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More "Humour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and excited by Iago, the patriotism of Brutus artfully exploited by Cassius, he yields to the repeated solicitation and does a deed in every way repugnant to his normal character. Nothing seems so blinding in its effect on the moral sense as passion. It obscures all sense of humour, proportion, congruity; the murder of the man or woman who stands in the way of its full enjoyment becomes an act of inverted justice to the perpetrators; they reconcile themselves to it by the most perverse reasoning until they come to regard it as an act, in which they may justifiably ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... that she was not in the humour to do his pleasure without a salvum me fac, whereas he would fain have done it sine custodia, said, 'Harkye, thou believest not that I will bring thee the money; but, so thou mayst credit me, I will leave thee this my blue-cloth cloak.' Belcolore raised her ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... said, that in these early essays contributed to the Monthly Review there is much more of Goldsmith the critic than of Goldsmith the author. They are somewhat laboured performances. They are almost devoid of the sly and delicate humour that afterwards marked Goldsmith's best prose work. We find throughout his trick of antithesis; but here it is forced and formal, whereas afterwards he lent to this habit of writing the subtle surprise of epigram. They have the true ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... sense of humour, if you haven't. Who gets up in the gray dawn to call on another man's wife? ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... other a new Election of Parliament Men. In order to improve these Events to their own purpose, it will become necessary to sooth & flatter the Americans with Hopes of Reliefe. In Case of a War, America if in good Humour will be no contemptible Ally. She will be able by her Exertions to annoy the Enemy much. Her aid will therefore be courted. And to bring her into this good Humour, the Ministry must be lavish in promises of great things to be done for her. Perhaps some Concessions ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... attracted me. It was clean-shaven and much bronzed by the sun, but not in any way good-looking; the features were too irregular and the nose was a trifle too long for good looks. Still the impression it gave was pleasant and the steady blue eyes had that twinkle in them which suggests humour. He might have been thirty or thirty-five years of age, and notwithstanding his rough dress that consisted mainly of a pair of trousers held up by a belt to which hung a pistol, and a common flannel shirt, for he wore no coat, I guessed at once that ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... opinion as to his peculiar merits. He possessed, beyond all doubt, a strong understanding, a lively imagination, a keen perception of character—especially in its defects and weaknesses—considerable wit without any humour, fierce passions and hatreds, and a boundless command of a loose, careless, but bold and energetic diction; add to this, a constant tone of self-assertion, and rugged independence. He was emphatically a ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... truculent, but I got him in a good humour at last, and he admitted that he had been cooperating with the dead man, Cohen, in an attempt to burgle the house of Huang Chow. His reluctance to go into details seemed to be due rather to fear of Huang Chow than to fear of the law, and I presently gathered that he regarded Huang ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... time Elizabeth might have turned upon him and rent him for that speech. But it happened that she was in high good-humour that afternoon, and disposed to indulgence. She laughed, surveying herself in the small steel mirror ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... bow of perfect good-humour, and even some sly drollery, "you mistake: I never begged in my life: I'm a person of independent property, which consists of my head and my two hands, out of which I hope to realise a large ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Consound." The whole plant has been carefully and exhaustively proved for curative purposes; and a medicinal tincture (H.) is now made from it with spirit of wine. Gerard says: "Daisies do mitigate all kinds of pain, especially in the joints, and gout proceeding from a hot humour, if stamped with new butter and applied upon the pained place." And, "The leaves of Daisies used among pot herbs do make the belly soluble." Pliny tells us the Daisy was used in his time with Mugwort as ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... abnormal symptoms were due to possession. This satisfied his reason and drove away his fears (I understand that), especially when he was assured that an evil spirit can be driven out by the power of God's love as easily as an evil germ or humour of the body can be driven out by the same agency. What ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... absolutely pathetic as a really fine paradox. The pun is the clown among jokes, the well turned paradox is the polished comedian, and the highest comedy verges upon tragedy, just as the keenest edge of tragedy is often tempered by a subtle humour. Our minds are shot with moods as a fabric is shot with colours, and our moods often seem inappropriate. Everything that is ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... nor cutting off limbs for sport? Are you quite sure, love? What is Sir William doing here, with only his groom? He and the people look in high good-humour with each other, with all this shaking of hands, and nodding and laughing. I cannot conceive what he can be saying to them, for there are not three faces among the whole array that look as if they belonged to ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... book pleasant to look at and pleasant to read—pleasant from its rich store of anecdote, its geniality, and its humour, even to persons who care little for the subjects of which it treats, but beyond measure delightful to those who are in any degree members of the ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... they came in quest of. He speedily conceived a great fancy for me, and regularly came to visit me every evening at my posada, and accompanied me in my walks about the town and the environs. He was a man of considerable information, and though of much simplicity, possessed a kind of good-natured humour which ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the cloves out of the cracks in the stone flagging—and, of course, he needn't have done this, unless he had an abnormal sense of humour—he handed me the tattered, disreputable-looking copy of 'A Modern Circe,' with a bow that wouldn't have disgraced a Chesterfield, and then went back to his easel, while I fled after Aunt Celia ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... white flowers drooped on either side of her beautiful head, and if her brown hair was a little disordered, the very disorder only seemed to add a grace. She pleased him more by looking so lovely than by all her tender endeavours to fall in with his varying humour. ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... up her shift and discovered the terrace-roof of her kaze, I found it as strait as my humour or eke my worldly ways. So I drove it incontinent in, halfway; and she heaved a sigh. "For what dost thou sigh?" quoth I. "For the rest ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... have grown much brighter and gayer of mood in this past twelvemonth. Apparently he was somewhat stouter, and certainly there was a mellowed softening of his sharp glance and shrewd smile. It was evident that his friend's mood somewhat nonplussed him, but his good-humour was unflagging. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... machine-made in uncostly quantities. Obviously, power needs to make use of no such storage. The property of power is to use phrases, whether strange or familiar, as though it created them. But even more than lack of power is lack of humour the cause of all the rankness and the staleness, of all the Anglo-Saxon of commerce, of all the weary 'quaintness'—that quaintness of which one is moved to exclaim with Cassio: 'Hither comes the bauble!' Lack of a sense of humour betrays a ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... unites us towards sunset round our table cloth; and, whilst enjoying our meals, the subject of the day's journey, the past, the present, and the future, by turns engage our attention, or furnish matter for conversation and remark, according to the respective humour of the parties. Many circumstances have conspired to make me strangely taciturn, and I am now scarcely pleased even with the chatting humour of my youngest companion, whose spirits, instead of flagging, have become ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... greater soul than Shaughnessy to be cynical about C.P.R. It often needed his latent Irish humour to appreciate the larger cynicism which it expressed concerning the country. The pap-fed infants of Mackenzie and Hays served but to illustrate by contrast the perfection and the well-oiled technique of the dynamo operated by Shaughnessy. It became an obsession with him, as it did with ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... the same humour in the evening. I discovered in one of my friend's precious publications—the Life, Letters, and Labours of Miss Jane Ann Stamper, forty-fourth edition—passages which bore with a marvellous appropriateness on Rachel's present position. Upon my proposing to read them, she went to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... is not a great, ugly book, and for the few days that I have left off reading it, I find myself much worse. If your mother would let you stay with me a little while, you would see that I know how to get rid of my ill-humour. If you knew how hard it was to be in good humour, when left so long alone, and when you hear me singing and talking like a madman, you would not call this ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... parts into his spacious, warm, ill-kept halls. All this mass of people ate what they could get, but always had their fill, drank till they were drunk, and carried off what they could, praising and blessing their genial host; and their host too when he was out humour blessed his guests—for a pack of sponging toadies, but he was bored when he was without them. Piotr Andreitch's wife was a meek-spirited creature; he had taken her from a neighbouring family by ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... one. The robbers were really very good sort of people, and the captain was in an excellent humour. When the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... but she said, 'I do not like this bitterness of yours, Plantagenet. You have no cause to complain of the world, and you magnify a petty squabble with a contemptible coterie into a quarrel with a nation. It is not a wise humour, and, if you indulge it, it will not be a ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... holy things was very great. He relished a joke as well as any man, indeed, there was a good deal of humour in him; but woe to that man who spoke jestingly of the things pertaining to God. The Word of the Lord was too real and too important for any triviality. God was ever present to him, and he lived for God. His son says: "Even when I was alone with him, ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... old woman told me my spouse was recovered, and gone to bathe, and would come to see me the next day. "So," said she, "I would have you call up your patience, and endeavour to accommodate yourself to her humour. For she is in other respects a woman of good sense and discretion, and beloved by all the ladies about the court ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... hearsay evidence can be accepted, as I didn't see the premiere, Mr. SUGDEN must have immensely improved his Touchstone. He plays it now with much dry, quaint humour, and when I saw him in the part last week, every line told with a decidedly discriminating but appreciative audience. His scenes with that capital Audrey, Miss MARION LEA, and with William, were uncommonly good. I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... film of sceptical "white light." This "qualified assent" is precisely what excites the fury of such individualistic thinkers as Tolstoi and Bernard Shaw. It were amusing to note the difference between the "humour" of this latter and the "humour" of Shakespeare. Shaw's humour consists in emphasizing the absurdity of human Custom, compared with the good sense of the philosopher. Shakespeare's humour consists in emphasizing the absurdity of philosophers, compared with the good sense ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... Reformation, the same hostility to ecclesiastical interference with secular affairs, unless, as in the case of John Knox, the interference was directed against Rome. Froude considered him not unlike Knox in humour, keenness of intellect, integrity, and daring. History was the one form of literature outside Goethe and Burns for which he really cared. He had translated Wilhelm Meister in 1824, and it was probably ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... step forward was a conscious effort. There was little singing in either Companies (A. and D.), during the short march to the train conveying the party to near a shell-infested area where the said party would partake of its outdoor picnic. "Party"—the ironical humour of it! ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... they were by any means dull. For both Colonel MILDMAY, who proposed, and Sir HENRY DALZIEL, who seconded, the re-election of Mr. LOWTHER as Speaker, spiced their compliments with humour. The former was confident that even if Woman appeared on the floor of the House the SPEAKER-ELECT'S "consummate tact" would be equal to coping with her artfullest endeavours to get round the rules of procedure; while the latter attributed his priceless gift of humour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... mostly officers, while the women were, I imagine, in the main their relatives and friends. The latter were very gaily and expensively dressed. As far as I can remember, the cost of a very poor tea was half a crown for each person. Every one appeared in great good humour, and laughter was ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... entertainment, and with his dramatic faculty, his genuine sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men, his happy gift of humour, and his trained observation, Dr. Hedin gives us a welcome and impressive picture of the present condition of things in a country teeming with ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... for circumventing the Archfiend at a stated hour, but is merely a simulacrum of the well-known gallic idiomatic expression "Il fait le diable a quatre." Truly this is excellent fooling; Punch in his wildest humour, backed by the whole colony of Leicester Square, could not produce funnier English. "He burns one's self the brains," "He was fighted in duel," "They fight one's selfs together," "He do want to fall," would be more intelligible if less picturesque in their original form of "Il se brule ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... effect. There have been many greater writers; but perhaps no writer was ever more uniformly agreeable. His style was always pure and easy, and, on proper occasions, pointed and energetic. His narratives were always amusing, his descriptions always picturesque, his humour rich and joyous, yet not without an occasional tinge of amiable sadness. About everything that he wrote, serious or sportive, there was a certain natural grace and decorum, hardly to be expected from a man a great part of whose life had been ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Francesca had not been murdered, would they have loved each other for ever? As nobody knows what they would have done, you can assert that they would have been faithful or not, according to your taste, humour or personal intentions. Then you can talk about the husband, whose very hasty conduct contributed so materially to the shortness of the story. If you wish to be thought jealous, you say he was quite right; if you desire to seem generous, you say with equal conviction that he was ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... be only that it is their humour to be sad," said Wingfold. "But don't you think," he continued, "it is hardly worth while to be indignant with them? Their verses are a relief to them, and do ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... the workmen came to remove the stone, planted himself upon it, with a broad axe in his hand, swearing he would dash out the brains of any one who should disturb the monument. Athletic in person, and insane enough to be totally regardless of consequences, it was thought best to give way to his humour; and the poor madman kept sentinel on the stone day and night, till the proposal of removing it was ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... her cousin walked the deck together. Young Longworth, although in better humour than he had been the night before, was still rather short in his replies, ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... now became inquisitive, calculating, It seemed to be saying: "One day I may be able to make use of this piece of goods." But there was a certain careless good-humour in it, too. What he saw was a naive young maid, with agreeable features, and a fine, fresh complexion, and rather reddish hair. (He did not approve of the colour of the hair.) He found pleasure in regarding her, and in the perception that he had abashed her. Yes, he ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... influence and noise could get any measure passed, he called out, "O Paulus Aemilius, groan in your grave, at your son being brought into the Censorship by Aemilius the crier and Licinius Philonicus." But Scipio kept the people in good humour by constantly augmenting their privileges, whereas Aemilius, though of the aristocratic party, was no less loved by the people than those who courted their favour and caressed them. They showed this by electing him, amongst other dignities, to the Censorship; which office is ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... hair left on, and very comfortable—and smoke their pipes. This was the only time of the day when old Joe unbent. At first silent, he would presently shift his pipe to the corner of his mouth and spin them yarns of the early days, told with a queer, dry humour that kept his hearers in a simmer of laughter. It was always a matter of regret to poor "Captin" that he used to be the one to end the telling, since no story on earth could keep him, after a while, from nodding off to sleep. He would ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Mazel was in a frightfully bad humour that day. At the outset of the sitting the brigadier had come to him, saying: 'There was a mistake yesterday, Monsieur Mazel. A hors-concours* picture was rejected. You know, No. 2520, a nude ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... France it was not until the year 1555 that the proposed Diet met at Augsburg. The Protestant party, encouraged by their victories, were in no humour for compromise, and as it was evident that there was no longer any hope of healing the religious division in the Empire, it was agreed that peace could be secured only by mutual toleration. In September 1555 the Peace of Augsburg was concluded. According to the terms of this convention full ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... manner had changed. There was no one now before whom she could act—no one to whom she could show that she could slight him, play with him. Furthermore, she had gotten some relief from the tension of her ill humour by what she had already said; and now she really wanted to see him. The ill humour had not been very deep; nothing in her was very deep. And she was perfectly sincere again—for the moment. What ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... heart-sorrows which attend civil war—and now a fugitive, destitute of means, and in peril of his life—he still had cheerfulness and patience to minister to Lady Carse. From his deliberate and courteous entrance, his air of leisure, his quiet humour in conversation, and his clear remembrance of small incidents relating to the lady's family and acquaintance, anyone would have supposed that he had not a care in the world. For the hour, Lady Carse almost ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... harvest moon. On being questioned they confessed that they were trying to rake "that cheese out of the river:" with a shout of laughter at the simplicity of the rustics the travellers proceeded on their way. The humour of the joke lies in the fact that the "moonrakers" were smugglers retrieving kegs of rum and brandy and that the horsemen were excise officials. But the folk-lore origin of "Moonraker" is said by the Rev. J.E. Field to belong to a very early period, probably before ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... air, his frank and good humour, which had at first impressed her so unfavourably, now seemed to her an additional merit, as being proofs of the deep dissimulation of a strong nature, which will not allow any inner feeling to appear upon the ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... good. Our countryman, inferior to Bonaparte in invention, was far superior to him in wisdom. The French Emperor is among conquerors what Voltaire is among writers, a miraculous child. His splendid genius was frequently clouded by fits of humour as absurdly perverse as those of the pet of the nursery, who quarrels with his food, and dashes his playthings to pieces. Cromwell was emphatically a man. He possessed, in an eminent degree, that masculine and full-grown robustness of mind, that equally diffused intellectual ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... easy manner was perhaps the greatest blessing of Ian Ross's life. Her happy good temper spoke of a perfectly healthy body, and a mind full of a pleasant humour. ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... is uncheered by the hope of a future life. An example of the flippant sceptic is found in Lucian in the second century, A.D. The great knowledge of life which travel had afforded him created a universal ridicule for religion; but his unbelief evinced no seriousness, no sadness. His humour itself is a type of the man. Lacking the bitter earnestness which gave sting to the wit of Aristophanes, and the courteous playfulness exhibited in the many-sided genius of Plato, he was a caricaturist rather than a painter: his dialogues are farces of life rather than satires. It has been well ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... mirror, the two champagne cocktails, the whisky and the sherry were accommodating his unaccustomed brain to support this most unaccustomed situation. The thing seemed to him radiantly humorous, yet if he had known it there was very little humour in the matter. ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... in wait for the reader in the pages of this story. And the humour is of the sweet, mellow sort that sometimes brings moisture to the eyes as well as laughter ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... humour of these self-satisfied compliments, sometimes we were so busy and engrossed that we accepted them open-mouthed. I suppose in every mind personal preference is magnified into the standard of perfection, and all ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... married life," he said to Slayton, with a certain bruised humour. "That's the girl I used to lay awake of nights thinking about. Sorry about your hat, mister. Say, don't snitch to the tenants about this, will yer? I don't want ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... tended to preserve their happiness is that they know no other use of riches than the enjoyment of them. They know no other use of it than that of promoting mirth and good humour; for which end they generously bring their gains into a common stock, whereby they whose gains are small have an equal enjoyment with those whose profits are larger, excepting only that a mark or ignominy is affixed on ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... dust of the city, I was conscious of a something sinister that forbade such an even existence for the smoothest tempered cat. There were too many of them for companionship and perhaps too few for the humour of the thing to strike them: in and out the chilly shades they stalked gloomily, hither and thither like lank and unquiet ghosts of starved cats. They were of all colours—gay orange-tawny, tortoise shell with the becoming white patch ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... there is a great deal of Difference between a Counsellor of the King, and a Counsellor of the Kingdom. This last takes care of the Safety and Profit of the whole Commonwealth; the other serves the Humour and studies the Conveniences of one Man only; and besides, these King's Counsellors reside, for the most part, in one certain Place; or at least near the Person of the Prince, where they cannot be supposed ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... there, as it is for other birds to welcome and feed the intruder. It seems so satanically clever a thing to do; such a strange fantastic whim of the Creator to take thought in originating it! It is this whimsicality, the bizarre humour in Nature, that puzzles me more than anything in the world, because it seems like the sport of a child with odd inconsequent fancies, and with omnipotence behind it all the time. It seems strange enough to think of ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... friend Athalbrand, why did you not stop away?" asked my father, firing up, then adding quickly: "Nay, no offence; you are welcome here, whatever your humour, and you too, my daughter that is to be, and you, Steinar, my fosterling, who, as it chances, are come in a ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... it! You want to get quite free now, Silla. Well, just let them drag you out among them! But that a respectable girl will let herself be drawn into such goings on!" he added, out of humour. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... Castro, his comrade, and cousin, took pains, to little purpose, to persuade Norogna of the wonderful things which had been wrought by Xavier: Norogna still adhered to his opinion, because he always found the Father cheerful, and in good humour. The whole company going ashore on the coast of Malabar, he perceived Xavier taking a walk by himself into a wood, and sent after him one of his servants to observe his actions: The servant found the man of God raised from the ground into the air; his eyes ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... with delight and wonder whilst Ophelia busied herself about the room, and prepared for the dinner. She arranged the glasses, and laid and smoothed the little cloth, all which duties she performed with a quiet grace and good humour, which enchanted her guest more and more. The "poy" arrived from the baker's in the hands of one of the little choir-boy's brothers at the proper hour: and at four o'clock Pen found himself at dinner—actually at ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Out of humour, too; very unusual!" thought Miss Agnes. There was a something unnatural in his manner, which began to give her a little uneasiness; for she saw no good way ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the lids when walking in the teeth of the wind and rain has caused them to appear still smaller. The wrinkles at the corners and the bushy eyebrows are more visible and pronounced than the eyes themselves, which are mere bright grey points twinkling with complacent good humour. ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... clumsy assurance. The man who rode on Madonna's right turned in his saddle and put up his hand as if to beckon Stefano. I was regaling him with one of the choicest of Messer Sacchetti's paradoxes, gurgling, myself, at the humour of the thing I told. I paid no heed to the sign. I continued to expound my quip, as though we had the night before us in which to make its elusive humour clear. But out of the tail of my eye I watched my good friend Stefano, and I saw his right hand steal round to the region ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... master of fence, foils clash—novice pinked. On this another, and then another, must break a lance with her; but Marion stuck her great arms upon her haunches, and held the whole room in play. This country girl possessed in perfection that rude and ready humour which looks mean and vulgar on paper, but carries all before it spoken: not wit's rapier; its bludgeon. Nature had done much for her in this way, and daily practice ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... made up his mind to humour the boy, though it gave him strange aching forebodings. He had seen grown men and women with these fancies—and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... these by way of specimen. I could give you two or three dozen of the like and yet have abundance left behind. 'Tis sufficient from these to apprise any one of the humour of those times, and how a set of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations; some with mercury, and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pretended to, and ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... something common to all the Britons, which even Acts of Union have not torn asunder. The nearest name for it is insecurity, something fitting in men walking on cliffs and the verge of things. Adventure, a lonely taste in liberty, a humour without wit, perplex their critics and perplex themselves. Their souls are fretted like their coasts. They have an embarrassment, noted by all foreigners: it is expressed, perhaps, in the Irish by a confusion of speech and in the English by a confusion of thought. For the ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... there no other way out of this thraldom, for well thou wottest that no man would be a thrall might he help it?" "Well, my lad," quoth the warrior smiling, for now after his talk with the goodman he was in better humour, "when thou growest older thou wilt find that saw of thine belied manywise, and that many there be who are not loth to be thralls. But as to what way there may be out of this thraldom, I will tell ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... that it was eloquent and facile, and that it appealed strongly to the religious prejudices of the majority of the audience. He ended by a gibe which, under ordinary circumstances, might have passed simply as the rude humour of a popular orator, but which in that electric atmosphere stung Huxley into a retort that has become historical. He asked Huxley whether he was related by his grandfather's or grandmother's side ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... single piece of twisted catgut:—"Tu potes reges comitesque stultos ducere."[2] Leibnetz tells us of a dog in Germany that could pronounce distinctly thirty words, Goldsmith informs us that he once heard a raven whistle the tune of the "Shamrock," with great distinctness, truth, and humour. With these splendid examples before our eyes, may we not be inclined to suppose that the barn owl which Sir William shot in the absolute act of hooting may have been a gifted bird, of superior parts and knowledge (una de multis,[3] as Horace said of Miss Danaus), endowed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... any account," the Princess answered. "His father and mother are both dead. I am afraid, though, he will not be of any use to you, for from what I can hear he is quite poor. However, Engleton ought to be quite enough if we can keep him in the humour for playing." ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Mortimer, now breaks the king's hate forth, And he confesseth that he loves me not! Y. Mor. Cry quittance, madam, then, and love not him. Q. Isab. No, rather will I die a thousand deaths: And yet I love in vain; he'll ne'er love me. Lan. Fear ye not, madam; now his minion's gone, His wanton humour will be quickly left. Q. Isab. O, never, Lancaster! I am enjoin'd, To sue unto you all for his repeal: This wills my lord, and this must I perform, Or else be banish'd from his highness' presence. Lan. For his repeal, madam! he comes not back, Unless the sea cast up his shipwreck'd ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... smile was a smile of genuine satisfaction. Colonel Kelmscott of Tilgate was in a most gracious humour. The manager, with deference, held himself wholly ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... formal than substantial. It is true, that such slight compositions might not suit the severer genius of our friend Mr Oldbuck. Yet Horace Walpole wrote a goblin tale which has thrilled through many a bosom; and George Ellis could transfer all the playful fascination of a humour, as delightful as it was uncommon, into his Abridgement of the Ancient Metrical Romances. So that, however I may have occasion to rue my present audacity, I have at least the most ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... man. In the later school of Attic sculpture they are treated with more and more of refinement, till in some happy moment Praxiteles conceived a model, often repeated, which concentrates this sentiment of true humour concerning them; a model of dainty natural ease in posture, but with the legs slightly crossed, as only lowly-bred gods are used to carry them, and with some puzzled trouble of youth, you might wish for a moment [17] to smoothe away, puckering the forehead a little, between the pointed ears, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... which to experiment. His eye caught sight of an object which at once attracted him. This was a small copy of one of the ancient Egyptian gods—that of Bes, who represented the destructive power of nature. It was so bizarre and mysterious as to commend itself to his mad humour. In lifting it from the cabinet, he was struck by its great weight in proportion to its size. He made accurate examination of it by the aid of some instruments, and came to the conclusion that it was carved from a lump of lodestone. He remembered that he had read ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... in a roaring humour now, and ready to get all the fun out of the occasion that might be in it. Several Nineteeners, looking pale and distressed, got up and began to work their way towards the aisles, but a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... as all of you here must needs be grave when you think of your own past and present, you will not look to find, in the histories of those whose lives and feelings I am going to try and describe to you, a story that is otherwise than serious, and of ten very sad. If Humour only meant laughter, you would scarcely feel more interest about humourous writers than about the private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who possesses in common with these the power of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... tells us that "while he maintained his own convictions with energy and power, he had a kindly regard for all who differed from him, a large appreciation of genuine humour, and he was in private life one of the most courteous, kindly, and genial of men. While he honoured the past and the memory of his fathers, he was no blind adherent of a falling cause, no obstinate opponent of the needful changes of the age.... ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... short, to promise her any good chance of being heard. At last came a propitious morning. It was more moderate weather; Daisy herself was doing very well, and suffering little pain; and Mrs. Randolph looked in good humour, and had sat down with her tetting-work, as if she meant to make her daughter something of a visit. Mr. Randolph was lounging at the head of the couch, out ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... after the example of the noble Bereans, to search the scriptures, the secretary of state was to be informed that the people were become rebellious; as they said of St. Paul for preaching doctrines opposite to the humour of the Jewish Masters, that he "turned the world upside down"—The whole ministerial cabal was summoned; opinions were called for and taken—and however ludicrous, to say the best of them, those opinions were, if the people did not ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... no pains to please Antony. She had borne him first a son named Ptolemy, and then a son and daughter, twins, Alexander Helius and Cleopatra Selene, or Sun and Moon. She gamed, she drank, she hunted, she reviewed the troops with him, and, to humour his coarser tastes, she followed him, in his midnight rambles through the city, in the dress of a servant; and nothing that youth, beauty, wealth, and elegance could do to throw a cloak over the grossness of vice and crime was forgotten by her. The biographer ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... noticed that people of the Subotchev type usually went into fits of laughter over quotations from Gogol, but as his object at the present moment was not so much in amusing them as in showing them off to his friends, he changed his tactics and soon managed to put them in an excellent humour. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... home—where was its former calm? What changes had taken place in your household economy! Madame Van Tricasse had become acrid, whimsical, harsh. Her husband sometimes succeeded in drowning her voice by talking louder than she, but could not silence her. The petulant humour of this worthy dame was excited by everything. Nothing went right. The servants offended her every moment. Tatanemance, her sister-in-law, who was not less irritable, replied sharply to her. M. Van Tricasse naturally supported Lotche, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... whim of his—that this great treaty should be signed there. We had to humour him, or he might have grown suspicious. I think he is ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... sticky mud, heavily laden as it was, attempts at rescue proved unavailing, except on rare occasions, even with the aid of drag-ropes, and the unfortunate animal had to be "dispatched." Was it a sense of humour that prompted those in authority to send the subalterns, in turn, to the wagon lines for a "rest"? Anyhow, it was considered anything but that by the poor (p. 036) unfortunates who went, and right glad ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... who was in a very bad humour at the unsuccessful search after the conspirators, "away ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... because his soul has just enough virtue to keep him steady. The ordeal of Bjorn contains more of the comic spirit than all the host of stage cowards from Pyrgopolinices to Bob Acres, precisely because it introduces something more than the simple humour, an essence ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... at Westminster, England, about 1573. He was the friend of Shakespeare and a famous dramatist in his day, but his plays no longer hold the stage. His best play is "Every Man in his Humour." His songs and short poems are beautiful. He died in 1637. His tomb in Westminster Abbey is inscribed ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... square-jawed face, reminiscent of a good-tempered bull-dog, and a pair of very deep-set grey eyes which somehow put Mike at his ease. There was something singularly cool and genial about them. He felt that they saw the humour in things, and that their owner was a person who liked most people and whom ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... reflected that it was her own people and not ghostly visitants that had made the hideous interruption in the night, had regained her outward stolidity. She was not in the humour ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... that they filled him with true mirth. The more he could gibe at hell or hear the suffering of the last hours put to scorn, the more could he master a kind of grim humour. He, the shepherd of souls, felt it his duty to venture upon the valley of the shadow to which he had so often led the trembling candidate of death, with the boldness ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... that in holding up their children, as is sometimes the case, it is for barter, but I should rather conclude that it is for the purpose of exciting commiseration, and to obtain some European article for them. A few of the men were permitted to come on board, and the good humour of the captain invited one to dance with him: he took the step with much agility and quickness, and imitated every gesture of his lively partner. The breeze freshening, we soon parted with this barbarous people, and when at a short distance from ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... strange person. Full of acerbity against everything and every one—especially against women—he was railing from morning to night, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather stupidly, but always with gusto. His ill-humour almost