not any Insipid, fulsome, trashy miscellany; 245 And who devours whate'er the cook can dish up, Will for a ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... of his wit. Continuing, he says: "In a quarter of an hour they ran over all the Orders, and each seemed so attractive that they could not decide. In which predicament they might have been left like the ass, which died of starvation between two bundles of hay, not knowing which to choose. However, they decided to leave the matter to Providence, and let the dice decide. So one became a Carmelite and the other ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Newgate-market, against one from Honey-lane market, at a bull, for a guinea to be spent, five let-goes out of hand, which goes fairest and fastest in, wins all. Likewise, a green bull to be baited, which was never baited before; and a bull to be turned loose with fireworks all over him. Also a mad ass to be baited. With a variety of bull-baiting and bear-baiting, and a dog to be drawn up with fireworks. To begin exactly ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... pre-Aryan tribes of Gaul and Britain, or indeed the Aryan tribes themselves in their earliest stage, regarded their original ancestors as human. Certain names of deities such as Tarvos (the bull), Moccos (the pig), Epona (the goddess of horses), Damona (the goddess of cattle), Mullo (the ass), as well as the fact that the ancient Britons, according to Caesar, preserved the hen, the goose, and the hare, but did not kill and eat them, all point to the fact that in these countries as elsewhere certain animals were held in supreme respect and were carefully guarded from harm. Judging ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl
... signal us to try the surf again, or to go to sea and wait, or go north, or go south, or go to hell—there would be some reason in it. But look at him. He just stands there and keeps his coat revolving like a wheel. The ass!" ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... to find trunks under letters?" says he. "The proper place for trunks is the end of the platform. Then you can tear out of the train and find yours first and get off quickly. When you are all dragooned and drilled an ass comes off as well as anyone else. You place ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Devotee Accused of Lewdness s. Tale of the Hireling and the Girl t. Tale of the Weaver Who Became a Leach by Order of His Wife u. Tale of the Two Sharpers Who Each Cozened His Compeer v. Tale of the Sharpers With the Shroff and the Ass w. Tale of the Chear and the Merchants wa. Story of the Falcon and the Locust x. Tale of the King and His Chamberlain's Wife xa. Story of the Crone and the Draper's Wife y. Tale of the Ugly Man and His Beautifule Wife z. Tale of the King Who ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
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