approached puerility; his laugh, the sound of his voice, his whole being seemed steeped in venom. Darya Mihailovna gave Pigasov a cordial reception; he amused her with his sallies. They were certainly absurd enough. He ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... shepherd housed him every night, And faced the prospect like a patient soul, Borne up by some vague hope of better days, And God's fine blessing in his faithful wife, Until the humour of his malady Took cunning changes from the good to bad, And laid him lastly ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... care to draw comparisons, but that everybody agrees there is only one Nelson." This strong and valiant sailor was never at any time unconscious of his power. What troubled him was other people's lack of appreciation of it, though he accepted with a whimsical humour the grudging spirit in which credit was given to his unerring judgment and unequalled bravery. Nor can we examine the great deeds of his career without feeling a thrill of pride in the knowledge that he ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... and his eyes lighted for the first time. The smile showed possibilities the girls had proven through their growing up years, of humour ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... great clumsy presence with the evidences of his midnight oil burning manifest upon his large unwholesome face, explaining to every one he could buttonhole: "These Scientific chaps, you know, haven't a Sense of Humour, you know. That's what it is. This Science—kills it." His jests at ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... say why most travellers are uninteresting. I do not think it is because they have been to wonderful places, but because the average man has not the power to assimilate or interpret what he has seen; and they enlarge on their own sensations with such a lack of humour and proportion, that you feel as if they were not only rebuffing you, but claiming part of the credit of the master works themselves. When told at a party that you ought to meet Mr. So-and-So, as ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... a speech delivered at Retford, that before Mr. Disraeli had undertaken to pass a Bill creating the Queen Empress of India, two other Prime Ministers had been approached on the subject by Her Majesty, and had declined to be a party to the proceedings. Mr. Lewis was utterly devoid of sense of humour, a poverty that largely accounts for his failure in public life. The only joke he ever made was unconsciously produced. It happened one night in Committee of Supply, when, girding at the Irish members opposite, he sarcastically expressed the hope that the vote before ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... placidly, 'her uncle is bedridden; her aunt never leaves him; the servants are old and sullen, and will stir for nobody. Finding her resolved, as they believe, to become a nun, they are little assiduous in their services. Humour her, if none else does, Amadeo; let her fancy that you intend to be a friar; and, for the present, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... find Mr. Landor giving the French credit for their proceedings in one remarkable instance, and it is so seldom that we catch him in good-humour with any thing, that we will not miss an opportunity of exhibiting him in an amiable light. This champion of the liberties of the world, who has cracked his lungs in endeavouring, on the shores of Italy, to echo ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... when good Americans die they go to Paris," chuckled Sir Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... stopped at once. Have sent a protest to the TSAR and have telegraphed to neutral countries pointing out that Russia is spreading barbarism, whereas Germany is spreading civilisation and culture. A reply has come from America; it contained only one word—"Louvain." That may be meant for humour, but I do not understand it. The Americans must not forget that Louvain was burnt by German troops, and that being so there can be no complaint. Have told my Court Chaplain, Dr. Meuchler, to draw the Divine attention to this infamy on the part ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... was wholly devoid of humour. It was, in fact, devoid of any species of emotion whatever. Yet, oddly enough, the anger died out of Columbine's face as she heard it. She turned to the tablecloth-press and began to ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... he had no leisure at present to deal with the Armenians, but he would come at another time to punish Artavasdes for his treachery. Cassius was again much dissatisfied: but he gave over advising Crassus, who was out of humour with him, though Cassius himself abused the barbarian. "What evil daemon," he said, "vilest of men, brought you to us, and by what drugs and witchcraft have you persuaded Crassus to plunge his army ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... were he still living, would have regarded the resurrection of this early attempt at realism, as taught us by M. ZOLA—Vandover and the Brute (HEINEMANN). He would, I fancy, have softened some of the crudities and allowed a touch of humour to lighten the more solemn passages. There are pages here that remind one that Vandover's creator was also the author of those magnificent novels The Octopus and The Pit; but I cannot, in spite of them, place much confidence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... speeches, and being very vnwilling (how dangerous soeuer it might prooue to his owne person) to giue way to the Emperor, to derogate ought from the honour and greatness of her Maiesty: and finding also that to subiect himselfe to the angrie humour and disposition of the Emperour was not the means to winne ought at his hands, with like courage and countenance to answere his, tolde him that the Queene his Mistresse was as great a prince as any was in Christendome, equall to him that thought himselfe the greatest, well able to defend herselfe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... was exceedingly inclined to play the fool (a humour her ladyship, as well as most other ladies of very great quality, is frequently in) when she made you a minister of state and me ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Daddy, for I see a breeze springing up, and I may have to run you out of sight before you and your precious family have had time to take a sip apiece," cried the captain, who seemed to be in far better humour than usual. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... for a good while enjoying himself and chatting with the peasants. They were in high good humour, and Torarin was glad to be rid of ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... negligible mouse of the episcopal study (though I liked them both); and, as I said, I entirely refused to accept the bishop. But I heartily and thoroughly enjoyed the story, the happy little strokes of humour and irony, the apt, pert thumbnail-sketches of the subsidiary characters, the tender love of country things and moods; and saw that I'd been an ass to take it all too seriously. It was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... this quality; it is at any rate the modesty which, if it shrinks into retirement from the pretensions of the crowd, goes along with a high and pitying sense of superiority, and a self-complacency of which the good humour never fails. His masters also taught him to value purity. For this he almost makes a sort of deprecating apology. He saw, indeed, "the vanity of this virtue as of all the others"; he admits that it is an unnatural virtue. ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... without logical sequence is apt to press heavily upon the uneducated mind. It was thus that these reflections left a sensation of weight and discomfort upon Smith, and it was in a worse humour than was common to his usually well-balanced organisation that he hid away his tools under the bushes as the evening grew too dark for work, and slowly paced homewards. He had some two miles to walk, and he had long since begun to feel hungry. Plodding along in a heavy, uneven gait, there ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... China) and the payment of claims were copied off to show the Commissioner, those permitting and regulating visits to Peking were rejected, and others were amended, the colloquy being conducted with considerable animation and constant good humour on ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... Aristotle and Anacreon contending for the prize of wisdom; and may decide with the essayist, giving the prize to the generous old toper of Scios, as we should have done, or to the beetlebrowed Reviewer, according to their humour. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... but The Irish Times imparts a certain melancholy humour to it by inserting it in the section ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... of humour was uncomfortably touched. He glanced at Miss Fountain, but could only see that she was ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... by the hero, Lord Castleton, a man of high refinement, marrying an unsophisticated, uneducated peasant girl. The scenes and incidents of her introduction into the fashionable world are replete with humour, yet true to the life. Thus, how naturally are her new Ladyship's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... me the best inheritance; to wit—good humour. And who was my father? Why, that has nothing to do with the humour. He was lively and stout, round and fat; and his outer and inner man were in direct contradiction to his calling. And pray what was he by profession and calling in civil society? Yes, if this were to be written down ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... in the games I started. Usually she's very penitent after one of these fits of temper, but this time she seemed more sulky than anything else; and she was such a sight that I felt sorry for her. Kathie's very fair,—she's a real pretty little girl when she's in a good humour,—and now, from crying so much, and rubbing her eyes, they were all swollen and red; the red marks went 'way down on her cheeks; and her nose was all red and swollen, too: you'd hardly have known ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... to his chair and seated himself, laying his knife on the table in front of him. His face smoothed out to good humour—no mean tribute to his power of self-control. For the written words can convey no notion of the maddening insolence of Lucas's bearing—an insolence so studied that it almost seemed unconscious and was thereby well-nigh ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... you thought it, sir. Well, if he is he will soon be in a good humour again when he finds how busy we have been and what we have made out. Ah, here is our guide. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... the Minister, Count Hertzberg:—General Reidt had received my ten thousand florins full six months, and seemed to remember me no more. One gala day, on the 21st of December, the King happened to be in good humour; and Her Majesty the Queen, the Princess Amelia, and the present monarch, said to the Imperial Minister, "This is a fit opportunity for you to speak in behalf of Trenck." He accordingly waited his time, did speak, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... The humour, I suppose, consists in applying to one kind of occupation that which was commonly given to another; in taking draper from the service of cloth, and pressing it by force into that of ale. That it was ever considered ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... frank simplicity of his kinsman, or to throw in some shrewd remark, which he cast purposely in the rough Westmoreland dialect; for no man ever attains to the popularity that rejoiced or accursed the Earl of Warwick, without a tendency to broad and familiar humour, without a certain commonplace of character in its shallower and more every-day properties. This charm—always great in the great—Warwick possessed to perfection; and in him—such was his native and unaffected majesty of bearing, and such the splendour that surrounded his name—it never ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had burst. Our little Philadelphia medico had gone, a week before, to join the American forces. His successor was broad-built, choleric, but kind of heart, and came from Ohio. I suspected the new doctor of a sense of humour, as well as of an understanding of current smart-set satire. "They kept me at your base two months," he told me, "but I wanted to see the war. I also heard an English doctor say he would be glad of a move, as the base was full of P.U.O. ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... But it's impossible to do any serious work here. Lady Gertrude fairly radiates disapproval whenever I spend an hour or two at the piano. Oh!"—her sense of humour rising uppermost for a moment—"she asked me to play to them one evening, so I gave them some Debussy—out of sheer devilment, I think"—smiling a little—"and at the end Lady Gertrude said politely: 'Thank you. And now, might we have something ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... The Count possesses a most cheerful and amiable philosophy. Ever in the same happy humour; ever enjoying each minute of his life. But you must confess, my lord, that he is a favourite child of fortune, and has much to be grateful to her for. Not merely because she has given him birth and riches, but for a native sweetness of temper, never to be acquired; and a ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... that to me!" said Melrose with an answering good humour. "Stable and carriage expenses are the deuce. There never was a coachman yet that didn't rob his employer. Well, thank you; I'm glad to have had this talk with you, and now, I go to bed. Beastly cold, I must say, this ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... acknowledged all his life long the primacy of the Roman See. We need not exclude political motives from this acknowledgment, but we must allow to him the fullest conviction as to its legitimate authority. If now and then, under the impulse of passion or despotic humour, he seemed to disregard its rights, he soon strove again to obtain the Pope's assent to his measures. In his edict to his own patriarch Epiphanius, he declared expressly that he held himself bound accurately to inform the Pope, as head of ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... my affair! and I have not the least intention of letting you know!' Wykham stood up, but the drink was on him and he reeled and fell. As he lay on the floor he announced his intention of following his sister; and with an outburst of splenetic humour told her that he would follow her through the darkness by the light of her hair, and of her beauty. At this she turned on him, and said that there were others beside him that would rue her hair and her beauty ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... regarded as a young man, though he was now about forty.) 'O yes, of course, I remember,' she added, looking serious in a moment at thought of his loss. The Countess was a woman with a good-natured manner verging on that oft-claimed feminine quality, humour, ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... could only partially overcome. He rejected every offer of service, favour, or promotion; and any unwonted proof of kindness from Adrian seemed, instead of making him more familiar, to offend him into colder distance. The easy humour and conversational vivacity which had first rendered him a welcome guest with those who passed their lives between fighting and feasting, had changed into a vein ironical, cynical, and severe. But the dull barons ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... did so, and it fell to Burnworth to dispose of it as he thought fit, upon which he carried it immediately to the New River side, and threw it in there, adding that he was sorry he had not the old Justice himself there, to share the same fate, being really as much out of humour at the thing as if the Justice had imposed upon them in a fair sale of the commodity, so easy a thing is it for men to ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... stealth, and to have it found out by accident. For Teaism is the art of concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet thoroughly, and is thus humour itself,—the smile of philosophy. All genuine humourists may in this sense be called tea-philosophers, Thackeray, for instance, and of course, Shakespeare. The poets of the Decadence (when was not the world in decadence?), in their protests against materialism, have, to ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... authors and painters. Paul Bourget attempts it, but there is a certain pedantic air of a craftsman writing about craftsmen, a connoisseur writing about connoisseurs, in his treatment of such things, which detracts from the human interest. Paul Bourget lacks, too, that fine malice, that sly arch humour, which saves Henry James from ever making his artists "professional" or his ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... In sullen ill-humour the prince left the place of tournament to hold high festival at the Castle of Ashby; but it was more than his courtiers could do to rouse him from the overpowering gloom which seemed to agitate his mind throughout the evening. On the next day it was settled that the prince and all those ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... actions]—than any man in England hath done. I did my business with him, which was to get a little sum of money paid, and so home with Mr. Andrews, who met me there, and there to the office. At noon home and there found Lewellin, which vexed me out of my old jealous humour. So to my office, where till 12 at night, being only a little while at noon at Sir W. Batten's to see him, and had some high words with Sir J. Minnes about Sir W. Warren, he calling him cheating knave, but I cooled him, and at night at Sir ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... continued.—We started at 4 P.M., and had a most tedious march for about four miles only, with incessant checks, owing to the badness of the ground, so that we arrived long after dark at the camping-ground in indifferent humour. We had followed a narrow valley in a northerly direction. Most of the transport waggons, including our own, stuck in a drift some way back, so that we had no tea, and the drivers no blankets to sleep in (gunners carry their kit on the gun-carriages and limbers and ammunition-waggons). ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... anticipations of early dissolution; and even while he suffered himself to be amused by the hawking, dancing, and feasting so lavishly provided for his entertainment, he was never at fault, during his frequent fits of moroseness and ill-humour, for subjects of complaint. His brother, Gaston d'Anjou, whom he at once feared and hated, was a constant theme of distrust; while the Comte de Soissons, the Duc de Montmorency, and the Prince de Chalais, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... imagined from my books that I lived in a veritable museum of revolvers, sword sticks and noxious drugs," said Lexman, recovering some of his good humour; "it ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... on with the mending. Her husband began to walk up and down the room, in a good humour again. He walked peculiarly, more on his toes than his heels, with an odd little spring in each step, as if it were the first step of a dance. This springiness gave to his gait a sort of buoyancy which might have seemed natural to him, if exaggerated, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... His ill-humour lasted until the night of the "Lead," which, largely owing to the presence of a sporting fishmonger who had done well at the races that day, and some of his friends, realized a sum far beyond the expectations of the hard-working promoters. The fishmonger led ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... become agonised, and the audience, like Christopher Sly when bored by the Duke's players, mutter to themselves, "would t'were done." But these painful seconds, which, at the time, seem hours, are, we are glad to say, but brief and passing shadows over Mr. ROBERTS' own quaint humour which speedily reasserts itself, and, the Pettitt-and-Sims fetters being cast aside, the People's ARTHUR is himself again, and more so than ever. And, when he is himself, he is simply the most absurd person that ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... advantage which both Church and state have got by the kindness already shewn to dissenters." Let them then be thankful for that. We humour children for their good sometimes, but too much may hurt. Observe that this 64th paragraph just contradicts the former. For, if we have advantage by kindness shewn dissenters, then there is no necessity of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... creature seen but a few insects. Our people fell in with the skeleton of a Touarick ass, and amused themselves with setting it up upon its legs, as if in the pillory. I rallied them afterwards as they were in a good humour, on their terror of banditti yesterday. They replied, "It was the number of people on foot which alarmed us, banditti generally go on foot with a few camels to carry provisions and water." We started at sun-rise ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... seems to have been in Florentine society the most notable example of a class now happily extinct in civilised countries, at all events among adults; a kind of bully, or "Mohock," fond of rough practical jokes, prompted, not by a misguided sense of humour, but by an irritable man's delight in venting his spite. One can sympathise, even after six hundred years, in Dante's pious satisfaction when he saw the man, of whom he may himself have once gone in bodily fear, become in his turn the object of persecution. ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... now it was too late to go for them, and they would have to be without water for the night. I was vexed at this, and gave him a good scolding for his negligence, after which I endeavoured to ascertain what had so thoroughly put him out of humour, for ordinarily he was one of the best tempered natives I had met with: a single sentence revealed the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... be classical to dote upon a mermaid," Caius murmured. The sight of the dim-eyed, decrepit old man before him gave exquisite humour ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... First the mature wisdom and stern integrity of the father; then the exuberant tenderness of the mother. And then one is brave and enthusiastic, another thoughtful, and another tender. One is remarkable for being full of rich humour, another is sad, mournful, even melancholy. Again, besides these, there are diversities of condition in life. First, there is the heir, sustaining the name and honour of the family; then perchance the soldier, in whose career all the anxiety and solicitude ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... In vain he attempted to show that there was a considerable party in Germany ready to come to terms if only they knew what our terms were. Members listened in chilly silence. They thawed into laughter when the Hon. Member with some lack of humour quoted the German CHANCELLOR'S declaration, "We do not threaten small nations;" and they cheered when he quoted, with intent to condemn, Lord ROSEBERY'S statement that Germany must be utterly crushed. Nor was the House more impressed by Mr. TREVELYAN'S ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... symptoms were due to possession. This satisfied his reason and drove away his fears (I understand that), especially when he was assured that an evil spirit can be driven out by the power of God's love as easily as an evil germ or humour of the body can be driven out by the same agency. ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... on hand than to look after a tired, cross boy,' his mother said. 'Come, my son, quicken your pace somewhat, or we shall not be at home for supper. It was a grand treat for you to be entertained by my Lady Mary's sons, and you should be in high good humour,' she continued. ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Mountain,[FN242] the wone of Maymun the Sworder, and enter and say to him, My lady saluteth thee with the salam and asketh thee, 'How canst thou be assured for thyself of safety, after what thou hast done, O Maymun? Couldst thou find none to maltreat in thy drunken humour save Tohfah, she too being a queen? But thou art excused, because thou didst not this deed, but 'twas thy drink, and the Shaykh Abu al-Tawaif pardoneth thee, because thou wast drunken. Indeed, thou hast attainted his honour; but now restore her to her palace, for that ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... certain elements which are an integral part of our modern literature. This poem, for instance, is, as far as I know, the only love poem before the Conquest which has come down to us. There is no romance either, and there is, we may say, no humour. Life is a very serious thing, so often lying close to the sword-edge; and the duties of life are simple. There is to be a great, very great enlargement of the borders of English literature later on. Prose and poetry are to have new developments. Romances are to show us heroic ideals. Lyrics ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... drawbacks, Mr. Lincoln slowly won for himself the respect and confidence of all. His perfect honesty speedily became apparent, and, what is, perhaps, more to his credit, amid the many unstudied speeches which he was called upon from time to time to deliver, imbued though they were with the rough humour of his early associates, he was in none of them betrayed into any intemperance of language towards his opponents or towards neutrals. His utterances were apparently careless, but his tongue was always under command. The quality of Mr. Lincoln's ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... cloves out of the cracks in the stone flagging—and, of course, he needn't have done this, unless he had an abnormal sense of humour—he handed me the tattered, disreputable-looking copy of 'A Modern Circe,' with a bow that wouldn't have disgraced a Chesterfield, and then went back to his easel, while I fled after Aunt Celia ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his memory. The judgment is somewhat harsh, but the association between them was unfortunate. Thomas Moore had some sterling qualities. His best satirical pieces are inspired by a real indignation, and lit up by a genuine humour. He was also an exquisite musician in words, and must have been occasionally a fascinating companion. But he was essentially a worldling, and, as such, a superficial critic. He encouraged the shallow affectations ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... have a great deal of humour in them, particularly the raven. One that belonged to me was the most mischievous and amusing creature I ever met with. He would get into the flower-garden, go to the beds where the gardener had sowed a great variety of seeds, with sticks put in the ground with labels, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... than once he had a narrow escape at the hands of some hostile sniper, but this appeared to have no effect on him, and after such an escape he was just as reckless as before. He had withal a kind heart and a great sense of humour. ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... morning that other visit was made at the brick house, and Miss Stanbury was again in a fuss. On this occasion, however, she was in a much better humour than before, and was full of little jokes as to the nature of the visitation. Of course, she was not to see her nephew herself, and no message was to be delivered from her, and none was to be given to her from him. But an accurate report was to be made to her as to his appearance, and Dorothy ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of her innumerable girl friends. For though there was no doubt that many dutiful mothers would have liked their daughters to marry Lord Lindfield, yet when he declared himself by signs as unmistakable as this, they neither felt nor communicated any ill-humour. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... accompany Mudge, who intended to take the jolly-boat; while the first mate, with six hands, went in the long-boat. We had three of the men; the remainder, who were in better humour since my father had promised to allow them to take the long-boat, agreed to stay behind ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sir James sarcastically. "Sit down at the end of a day's tramp, when you are tired out, at a comfortable library table, with a light of a shaded lamp, and write me a good long letter? Rubbish, sir! You will neither of you be in the humour for writing right away there ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... a great favourite of yours; and I recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica—she looked so frank-hearted and happy. My aunt conceived a great attachment for ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... little children and the women with the men, into captivity. The track of the invasion was a wound struck not, as other invasions have been, at some territory or some dynasty; it was a wound right home to the heart of whatever is the West, of whatever has made our letters and our buildings and our humour between them. There was a death and an ending in it which promised no kind of reconstruction, and the fools who had wasted words for now fifty years upon some imagined excellence in the things exterior to the tradition of Europe, were dumb and appalled at the sight of barbarism in action—in ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... two persons charged to inculcate moderation, both by admonition and by example. One of them was John Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had been secretary to Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and a rich vein of natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous, and taciturn of men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of Adrumetum, and named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... My advocation is not now in tune; My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him Were he in favour as in humour alter'd. So help me every spirit sanctified, As I have spoken for you all my best, And stood within the blank of his displeasure For my free speech! You must awhile be patient: What I can do I will; and more I will Than for myself I dare: let ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... little work upon 'Affability.' The blow fairly knocked it out of his hand, and made a great smear on his frilled shirt, at which a loud laugh ensued. Now Master Snapper could not bear to be laughed at, and was so much out of humour all the evening that ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... fingers in a theatrical manner on the table, and, as it happened, she pointed to a large blotch of ink on the table- cover. Furlong opened his eyes wider than ever, and thought this the queerest bit of madness he ever heard of; however, thinking it best to humour her, he answered, "Yes, it was a little awkwa'dness of mine—I upset the ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... clear day, and still lying in the same position. What wind there is comes from the south-east, but it is very slight. Captain is in a better humour, and apologised to me at breakfast for his rudeness. He still looks somewhat distrait, however, and retains that wild look in his eyes which in a Highlander would mean that he was "fey"—at least so our chief engineer remarked to me, and he has some reputation among the Celtic portion ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was by no means wanting in abilities or humour. He had ill-formed legs; and having projected one of them in company, which was noticed with a laugh, he offered to lay a wager that there was a worse in company; and it being accepted, he put forward his other leg, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... and silent. But through the office window we could see the man we wanted. He was accompanied by one of the proprietors of the mill, turning over the relief books of the ward. I soon found that he had a strong sense of humour, as well as a heart welling over with tenderness. He pointed to some of the cases in his books. The first was that of an old man, an overlooker of a cotton mill. His family was thirteen in number; ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... bundles, with the neck of a bottle sticking out at the top, and closely-packed apples bulging out at the sides,—and away they hurry along the streets leading to the steam-packet wharfs, which are already plentifully sprinkled with parties bound for the same destination. Their good humour and delight know no bounds—for it is a delightful morning, all blue over head, and nothing like a cloud in the whole sky; and even the air of the river at London Bridge is something to them, shut up as they have ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... gentle. He had a quality of thought which, exercised on homeliness, was humour; on nature, picturesqueness; on abstractions, poetry. Being, as a rule, broadcast, it was ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... bust to have been a recognisable, if not a staring likeness of the poet, I said and still say—"How awkward is the ensemble of the face! What a painful stare, with its goggle eyes and gaping mouth! The expression of this face has been credited with humour, bonhommie and jollity. To me it is decidedly clownish; and is suggestive of a man crunching a sour apple, or struck with amazement at some unpleasant spectacle. Yet there is force in the lineaments of this muscular face." The large photograph of the Monument ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... narrative) is better adapted, no doubt, to adventure than to analysis, and better to the expression of humour than to the realization of tragedy. As far as the presentation of character is concerned, what it is usual for it to achieve ... is this: a life size, full length, generally too flattering portrait of the hero of the story—a personage ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... of his own opinions—confident in the propriety of his view of a case—apparently so, always, for he could assume a confidence though he had it not—and would persevere in his efforts to overcome the adverse humour of judges and juries, to an extent never exceeded; yet withal so blandly, so unassumingly, so mildly, that he never irritated or provoked any one. His temper and self-possession were unequalled, and approached, as nearly as possible, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... upon him. Not a muscle of Ralston's swarthy clear-cut face or the full-bearded lips moved, but there was a dancing little demon of not more than half-malicious humour ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... gratings in their cell-doors, clasped in frantic entreaty before his very eyes, it was particularly remarkable. Indeed, Mr Dennis appeared to think it an uncommon circumstance, and to banter himself upon it; for he thrust his hat on one side as some men do when they are in a waggish humour, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and smiled as though he would say, 'Dennis, you're a rum dog; you're a queer fellow; you're capital company, Dennis, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the other hand a synod of learned Mussulmans is said to have decreed that as beverages of Kat and Cafta do not impair the health or impede the observance of religious duties, but only increase hilarity and good- humour, it was lawful to use them, as also the drink made from the boon or coffee-berry. I am not aware that Kat is used in Aden in any other way than for mastication. From what I have heard, however, I believe that a decoction resembling tea is made from the leaf by the Arabs in the interior; ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... decision may be pending." And again: "For the last week, my mind—though I have reiterated again and again to myself that it is purely physical—has steadily refused to take any view of life, to have any outlook, except the most dismal. I am a little better to-day—well enough to see the humour of it, though God knows it is ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is one of the great charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is an intruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic, retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Upon those, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original, the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There remains only that narrow margin of readers whose appetites, languid but not extinct, can be titillated by the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... material, and uses it well. He has constructed a tale of private adventure on the old familiar lines, in which the local colour—acquired from other books—is admirably laid on, and the interest sustained to the end. The story is well told, enlivened by humour, and very ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... was replete with noble sentiments commending themselves to the hearts of all present. His remarks were generally upon the moral, social and intellectual influences which would result from the contemplated work. No sketch would do justice to its power and beauty, its flashes of wit and humour." ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... upon the dearness or cheapness of the seasons in the countries where they are carried on, as upon the circumstances which affect the demand in the countries where they are consumed; upon peace or war, upon the prosperity or declension of other rival manufactures and upon the good or bad humour of their principal customers. A great part of the extraordinary work, besides, which is probably done in cheap years, never enters the public registers of manufactures. The men-servants, who leave their masters, become independent ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... their wounds were dressed, they were taken in ambulance carts inside the town. The officers and soldiers, who had not yet learnt that General Ducrot had failed to cross the Marne, were in a very bad humour at having been ordered to withdraw at the very moment when they were carrying everything before them. They represented the Prussians as having fought like devils, and declared that they appeared to take a fiendish pleasure in ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... man. He seemed to have a sense of humour. I felt sure that he, at least, was plumb straight. 'Sure, doc,' I said, 'I'm sorry about the tree, and I guess the new bulbs will be on me. But perhaps you'd like to know what I was doing in your garden?' 'I think the facts do call for an explanation,' he replied. 'Well, to begin with, I ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... observed. Instead, songs, roars of laughter, and boisterous jests are the order of the day. For example, this sort of thing," added Sam, doing a rapid back-flap and landing with a thump on Bill's head. As Bill was unprepared for this act of boisterous humour, his face was pushed into the Puddin' with great violence, and the gravy ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... Borrowdean, turning his head as she entered, found himself studying her with a new curiosity. Yes, she was a beautiful woman. She had lost nothing. Her complexion—a little tanned, perhaps—was as fresh and soft as a girl's, her smile as delightfully full of humour as ever. Not a speck of grey in her black hair, not a shadow ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... description, and locked up again at night in the loathsome Black Hole; while for the benefit of the whole party—and for the rest of the prisoners also, for that matter—Ralli had provided himself with a "colt," which he applied with merciless severity to their shoulders whenever the humour seized him. This last indignity was almost greater than they could bear; but Lance saw that the time was not yet ripe for action, and that there was really nothing for it but to bear everything in dignified silence at present and with as much fortitude as they could summon to their aid, and ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... While Lamartine, Lamennais, Montalembert, and other writers were putting new life and elevation into men's ideas of religion, and gilding it with poetry, these bunglers in the Government chose to make the harshness of their creed felt all over the country. Never was nation in a more tractable humour; La France, like a tired woman, was ready to agree to anything; never was mismanagement so clumsy; and La France, like a woman, would have forgiven wrongs more easily ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... may attack the human intelligence, and that the manners of a puffy well-clad citizen may be worse than those of a Zulu Kaffir. The indescribable coarseness and rudeness of the social intercourse, the detestable forms of humour which obtain applause, the low distrust and trickery are quite sufficient to make a sensitive man want to hide himself away. If any one thinks I am too hard, he should try spending six whole weeks in any town which is called good and old; if he ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... she would sleep. But, unfortunately, he cannot provide against the disturbing effect of hunger, so he fears she might not sleep above two nights and a day at the most—a result that would not be worth the trouble of the experiment. She takes all his jokes in good-humour, as indeed she takes everything which does not positively interfere with her favourite indulgence. '"Ah, little she'll reck if ye let her sleep on," ought,' says he, 'to be her motto, being applicable to her in the most trying crises of life, even that of the house burning about ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... no sense of humour, would leave nothing undone to force her back again. Imagine the scandal, Mr. Ollerenshaw! Imagine my position; imagine yours! Me, in an affair like that! I won't have it—that is to say, I won't have it if I can stop it. Now, what ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... the Custom-house, by previous arrangement, to clear some pattern-cards. I could not help being strongly impressed with the contrast their Custom-house presented, when compared with some I could mention, and the attention, politeness, and good-humour with which its officers discharged their duties. They saw the force of my arguments at once, and let me have the books free of duty; and at their particular request I promised the Custom-house examiners one. They offered me any amount of money for it, which I declined to take. They are ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... masterpieces consist principally of a series of scenes and comical or semi-tragical situations, rather loosely strung together on the thread of the experiences undergone by the principal personages. The main object is not so much ingenuity of plot as the presentation with much humour, some strokes of caricature, and a touch of pathos, of morals and manners, of public abuses and private vices, the way of living and standard of thinking, the distinctive prejudices and ingrained beliefs, that characterised ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... launched into a fiery exhortation on true religion. "Some folks' religion," he said, "is like sugar, all sweetness and no power; but I want my religion like I want my medicine: I want it strong, an' I want it bitter, so 's I 'll know I 've got it." In Fred Brent the sense of humour had not been entirely crushed, and the expression was too much for his gravity. He bowed his head and covered his mouth with his hand. He made no sound, but there were three pairs of eyes that saw the movement,—Miss Prime's, Eliphalet ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... service some months before the time we are now upon. He was of a very ancient and worthy family in Cornwall which had in several ages produced men of great courage, and very signal in their fidelity to and service of the crown; and was himself younger brother (though in his nature or humour not of kin to him) to the brave Sir Basil Granvil who so courageously lost his life at the battle of Lansdowne. Being a younger brother and a very young man, he went into the Low Countries to learn the profession of a soldier; to which ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... fingers on his sleeve, and said something, interrogatively, to which he replied by a shake of the head. She was asking him, evidently, if he had ever played, and he was saying no. Old players have a fancy that when luck has turned her back on them they can put her into good-humour again by having their stakes placed by a novice. Our young man's physiognomy had seemed to his new acquaintance to express the perfection of inexperience, and, like a practical woman, she had determined to make him serve her turn. Unlike most of her neighbours, ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... British Public possess that "taste for Art" and that "sense of humour" which some claim for and others deny to it, it (the B.P.) will throng the comfortable and well-lighted Gallery in New Bond Street, where hang some hundreds of specimens of the later work of the most unaffected humorist, and most masterly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the lazy humour of Mr Button that he never pursued the lagoon more than half a mile or so on either side of the beach. He would bring the fish he caught ashore, and with the aid of his tinder box and dead sticks make a blazing fire on the sand; ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... life.... I seem to breathe with his breath, and think his thoughts, and speak with his voice, since we found out our secret, and we are each other's for Time and for Eternity." Then she added, with a lovely smile that had a touch of humour in it: "And he will be quite content to take me with only my share of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of people ate what they could get, but always had their fill, drank till they were drunk, and carried off what they could, praising and blessing their genial host; and their host too when he was out humour blessed his guests—for a pack of sponging toadies, but he was bored when he was without them. Piotr Andreitch's wife was a meek-spirited creature; he had taken her from a neighbouring family by his father's choice and command; her name was Anna Pavlovna. She never interfered ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... do the honours of a most substantial feast to his tenantry, their wives and children. When every one was seated Rowland said grace, and they began the feast con amore. They were as merry and happy a party as could be assembled on a fine autumn day. Every one was in good humour, and thoroughly enjoyed the treat. As soon as they had feasted enough, they proceeded to give toasts, which were enthusiastically drunk ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... to be good: for when that generality, whether it be the people, or soldiers, or Nobility, whereof thou thinkst thou standst in need to maintain thee, is corrupted, it behoves thee to follow their humour, and content them, and then all good deeds are thy adversaries. But let us come to Alexander who was of that goodnesse, that among the prayses given him, had this for one, that in fourteen yeers wherein he held ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... petticoats. She's so infernally full of humour that there's no room in her for anything else. I doubt if she's got lungs. I'm sure she hasn't got ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... was the Old Man's Nose; and when strangers came it was pointed out with a "don't you see, isn't it hooked, just like a nose, and that is where his spectacles might lie." But Miriam made a small revolution in Cowfold. She never would admit the likeness to a nose, but with a pleasant humour observed that it was like a mug upside down—"mug," it must be explained, meaning not only a drinking utensil, but in very vulgar language a human face. Cowfold gradually heard of Miriam's joke, and instantly saw that the rock was ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... towns of Calice, Ardres, Montbulin, Dourlens, la Capelle, and le Catelet in Picardy, and Blavet in Britanny: which Articles were Ratifi'd and Sign'd by his Majesty the eleventh of June [1598]; who in his gayety of humour, at so happy a conclusion, told the Duke of Espernon, That with one dash of his Pen he had done greater things, than he could of a long time have perform'd with the best Swords of his Kingdom."—Life of the Duke of Espernon, London, 1670, p. 203; Histoire du Roy Henry le Grand, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... indelibly with the scene of its occurrence. It tells how, as he was coming down the Mound with Jeffrey and another Whig, after a discussion in the Faculty of Advocates on some proposals of innovation, Jeffrey tried to laugh the difference off, and how Scott, usually stoical enough, save in point of humour, broke out with actual tears in his eyes, 'No, no! it is no laughing matter. Little by little, whatever your wishes may be, you will destroy and undermine until nothing of what makes Scotland Scotland shall ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... the few people in Sunwich for whom the joke had no charms, and he betrayed such an utter lack of sympathy with his father's recital that the latter accused him at last of wanting a sense of humour. ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... one that lies more dully than Old Women dream, without pretence of fancy, Humour or mirth, a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... soda-water bottles to the person who would recapture the bird, and two boats were in hot pursuit, whilst little brown Arab boys kept diving in to try to swim down the agile duck, who, however, succeeded in dodging them all with a neatness and sense of humour that evoked much applause from the on-lookers. Marjorie heard afterwards that it took three hours to effect the capture, and that at least a dozen men or boys had taken part in it, but the reward offered had amply contented them for ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... intellect, and possessed of a correct literary taste, Goldie afforded excellent promise of eminence as a journalist. As a poet and song-writer, a rich vein of humour pervades certain of his compositions, while others are marked by a plaintive tenderness. Of sociable and generous dispositions, he was much esteemed by a circle of admiring friends. His personal appearance was pleasing, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... thus and thus," said the Old Man of the Sea, after taking the points of the compass, "till you come in sight of a very tall giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders. And the giant, if he happens to be in the humour, will tell you exactly where the garden ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... said Mr. Smith, remembering that he was speaking to a dignitary of the Church. It was well to humour such people, Mr. Smith thought. But the Christianity was to be done in the Sunday sermon, and was not part of ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... lay at rest in New York Bay waiting for the boat of the health officers and the steamer with the customs men on board. The passengers were in a state of excitement at the thought of being so near home. The captain, who was now in excellent humour, walked the deck and chatted affably with every one. A successful voyage had been completed. Miss Jessop feared the coming of the customs boat as much as Hodden feared the reporters. If anything, he was the more resigned of the two. What American woman ever lands on her native shore ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... wanted to be personal, I could say, "Why don't you get your hair cut?" Only that form of schoolboy humour doesn't ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... flash of humour through long sitting came from GEORGE CAMPBELL. Gave graphic description of his hanging about Holyrood Palace hankering after admission. According to existing regulation, admission to be gained only after ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... ask Henry he will tell you that I cannot cook. In fact, he will tell you even if you don't ask. To hold up my culinary failures to ridicule is one of his newest forms of humour (new to Henry, I mean—the actual jokes you will have learned already at your ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... there, and looked at me, and I looked at him. I didn't know what he thought, but I began to guess. I wasn't going to humour any such nonsense as that, so I told him to speak to the men himself, and not come bothering me ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... bitterness pleases me; it chimes in with my humour, and I should like to be better acquainted with thee. ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... an air of languor, maybe from her sombre dark eyes, yet her every movement was graceful, and her smile a thing to be looking for, and she was slender as the stalk of a bluebell. The Laird of Scaurdale was in great humour, well on to seventy, his teeth still strong and white, and his shoulders with but a ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... tale-tellers to open their story in an inn, the free rendezvous of all travellers, and where the humour of each displays itself without ceremony or restraint. This is specially suitable when the scene is laid during the old days of merry England, when the guests were in some sort not merely the inmates, but the messmates and temporary companions of mine Host, who was usually a personage of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and gaunt and ragged, oh, full of quips and cranks, of jest and song and courage, oh, endowed with all quaint humour, invested with all pathos, ennobled by vast struggle with vast adversity, oh, sufferers of all things, hero-fibred, grim fighters, oh, Army of Northern Virginia—all men and all women who have battled salute you, going into the Wilderness this ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... must humour him. "I have heard his legend," said I;[1] "and have understood that in time he became ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... average height. He had small green eyes like his mother's; his light sandy hair had a natural ripple, and his pale face expressed nothing beyond an assured consciousness of his own superiority. And yet he was not without a certain sense of humour in matters which did not immediately concern himself, though, owing to particular circumstances, it was ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... life, so far. Her baby fascinated her, also the tug of its lips, giving her the queerest sensation, almost sensual; a sort of meltedness, an infinite warmth, a desire to grip the little creature right into her—which, of course, one must not do. And yet, neither her sense of humour nor her sense of beauty were deceived. It was a queer little affair with a tuft of black hair, in grace greatly inferior to a kitten. Its tiny, pink, crisped fingers with their infinitesimal nails, its microscopic curly toes, and solemn black eyes—when ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... effort. There was little singing in either Companies (A. and D.), during the short march to the train conveying the party to near a shell-infested area where the said party would partake of its outdoor picnic. "Party"—the ironical humour of it! ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... Kami. "And since there are bad as well as good gods," wrote Motowori, "it is necessary to propitiate them with offerings of agreeable food, playing the harp, blowing the flute, singing and dancing and whatever is likely to put them in a good humour." The Latins called the maleficent ghosts of the dead, Larvae, and called the beneficent or harmless ghosts, Lares, or Manes, or Genii, according to Apuleius. But all alike were gods,—dii-manes; and Cicero admonished ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... whom the name New Bedford seemed to have made some impression, pointed up at the coachman's box with a growl, in which command mingled strangely with menace. Then he threw himself back. Evidently the captain was not in very good humour. ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... physic for the mind, and conduce better to purge away spleen, melancholy, and ill affections, than is generally imagined. Nay, I will appeal to common observation, whether the same companies are not found more full of good-humour and benevolence, after they have been sweetened for two or three hours with entertainments of this kind, than soured by a tragedy or a ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... hostess at an early breakfast. Sir Henry proposed that as the day was warm and fine, I should ride to a neighbouring meet. I was not in the humour for this, however, and said frankly that I should prefer remaining at the Grange. One glance into the faces of my host and hostess told me only too plainly that I had two very serious patients on my hands. Lady Studley ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... "Never mind; unconscious humour is always interesting to the audience. And we shall all be there to see your Katherine. I had thought of cutting the performance for a rather important address, but nothing would induce me to miss ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... in no humour to say much to her child on this subject at the present moment. She threw herself back on her sofa in perfect silence, and began to reflect whether she would like to sign her name in future as Fanny Lacordaire, instead of Fanny Thompson. It certainly seemed as though things were verging ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... gymnastic under punishment—and Jacker hugged himself and kicked ecstatically, and young Haddon bowed his forehead in the dirt and drummed with his toes, and gave expression to his exuberant hilarity in frantic pantomime. The rough and ready schoolboy is very near to the beginnings; his sense of humour has not been impaired by over-refinement, but remains somewhat akin to that of the gentle savage; and although his disposition to laugh at the misfortunes of his best friends may be deplorable from various points of view, it has not been without its influence in fashioning those good men who put ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... schoolgirl. If we're friends and I let you come in here, you mustn't let your vest come over your cuffs and you must take those spots off your waistcoat, and brush your hair and clean your nails, and you must just be sensible and have a little humour. ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... fallen away, as the engineer-in-chief had foretold they would, before Charles Gould's mediation. Sir John had been extremely feted in Sulaco, next to the President-Dictator, a fact which might have accounted for the evident ill-humour General Montero displayed at lunch given on board the Juno just before she was to sail, taking away from Sulaco the President-Dictator and the distinguished foreign guests in ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... a moment, as if he had a mind to disobey, but in the end, thinking better of it, he bade the men return; and as I complimented each of them with a piece of silver, they went off, after some swearing, in tolerably good humour. Thereon Fresnoy was for taking the road at once, but having no mind to be followed, I gave the word to wait until the two were ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... objectionable, though few young men would probably regard it as much sin to read them. So little did the young man appreciate her objections to this exciting kind of literature that he had actually recommended to his aunt some stories which no amount of humour and cleverness could prevent that pious lady regarding as debasing and absolutely immoral. How Lady Doughty felt under all the circumstances of Roger's love, as compared with his general conduct, will be best ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... is anger which he signifies by the red face; the second, represented by that between pale and yellow is envy and not, as others have said, avarice; and the third, denoted by the black, is a melancholy humour that causes a man's thoughts to be dark and evil, and averse from ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... pleasant and expansive humour that evening. The new cook was an unqualified success, and he was conscious of having dined exceedingly well. He sat in a comfortable easy-chair before a blazing wood fire, he had just lit one of his favourite brand of cigarettes, and his wife, whom he adored, was ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in the moonlit churchyard after service comment with humour on the sermon, and on Cyril's eloquence, learning, and good heart. Granfer, the village oracle, prophesies that the queen will make a bishop of him. Ben Lee, talking with Judkins by the harness-room fire, supposes that Cyril was thinking of Alma in his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and a scampering followed, as they forced their way through the crowd, shouting, and striking with the back of their blades. After they had passed, the people were no longer in a humour for laughing at the "King of the turnkeys," nor any one else; neither was he there to be ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... that trout, in that impregnable situation, I am impelled to fish. If I raise him I strike, miss him, catch up in his tree, swish the cast off into the briars, break my top, break my heart, but—that is the humour of it. The passion, or instinct, being in all senses blind, must no doubt be hereditary. It is full of sorrow and bitterness and hope deferred, and entails the mockery of friends, especially of the ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... the bottles and glasses are again upon the table; and after an hour's pleasant conversation about the ship, the passengers, and things in general, the captain (who never goes to bed, and is never out of humour) turns up his coat collar for the deck again; shakes hands all round; and goes laughing out into the weather as merrily ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... market-woman. Her features were coarse, her frame robust, her mind totally unlettered, and her morals defective in that point in which female excellence is supposed chiefly to consist. She possessed super-abundant health and good-humour, and was quite a supportable companion in the hay-field or ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... in his garden. He was examining the apple-trees which the breath of autumn had already deprived of their leaves, and, with the help of an old gardener, he was enveloping them in straw. His face expressed calm, good-humour and health. ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... have no doubt (for he had a sense of humour), the manner of my address, which nervousness had ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... Gleams of humour enlivened the situation. Mrs. Gosling-Green (nee a Pounding-Pobble, Superiora Pounding-Pobble, one of the Pounding-Pobbles of Putney) was under the orders, very much under the orders, of the wife of the Sergeant-Major, and early and plainly learnt that good woman's opinion that she was a poor, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... themselves happy on board with their new shipmates, and Billy was always liked wherever he went, never being out of humour and having not the slightest objection to be laughed at, besides which he had a store of amusing anecdotes, and was able to spin a good yarn, and sing ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... little Lucy before; so now, many of them insisted on pouring some blackberries into Lucy's basket, and giving part of Amy's back to her. In this way Lucy and Amy's stores were soon the largest of the whole, and the children separated in good humour with ...
— Amy Harrison - or Heavenly Seed and Heavenly Dew • Amy Harrison
... be very terrible in her rage if she let it loose, but that she loved this stupid cousin also. All Skag's faculties were playing at once, for he perceived at the same time this girl would see many things of life in terms of humour and it would be good to travel the roads with her because of this. . . . Apparently she had not seen him, Sanford Hantee, to ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... have much mercy on that. Already Schofield's words had given birth to a suspicion in my mind—that Andriaovsky, in permitting these fellows, Hallard, Connolly, and the rest, to suppose that he "thought highly" of them and their work, had been giving play to that malicious humour of his; and they naturally did not see the joke. That joke, too, was between himself, dead, and me, preparing to write his "Life." As if he had been there to hear me, I chuckled, and spoke in a ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... grim knowledge that neither intense happiness nor deep grief suffice to deaden for very long the pinpricks of material discomfort. But the worldly-wise old man possessed a broad tolerance for the frailties of human nature, and his smile held nothing of contempt, but only a whimsical humour ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... circumstances to hale a wise man to prison. They were further distressed by the knowledge that they were in the very centre of a populous fairy country, and that on every side the elemental hosts might be ranging, ready to fall upon them with the terrors of war or the still more awful scourge of their humour. The path leading to their station was a long one, winding through great alleys of trees, which in some places overhung the road so thickly that even the full moon could not search out that deep blackness. In the daylight these men would have arrested an Archangel and, if necessary, ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... her shift and discovered the terrace-roof of her kaze, I found it as strait as my humour or eke my worldly ways. So I drove it incontinent in, halfway; and she heaved a sigh. "For what dost thou sigh?" quoth I. "For the rest of it, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... justice, and good roads. In this Christian city they think lightly of the first—their own papers, their own speech, and their own actions prove it; buy and sell the second at a price openly and without shame; and are, apparently, content to do without the third. One would almost expect racial sense of humour would stay them from expecting only praise—slab, lavish, and slavish—from the stranger within their gates. But they do not. If he holds his peace, they forge tributes to their own excellence which ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... the confiscation of all American vessels found in French ports, on the ground that, since the embargo prohibited the exit of American ships, these must, in reality, be English! Thus he gathered in about eight million dollars' worth. The policy had to be abandoned, and in the utmost ill-humour Congress repealed the embargo, on March 1, 1809, substituting non-intercourse with England and France. Thus Jefferson left office under the shadow of a monumental failure. His theory of commercial coercion had completely broken down; and he had damaged his own and his party's prestige ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... tryin' to humour 'im, 'it's his dog he's whistlin' for, not you. His dog's somewhere where you can't see it. He doesn't want you. You lie back again, and go to sleep.' 'No, no,' sez he; 'there's no dog, and the sheep's runnin' everywhere, ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... in him. Then again, I do not think they are quite so hard on Englishmen as they are on Spaniards; for they hate the Spaniards because they drove them out of their country. Once or twice I have had a talk with the overseer when he has been in a special good humour, and he knows we hate the Spaniards as much as they do, and that though they call us all Christian dogs, our Christianity ain't a bit like that of the Spaniards. I shall let him know the first chance I have that you are English too, and I shall ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... and down on these shrivelled shanks. Our feet are on the fender, and that fire is felt on our face; but we verily believe our ice-cold shanks would not shrink from the application of the red-hot poker. Peter has a notion that but for that red-hot poker the fire would go out; so to humour him we let it remain in the ribs, and occasionally brandish it round our head in moments of enthusiasm when the Crutch looks tame, and the Knout a silken ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... BUCKROSE" is one of those writers whose work can always be depended upon. A pinch of pathos, a soupcon of sentiment, a spice of humour—there you have the recipe, and a very palatable mixture it makes. The common element that pervades the dozen stories which compose War-Time in Our Street (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), all in the author's best manner, is the staunch devotion to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... his pages is the entire absence of dulness, and the evidence they afford of a delicate sense of humour, considerable powers of observation, a store of apposite and racy anecdote, and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... mother, he at last obtained his request; to which an accident somewhat contributed. Augustus had resolved to determine nothing in the affair, but with the consent of his eldest son. The latter was at that time out of humour with Marcus Lollius, and therefore easily disposed to be favourable to his father-in-law. Caius thus acquiescing, he was recalled, but upon condition that he should take no concern whatever in ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... type and the spirit. The Emperor is not commanding in a lordly voice from a throne, but with a leer and behind a curtain. In the few lines of the lean, unnatural face is written the real history of the Hohenzollerns, the kind of history not often touched on in our comfortable English humour, but common to the realism of Continental art: the madness of Frederick William, the perversion of Frederick the Great, the hint, mingled with subtler talents, of the mere idiocy that seems to have flowered again in the last heir of that inhuman house. The Hohenzollerns have varied ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... never heard of any man in France that arrived at a hundred years of age; a limitation of life which the old gentleman imputes to the excellence of their climate, giving them such a liveliness of temper and humour, as disposes them to more pleasures of all kinds than in other countries; and moralises upon the matter very sensibly. The "late Robert Earl of Leicester" furnishes him with a story of a Countess of Desmond, married out of England in Edward the Fourth's time, and who lived far in King ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... spectacles! Come and have a walk." For once Bertie followed instead of leading, though he was strongly inclined to return to the house. He did not think his cousin was ugly, and he pitied her for being so pale and sad-looking; but somehow he felt disappointed too, and out of humour with himself, and Eddie, and every one else, and in an unusually silent mood he set off for a ramble in the woods. Both boys were disappointed in Agnes, but ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... said Hall, who was manifestly in an ill humour; "now, if I had been punished instead of you, the weather would have been a marvel of fineness, sunny all day ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... Suddenly the ebony balls were gashed across, and a sort of storm, as it were, of deep red mingled with pure white swept over the dark cloud of heads before you, and vanished as quickly as it had appeared, only to reappear, however, at the next stroke of humour, or at some "touch of that nature" which is said on very high authority, to "make the ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... fun and high good-humour, but Hansie's heart was wrung with many a pang, and many a deep and earnest prayer for their protection was sent up by ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... there's another of those blessed things fallen there—number two. But one's enough, surely. This lot'll cost the insurance people a pretty penny before everything's settled." He laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The woods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to me. "They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick soil of pine needles and turf," he said, and then ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... to the entraining point. I took one last look at the great camp which had now become a place of such absorbing interest and I wondered if I should ever see again that huge amphitheatre with its encompassing mountain witnesses. The men were in high spirits and good humour prevailed. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Plantation Printer, by JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. The Baron doesn't recommend it to be taken at one sitting, the dialect being rather difficult, but a chapter at a time will be found refreshing. The like advice may be acted upon by anyone who has invested in the latest volume of the Library of Wit and Humour, entitled Faces and Places. By H.W. LUCY. The "Faces" are represented by a portrait of Ride-to-Khiva BURNABY, and one of the Author of these entertaining papers. The first brief narrative, which ought to have been called "How I met BURNABY," is specially interesting; and the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... tragedy, without any suspicion that they would henceforwards have to go on without him; that he could no more carry them forward into his vague, new life than those equally vital elements of his old self—his poems! How strangely did their moods contrast with his—his father's playful good-humour, Lady Thiselton's sprightly camaraderie and Mrs. Medhurst's ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the TSAR and have telegraphed to neutral countries pointing out that Russia is spreading barbarism, whereas Germany is spreading civilisation and culture. A reply has come from America; it contained only one word—"Louvain." That may be meant for humour, but I do not understand it. The Americans must not forget that Louvain was burnt by German troops, and that being so there can be no complaint. Have told my Court Chaplain, Dr. Meuchler, to draw the Divine attention to this infamy on the part ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... well pleased, well fed, and interested, and he had no reason to suppose John Brown was in any other humour than himself. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... Phineas, he had felt that his old friend was very cold to him. He was in that humour with reference to Violet Effingham which seemed especially to require consolation. He knew now that all hope was over there. Violet Effingham could never be his wife. Even were she not to marry Lord Chiltern for the next five ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... can cut out the girls when we choose." Their savoir faire was immense. Many of them still possessed an amazing amount of the joie de vivre. And some of them were thoroughly sensible women, saved from absurdity by the blessed sense of humour. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... give the real man more naturally and unreservedly than his epistles. Written in the dialect he had learnt by his father's fireside, to friends in his own station, who shared his own tastes and feelings, they flow on in an easy stream of genial happy spirits, in which kindly humour, wit, love of the outward world, knowledge of men, are all beautifully intertwined into one strand of poetry, unlike anything else that has been seen before or since. The outward form of the verse and the style of diction are no doubt after the manner of his two forerunners ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... knight receive the delicate hint that the business was arranged. Then he commenced to talk of merry and pleasant things, which during supper kept the court, the king, the queen, and all the courtiers in a good humour; so much so that when the siege was raised, Leufroid declared that he had never laughed so much in his life. Then they strolled about the gardens, which were the most beautiful in the world, and the queen made a pretext of the chevalier's sayings ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... falling in with his humour, advanced to the hole, and invited him to draw a little nearer. Nothing more was needed than for Don Quixote to imagine that the damsel was sick of love for him, and he told her straightway that any service he could do her short of proclaiming her his liege lady she might command. Upon ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... not forgive her until she had clothed herself in a black blanket, plucked a stick out of the eaves, and had gone outside the town and there thrown the stick and the hair over her left shoulder. Then the sun-god recovered his good-humour, and finished his dinner. And the Brahman, the king and queen, and the wood-cutter and the farmer whose well had dried up, and the old woman who had lost her children, and "Lump of flesh" with the cross eyes, they all remained ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... handsome, dark young man she admired had a mind of his own, it would be a difficult game to play; and Nelson Smith saw that she thought so. His sense of humour caused him to smile at his own cleverness in producing the impression; and he would have given a good deal for someone to laugh with over her maneuvers to entice him along the ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... and Italian literature was wonderful. The old man went smiling and peaceful to his long rest, preserving his faculties to the last, insomuch that the physician, astonished at his continued calmness and good humour, turned to his daughter, and said in a low voice, "Does this gentleman know that he is dying?" The daughter said in a voice which the father could hear, "He knows it;" and the old man said with a quiet smile, "Death is no enemy in my eyes." His last words were spoken to his son Robert, who ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... him and frowned; the next moment she smiled. Miss Burton (of the Evening Observer) had a keen sense of humour, which two years' association with the British Press had not succeeded in destroying, and the appearance of the man was sufficient to tickle the most ultra-morose fancy. Polly thought to herself that she had never seen any one so ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... into the house, and seating herself in a corner, cried there all night. Her husband lay alone, and finding next morning that she continued in the same humour, told her, she was very foolish to afflict herself in that manner; that the thing was not worth so much; that it concerned her very little to know while it was of the utmost consequence to him to keep the secret: "therefore," continued he, "I conjure you to think no more of it." "I shall ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... often a sense of humour has saved a man from desperation? Perhaps only the Easterns have thoroughly appreciated that divine gift. I have interpolated the adventure of Inspector Bristol in order that the sequence of my story be not broken; actually I did ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... Crown of France; who in exchange restor'd the towns of Calice, Ardres, Montbulin, Dourlens, la Capelle, and le Catelet in Picardy, and Blavet in Britanny: which Articles were Ratifi'd and Sign'd by his Majesty the eleventh of June [1598]; who in his gayety of humour, at so happy a conclusion, told the Duke of Espernon, That with one dash of his Pen he had done greater things, than he could of a long time have perform'd with the best Swords of his Kingdom."—Life of the Duke of Espernon, London, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... been asked. The act caused great odium to be attached to his name by all Liberals, both English and Continental, and it was disapproved of even by his old Tory associates. None the less he soon won great popularity in his own dominions by his zeal, good-humour, and energy, and in 1840 he came to terms with the Estates. A new Constitution was drawn up which preserved more of the Royal prerogatives than the instrument of 1833. Few German princes suffered so little in the revolution of 1848. The King died in 1851, at the age of eighty, and left one ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... in very good humour that night with himself and all the world. He had taken a double first in Mods., in History and Classics, after crowning a brilliant career at Eton with a Balliol Scholarship. He was stroke of his college ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... year would be for him a month of good luck and great happenings, the star of his birth being in the ascendant. Almost it began to look as if there might be something in the prophecy; and Prince Vanno, laughing at himself (with the dry sense of humour that came from the Irish-American side of his parentage), was half inclined to be superstitious. Astronomy was his love at present, not astrology, and last year he had discovered a small blue planet ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to him," said Donal, "and see what humour he is in. That will help to clear the thing up. We will try to do right, and trust to be ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... about for a few minutes in an uneasy way, now seeing that his master was in a better humour, approached and told him that a very odd-looking man was below, who asked to see him immediately ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... of our pranks were suggested by those of which we heard, I do not remember. One of my father's yarns, however, always stuck in my memory. For once, being in a very good humour, he told us how when some distinguished old lady had come to call on his father—a house master with Arnold at Rugby—he had been especially warned not to interrupt this important person, who had come to see about her son's entering my grandfather's ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... preparatory to their debate; and that was to lay down what should be all along understood by the word Principle or Element. Carneades thank'd him for his admonition, but told him that they had not been unmindful of so requisite a thing. But that being Gentlemen and very far from the litigious humour of loving to wrangle about words or terms or notions as empty; they had before his coming in, readily agreed promiscuously to use when they pleased, Elements and Principles as terms equivalent: and to understand both by the one and the other, those primitive and simple Bodies of which the ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... turned into black geese, or because they tell of strange romantic things happening to a real human boy like himself; but there can be no shadow of doubt that much of the verse intended for children is either too clever in its humour to make them laugh, or too bald in its matter or tone to stir the romance that is never quite asleep in their hearts. There are really surprisingly few versifiers who have altogether avoided these errors. Some of George Macdonald's Poems for Children are almost perfect, both as regards lyrical ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... a gentle hint of his duty in the position of eldest son, and he soon recovered his good humour. However, as the body as well as the skin of the jackal was becoming offensive, they united in dragging it down to the sea, while Jack placed his belt in ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... example of "dry" Scotch humour. A neighbouring city had previously banned The Merchant of Venice from its schools on the ground that the character of Shylock was a libel on the Jewish race. If Jewish children no longer had to pay for school editions of The Merchant of Venice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... she would not have blotted a passage or affected a tone for the applause of all Europe. Yet she could own to a liking for flattery, and say of the consequent vanity, that an insensibility to it is inhuman. Her humour was a mouthpiece of nature. She inherited from her father the judicial mind, and her fine conscience brought it to bear on herself as well as on the world, so that she would ask, 'Are we so much better?' when someone supremely erratic was dangled before the popular eye. She had not ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... petty jealousies, its petty trials, its tribulations and temptations, and its indescribably petty miracles. Bazzi was well fitted for the execution of this task. He had a swift and facile brush, considerable versatility in the treatment of monotonous subjects, and a never-failing sense of humour. His white-cowled monks, some of them with the rosy freshness of boys, some with the handsome brown faces of middle life, others astute and crafty, others again wrinkled with old age, have clearly been copied from real models. He puts them ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... strong mountain currents nearly dashed the canoes to pieces. His Indian guides were obstinate, ignorant, and timid. Mackenzie relates some of his difficulties in graphic language: "Throughout the whole of this day the men had been in a state of extreme ill-humour, and as they did not choose to vent it openly upon me, they disputed and quarrelled among themselves. About sunset the canoe struck upon the stump of a tree, which broke a large hole in her bottom, a circumstance that gave them an opportunity to ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... with nothing else, and this must have been the secret by which he produced compositions so entirely spiritual. He who has daily intercourse with the world, and feels the vulgar human passions, cannot be in a humour to write poems which do not partake ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... relating to bacteriology, chemistry, sanitation and medicine and would put the average notable medical officer of health to shame. He was to all of us a perfect marvel. He spoke English and French fluently and had the keenest sense of humour of any member of the congress, constantly enlivening the proceedings by his witty and ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... here live men unvexed, untried— I mused. Yet pacing Roosevelt street In idle humour ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... back of this display of mingled childishness and audacity there lay hidden purpose, intellect, and a keen knowledge of human nature. Not the two men who listened to this seemingly irresponsible chatter. To them she was a child to be humoured and humour her they did. The dainty feet which had already found their way to that gloomy staircase were allowed to ascend, followed it is true by those of the officer who did not dare to smile back at the reporter because of the brother's watchful and ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... Mounted troops had now joined the British forces, and there was every hope that the Dutchmen, once routed, could be pursued and kept on the run. But so far the Boers were unconcerned; they seemed to be in fine fettle, and even indulged in humour at the expense of the British garrison. When the heliographers questioned the enemy, "Are you Boers?" they replied, "Yes." They were then asked, "Where are you going?" and bounced back, "To Maritzburg." "God help you," said we. "We think He will," they devoutly replied. They also indulged ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... with the old man's humour. Not only did he shake hands with me, but he also accorded me the nose salutation. The rubbing of noses is now disused; and when a Maori confers it on a Pakeha it means an extra display of feeling, almost a making ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... hope before long to be with you. My wife has recovered from her delirium—very weak, but quite sane except upon one point—she believes our son to be ill in a hospital in Chicago, and the doctor has bidden us humour her in this hallucination, as it may save her life. He looks now for a gradual recovery, and when she is a little stronger I shall come to you; already she has planned for the journey, and assured me that our boy needs me most. It is sad, inexpressibly so, but it is better, at least ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... head and stiff at joints, he slightly staggered. He heard behind him the cooing laugh of a child. He looked around. It was himself that had awakened the infant's mirth—or that strange something which precedes the dawn of a sense of humour in children. The smiling babe was in a child's carriage which a plainly dressed woman was pushing. He looked at the woman. It was his wife and the pretty child was ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... John Malcolm's pages:—"He was a man of goodly stature, and powerful frame; his countenance, hard, strongly marked, and furnished with a thick, black beard, bore testimony of exposure to many a blast, but it still preserved a prepossessing expression of good humour and benevolence. His turban, which was formed of a cashmere shawl, sorely tached and torn, and twisted here and there with small steel chains, according to the fashion of the time, was wound around a red cloth cap, that rose in four peaks high above the head. His oemah, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... country, when the debate was over, Lincoln carried Illinois on the popular vote, although he lost the senatorship through the arrangement of legislative districts that gave the election to the Democrats. Disappointed, Lincoln retained his good humour, and laughed over what he called the little episode. "I feel," said Lincoln, "like the boy who stubbed his toe; it hurt too hard to laugh, and he was too big to cry. But I have been heard on the great subject of the age, and though I now sink out of ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... played on the flute from time to time to prevent the hours from being wearisome. For three days he sat there, until there came no more sounds from that room; then he pursued his ordinary affairs, but sought no other wife—a grim little man with a certain sense of humour. ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... a cloud of smoke upwards. "You're not the only person with brains, Nick," he observed, with sardonic humour. "But look here! Your friend Mrs. Musgrave is not to be meddled with in this matter. You leave her alone and Hunt-Goring too! He's killing himself by inches with opium, so he won't interfere with anyone for long. And she will prove a useful friend to Noel ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... clear repetition—or anticipation—of the opening line of "When at Hame wi' Dad"; but whereas the hero of the latter poem, on leaving home, seeks out the glories of Piccadilly and Hyde Park, the Wensleydale lad is content with the lesser splendours; of Leeds. The broad humour of this song has made it exceedingly popular; I first heard it on the lips of a Runswick fisherman, and since then have met with it in different parts ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... miller's family. She found his wife engaged in roasting a large gridiron of fine savoury fish, the agreeable smell proceeding from which perhaps occasioned her visit. With the usual inquiries after the health of the miller and his family, Clashnichd proceeded with the greatest familiarity and good-humour to make herself comfortable at their expense. But the miller's wife, enraged at the loss of her fish, and not relishing such unwelcome familiarity, punished the unfortunate Clashnichd rather too severely for her freedom. It happened that there was at the time a large caldron of boiling water ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... it is not correctness of grammar nor elegance of enunciation that charms us; it is spirit, VERVE, the sudden turn of humour, the keen, pungent taste of life. For this reason a touch of dialect, a flavour of brogue, is delightful. Any dialect is classic that has conveyed beautiful thoughts. Who that ever talked with the poet Tennyson, when he let himself go, over the pipes, would miss the savour of his broad-rolling ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... Bicetre is still in Federal hands, but the garrison is said to have exhausted its ammunition. Bergeret gave the order for burning the Tuileries. General Douai, by promptness of action, prevented the fire spreading to the Louvre. Humour has it that Delescluze and Pyat, disguised as beggars, were recognized in the Rue du Petit Carreau, and shot. Thirteen women have just been executed after being publicly disgraced in the Place Vendome. They ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... the hulks. There were more provisions and there was more peace; the Admiral, rising above his own infirmities to the necessities of the occasion, moved unweariedly among the sick, cheering them and nursing them back into health and good humour, so that gradually the condition of the little colony was brought into better order and health than it had enjoyed since ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... received a guinea and a newspaper cutting entitled "A Cadger for Copy," which may appeal to some people's sense of humour. It makes none to mine. In the flap of the envelope Biddick ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... unemotional son. The pathos of this scene, though designed and interpreted with a very sensitive restraint, was comparatively obvious—a commonplace, indeed, of these heart-rending days. There was a far more subtle and original note of pathos in the contrast between the brusque humour of the man's casual acceptance of the situation and the timorous, adoring, dog-like devotion of the woman. Here tears and laughter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... Preface Whalley's Life of Jonson Every Man out of His Humour Poetaster Fall of Sejanus Volpone Epicene The Alchemist Catiline's Conspiracy Bartholomew Fair The Devil is an Ass The Staple of News The ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... dignified, and the master laughed harder than before. In the end, the master laughed him out of his dignity. His jaws slightly parted, his lips lifted a little, and a quizzical expression that was more love than humour came into his eyes. He ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... to the work of this world. By judicious management you may get a great deal of worthy work out of the unsound minds of other men; and out of your own unsound mind. But always remember that you have an imperfect and warped machine to get on with; do not expect too much of it; and be ready to humour it and yield to it a little. Just as a horse which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and skill be made to get creditably through a wonderful amount of labour; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled to turn off ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... public taste, but was consecrated as a part of the national religion.... But the coarseness of Aristophanes is not corrupting. There is nothing immoral in his plots, nothing really dangerous in his broadest humour. Compared with some of our old English dramatists, he is morality itself. And when we remember the plots of some French and English plays which now attract fashionable audiences, and the character of some modern French and ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... chiaroscuro not being yet invented. However, it will be seen by the accompanying diagram how consistently the harsh contrasts of line were carried out in the planning of this picture. Notice the unconscious humour of the foreshortened spears and figure carefully arranged on the ground to vanish to ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... Fredericksburg or Richmond, and by this derange the calculations of the enemy. We set off to-morrow, and this rapid mode of travelling, added to my other precautions, will, I hope, keep up our spirits and good humour.[1] ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... of grim humour in Kassim's dark eyes: "Captain Sahib," he said, "that evil-faced Bagree has a curious deep cunning, I believe. I'll swear now by the hilt of my tulwar that he made up the whole story for the purpose ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... and the bridegroom is tacking and veering with his convoy about the fields. One sees how the dinner is done: with a knowledge of Athenaeus, Juvenal, Petronius, and Horace, many men could have written this set piece. But Trunnion is quite inimitable: he is a child of humour and of the highest spirits, like Mr. Weller the elder. Till Scott created Mause Headrig, no Caledonian had ever produced anything except "Tam o' Shanter," that could be a pendant to Trunnion. His pathos is possibly just a trifle overdone, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... formidable, then suddenly vanished in a laugh. "That's just your point of view," he said. "Perhaps it's a pity to open your eyes. But whatever you do, don't try to humour my brother's whims! It would be very bad for him, and you certainly wouldn't gain anything by it. Put up with me for a change, and come to ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... with which her husband never failed to welcome her 'Wednesday' costume, shabby as it was. Reckoning that this bad temper would go off with the first mouthfuls, she waited before beginning her attack. But, though the Master went on eating, his ill humour visibly increased. Everything was wrong; the wine tasted of the cork; the balls ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece of virtue; for I am of a constitution so general that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things; I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in diet, humour, air, anything. I wonder not at the French for their dishes of frogs, snails, and toadstools, nor at the Jews for locusts and grasshoppers; but, being amongst them, make them my common viands; and I find they agree with my stomach as well ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... left me"—Brace found relief in the one touch of humour that presented itself—"he's left me a thousand dollars as a token of his appreciation of my loyalty to you, when ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... I laughed aloud. I was determined to provoke him, and I changed places with Sir Guy. He showed me how to part and hold the reins; he lectured me on the art of putting horses together; he got into a state of high good-humour, and smiled, and swore, and patronized me, and had the effrontery to call me a "d—d fine girl," and I never boxed his ears, though I confess to having been once or twice sorely tempted. In short, I flirted with him shamefully, and even Frank got grave and out of sorts. At last Sir Guy removed ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... American bounty, extend to the importation of undressed flax. It would have been too great a discouragement to the cultivation of that plant in Great Britain. When this last bounty was granted, the British and Irish legislatures were not in much better humour with one another, than the British and American had been before. But this boon to Ireland, it is to be hoped, has been granted under more fortunate auspices than all those to America. The same commodities, upon which we thus gave bounties, when imported from America, were subjected ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... father being a banker at that place. Bagehot was altogether a remarkable personality, his writings on different subjects exhibiting the same bent of mind and characteristics,—philosophic reflectiveness, practical common-sense, a bright and buoyant humour, brilliant wit and always a calm and tolerant judgment of men and things. Though he belonged to the Liberal party in politics he was essentially of conservative disposition, and often spoke with sarcastic boastfulness to his Liberal friends of the stupidity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... dauphin it seems has been out of humour with the Duke of Burgundy on account of the luke-warmness shown for his interests by the ambassador sent by this prince ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... told you that.' He is moving about now in better humour, and, meeting the loaf in his stride, he cuts a slice from it. He is hardly aware of this, but Mrs. Dowey knows. 'I like the Scotch voice of you, woman. It drummles ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... Dunn's Battery, when I met him—I was rather bored, and with a whole evening on my hands—luckily for him. He was trudging dismally towards the town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical cut of his dust-stained, filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met. He hesitated. "Sir," he said, with a catching of the breath, "could you spare a few minutes for what I fear will ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... shadows began to drift into the fogs and the twilight settled over the grey masonry of the city, I would generally fly to the theatre and afterward to my garish rooms in Adams Street; or, as was often the case, I would merely fly to my flat, giving up my evenings to the low humour of Rabelais, ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... generous. The journey to Italy did not produce the effect which usually arises from such incidents in common life; namely, a closer friendship and intimacy between the parties. On the contrary, Madame Bonaparte from that moment evinced some degree of ill-humour towards Junot, and complained with singular warmth of the want of respect which he had shown her, in making love to her 'femme ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... is no time for discipline. The poor baby is about worn out with fatigue and excitement. You know, it has been her busy day. Let's humour her this time. I'll take her away, ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... humorists of the mid-Victorian era who produced any work that is likely to survive the wear of time and change of taste. "The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green," his earliest and best story, is, in its way, a masterpiece. Never has the lighter and gayer side of Oxford life been depicted with so much humour and fidelity; and what makes this achievement still more remarkable is the fact that Cuthbert Bede (to give Bradley the name which he adopted for literary purposes and made famous) was not an Oxford man. He was born at ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to him, her face brimming with a humorous enthusiasm. Humour in Riseholme was apt to be a little unkind; if you mentioned the absurdities of your friends, there was just a speck of malice in your wit. But with her there was none of that, she gave an imitation of Mrs Weston with the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... the young upstart gentleman that hath no government of himself and feedeth his humour to go brave; he shall not want silks, sattins, velvets to pranke abroad in his pompe; but with this proviso, that he must bind over his land in a statute merchant or staple; and so at last forfeit all unto the merciless mercer, and leave himself never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... which was no bar to our talk—or rather to my companion's, for I did little more than listen. In truth, my mind was so full of anticipations of what was before us, and of thoughts of the home behind, that I was in no humour for sprightly chatter. The sky was somewhat clouded, but the moon glinted out between the rifts, showing us the long road which wound away in front of us. On either side were scattered houses with gardens sloping ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... field. He had the same Puritan leanings, the same sympathy with the Reformation, the same hostility to ecclesiastical interference with secular affairs, unless, as in the case of John Knox, the interference was directed against Rome. Froude considered him not unlike Knox in humour, keenness of intellect, integrity, and daring. History was the one form of literature outside Goethe and Burns for which he really cared. He had translated Wilhelm Meister in 1824, and it was probably at his suggestion that Froude translated Elective Affinities for Bohn's Library ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... father, whom he immediately beheld in perfect health, sitting on his throne, in the midst of his council. Next, as there was nothing in the world so dear to him, after the sultan, as the princess Nouronnihar, he wished to see her; and instantly beheld her laughing, and in a gay humour, with her ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... for shag—trowsers, pea—jacket, and south—west cap, I went forward, and took my station, in no pleasant humour, on the stowed foretopmast—staysail, with my arm round the stay. I had been half an hour there, the weather was getting worse, the rain was beating in my face, and the spray from the stem was ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... there none the less. Few critics have found Milton too wide or too large for them; many have found him too narrow, which is another form of imperfect sympathy. His lack of humour has alienated the interest of thousands. His ardent advocacy of toleration in the noblest of his prose treatises has been belittled by a generation which prides itself on that flaccid form of benevolence, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... had fulfilled my purpose in crossing to Arran, then this joy you speak of were not greater than my own. But when I go out hunting, Allan, I like to hunt; when I come over to ask a question of our neighbour, it is not to my humour to be thus stranded upon a hilltop. So now, if it please you, we will ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... were prone to attribute their ill success to the incompetency of their generals. Lord North, with his quaint humour, would say, 'I do not know whether our generals will frighten the enemy, but I know they frighten me whenever I think of them.' When, in 1778, Lord Carlisle came out as Commissioner, in a letter speaking of the great scale of all things ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... present consideration with any of the former. The Emperor Maximilian, great-grandfather to the now King Philip,—[Philip II. of Spain.]—was a prince endowed throughout with great and extraordinary qualities, and amongst the rest with a singular beauty of person, but had withal a humour very contrary to that of other princes, who for the despatch of their most important affairs convert their close-stool into a chair of State, which was, that he would never permit any of his bedchamber, how familiar ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... it's rather a lark, arresting the people who at first affected to despise you. I can always keep myself cheerful by the humour of that. If you've lost your sense of the ridiculous, you'd better join the Northwest Mounted Police—for an ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Fortunately the task has been undertaken by Lord CHARLES himself, and the world is richer by a book which, instructive in many ways, valuable as throwing side-lights on the slow advance of the Navy to the proud position which it holds to-day on the North Sea, bubbles over with humour. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... "but"—he grinned, and his whole face lit up with boyish humour—"the beastly things have no names to them! See? I've tried to hunt them up in all the old county histories, and books of that kind; but I've succeeded in getting only two or three, and there's a couple of dozen of the wretched ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... faintly. She expected something more brilliant in the way of humour even from Mr. Beale. She tapped "acknowledged" ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... you will just humour me this once I—I will never ask anything foolish of you again as long as I ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... as to mental rigidity and bodily clumsiness, the two views diverge from here. According to Bergson, the comic presupposes "something like a momentary anaesthesia of the heart;" "laughter is incompatible with emotion." For Freud this absence of emotion is much more characteristic of humour than of the comic, two matters that Bergson quite fails to distinguish. Then, whereas Freud explains the subjective side of the comic purely on hedonic principles, Bergson sees in it an important social function. According to him, laughter is one of society's weapons for dealing ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... my profession never counterfeits, till he lays hold upon a debtor and says he rests him: for then he brings him to all manner of unrest.—The Bailiff, in 'Every Man in his Humour.' ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... courageous and wide-seeing statesman, and he did his best. Obliged by his position to affect admiration, or at least respect, where no emotion but contempt was possible, his daily bread was bitter enough. It was absolutely necessary to humour those whom knew to be traversing his policy and desiring his ruin, for there was no other way to serve his country and save it from impending danger. So long as he was faithfully served by his subordinates, and not betrayed by those to whom he gave his heart, he could confront external ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... corruptions. For there may be some corruptions that one hath no natural inclination to, but, on the contrary, a great aversion for; as some world's wretches may have no inclination to prodigality and ranting, or such like vices, which are contrary to their humour, or to their constant education; and Satan may never tempt some man to such evils, knowing he will get more advantage by plying his temper and genius, and so carrying him away to the other contrary evil; and so, though ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... was a way he had when any thing hugely tickled him: for though he hated a monk and the very smell of a monk worse than all the devils in hell—yet the shot hitting my uncle Toby and Trim so much harder than him, 'twas a relative triumph; and put him into the gayest humour in the world. ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... call yourselves civilized! Do you not discern, in this hideous character, the God, on whom you lavish your incense? Are not the descriptions given you of the divinity, visibly borrowed from the implacable, jealous, revengeful, sanguinary, capricious inconsiderate humour of man, who has not cultivated his reason? O men! You adore only a great savage, whom you regard, however, as a model to imitate, as an amiable master, as a sovereign ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... The cast of his features was that of a person easy-going, good-tempered, and happy; but a line or two of care here and there, and an occasional wrinkling up of the forehead showed that the surface was not to be trusted. Mark, his son, was like him, and the very picture of good humour and light- heartedness; so buoyant, indeed, that at times he seemed indebted to spirits something more than "animal." But the brightness had not yet had any of the gilding rubbed off—everyone liked him, no one could be dull where ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... are being starved or trampled or tortured into acquiescence may reasonably bid us be ashamed. Indeed, stoicism, particularly in its discourses to others, has not more sense of shame than sense of humour. ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... be given to understand that it was a piece of humour,—a quiz, in short,—on the part of the Outlaw, who was too sagacious to propose such a rencontre in reality. This letter was written in the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... cared to hear of the remainder of her life. If there were dregs left in her cup, she drank them alone. A woman who had no beauty was often a mere drudging or child-bearing wife, scapegoat for ill-humour and morning headaches; victim, slave, or unnoticed appendage. This the whilom toast Lady Wildairs had become, and ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the eminently excellent and loveable, and his entire character of the most transparent, childlike simplicity. The great realities of eternity were never far distant from his thoughts. Endowed with powers of humour at least equal to his other faculties, and a sense of the ludicrous singularly nice, he has often reminded us in his genial moments, when indulging most freely, of a happy child at play in the presence of its father. Never was there an equal amount of wit more harmlessly ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... He was steeped to the full in joy; no thought of future cares or perils crossed his mind. They had passed three or four headlands before the girl halted and waited for her attendant, who came up muttering to herself and grumbling; compliments from Jean and caresses from Hilda restored her good humour, and the work of the evening commenced. "Follow me closely," said the girl; "let your eye be keen and your step firm: the descent is no child's sport." Jean looked at the cliff, fitted for the flight of gull or cormorant rather than the foot of man, still less of gentle maiden: Hilda was ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... eyes cutting off his enemies' heads—and he had owned to over fifty—as he thought of destitute homes and weeping women and children, seemed decidedly tragi-comic; but the old man was earnest enough, and was quite unconscious of the grim humour of the situation. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... virtue is more wholesome, his picture of it is at times marred by exaggeration, while his sentiment for innocence is of a watery kind, and occasionally a little tawdry. His pathos, as is the case with all weak writers, constantly trembles on the verge of bathos, while his lack of humour betrays him into penning passages of elaborate fatuity. His style is formal and often stilted, his verse often monotonous and at times heavy.[262] On the other hand Daniel possesses qualities of no vulgar kind, though some, it is true, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... which a man's life could be utilised other than by putting on an austere appearance, and making long prayers. The rite of circumcision could not, indeed, be forbidden to the Muhammadans, but Akbar directed that the ceremony should not be performed until the lad had attained the age of twelve. To humour the {177} prejudices of the Hindus, he discouraged the slaughter of kine. On the other hand, he pronounced the killing and partaking of the flesh of swine to be lawful. Dogs had been looked upon by Muhammadans as unclean animals, and the strict Muhammadan of the ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... relation of this singular couple? Was he the most ardent of friends or the most reverent of lovers? Did she regard him as an eccentric swain, whose benevolent admiration of her beauty she was not ill pleased to humour at this small cost of having him climb into her little parlour and gossip of summer nights? With her decent and sombre dress, her simple gravity, and that fine piece of priestly needlework, she looked like some pious lay-member of a sisterhood, living by special ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... Mr Chappell, in his Popular Music of the Olden Time, which describes with some humour the taste of the Puritans, might pass for a Puritan song, if it were not contained in the "Shepherds' Oracles," by Francis Quarles, 1646. He was cup-bearer to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., and afterwards chronologer to the city of London. He died in 1644, and his Shepherds' ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... I answered hotly, "a fitting subject for jokes. I am sorry that my sense of humour is not in touch with yours. You are a great traveller, and you have shaken death by the hand before. For me it is a new thing. The man's face haunts me! I cannot sleep or rest for thinking of it—as I have seen it dead, and as I saw it ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... There being a great Number of these Pieces of Wit and Humour at most Places of publick Resort in this Kingdom, it is hoped that all, who are pleased with, or willing to promote this Design, will be so good as to collect and send them to the Publisher hereof. The Editor does not care how merry they are, ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... he had put the affair, and resolved upon urging on the baron, as far as it lay within his power so to do, to establish himself in the neighbourhood, and to allow him to be purveyor-in-general to his household, which, if the baron continued in his liberal humour, would be unquestionably a very pleasant ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... I must humour you, my fine fellow," observed Mr. Morton, pleasantly, as he kissed the little fellow with affection, and then ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... conviction that no one could have guessed what absurdity went on behind the pale, impassive face, what secret and unsuspected amusement she enjoyed; a little comedy of her own! The unsuitability of Francis Sales for the part of hero supplied most of the humour and saved her from loss of dignity. The thing was obviously absurd; she had never cared for dolls, but in her young womanhood she was finding amusement in ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... With his humour the kemps must bear; And thither came King Sigfrid Hoon, To his own pain ...
— Grimmer and Kamper - The End of Sivard Snarenswayne and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... gladiators, and by his liberality and expenditure on the theatrical exhibitions, the processions, and the public entertainments, he completely drowned all previous displays, and put the people in such a humour, that every man was seeking for new offices and new honours ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... more clearly defined from his moral looseness in details which are identified in the Anglo-Saxon mind with total depravity. In such a man, the appreciation of the beautiful in nature may be keen, but it will continually vanish before humour or mere fun; while having no deep root in life or interests in common with the settled Anglo-Saxon citizen, he cannot fail to appear at times to the latter as a near relation to Mephistopheles. But his "mockery" is as accidental and naif as that of Jewish Young Germany is keen and deliberate; ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... of our own. The continental conception of the British wolf and the Transvaal lamb would have raised a laugh in Pretoria, where the outcome of the war was looked upon as a foregone conclusion. The burghers were in no humour for concessions. They knew their own power, and they concluded with justice that they were for the time far the strongest military power in South Africa. 'We have beaten England before, but it is ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Rosenthal (Valley of Roses), which also consists of splendid avenues and lawns. A pretty coffee-house, with a very handsome alcove, built in a semicircular form, invites the weary traveller to rest and refreshment, while a band of agreeable music diffuses mirth and good humour around. ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... sizable. Somethin' the bigness of a hedge-sparrer's, or maybe a weeny white butterfly's, 'ud ha' plinty stren'th enough for the job, if that was all they had to do." Ned meant no harm, but his witticisms did not fall in with Con's humour, so he snatched back the cap and went off affronted, nor did he call at the O'Driscolls' again ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... long, but went away somewhat dazed to find himself the possessor of a ring he did not want and out of pocket just thirty dollars, American. Having come to the conclusion that knight-errantry of that kind was not only profligate but distinctly irritating to his sense of humour, he looked up Mr. Hobbs and arranged for a day's ride ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... find 'tis vain to press my suit at present, An humour this, to which 'twere better yield. Best flatter it. [Aside.]—O! I am quite abash'd. Your merited rebukes so awe my soul, That I shall live from this day forth in penitence, And adoration of your heav'nly virtues: Let me then read in thy relenting eye My ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... to me of countesses and of ceremonies," said Bridgenorth; "grief and anger leave me no leisure for idle observances to humour the vanity of overgrown children.—O Christian—worthy, well worthy, of the name thou didst bear! My friend—my brother—the brother of my blessed Alice—the only friend of my desolate estate! art thou then cruelly murdered by a female fury, who, but for thee, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Her sense of humour keeps her from the tragedy of a grande passion, and, as there is neither romance nor humility in her love, she makes an excellent wife. What her ultimate influence on English life will be it is difficult to estimate at present; ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... and hostess at an early breakfast. Sir Henry proposed that as the day was warm and fine, I should ride to a neighbouring meet. I was not in the humour for this, however, and said frankly that I should prefer remaining at the Grange. One glance into the faces of my host and hostess told me only too plainly that I had two very serious patients on my hands. Lady Studley looked terribly weak and excited—the ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to look carefully along the shelves which she had scanned so many times before. They contained very good books indeed, such books as were not to be found elsewhere throughout the whole town of Woolhorton, and perhaps ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... rhimes have aught to do with dog, If kitchen smoak resembles fog, If changing sides from Hardwick to Lord B—t Can with a turnspit's turning humour suit, If to write verse immeasurably low, Which Malloch's verse does so compleatly show, Deserve the preference—Malloch, take the wheel, Nor quit it till you bring ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... on him many towering gifts. Whether Humour was among them, his friends were wont to dispute. That he had a gaiety and sympathetic alacrity of mind that was near of kin to humour, nobody who knew him would deny. Of playfulness his speeches give a thousand proofs; of drollery and fun he had a ready sense, though it was ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... by the arrival of more visitors, mostly of the sterner sex; for Mrs. Falkner liked her acquaintance to drop in informally—a predilection her acquaintance, if young and especially of the harder sex aforesaid, for obvious reasons, delighted just at present to humour. George, however, in no wise shared his aunt's expansiveness in this direction, if only that it meant that Lilith was promptly surrounded by an adoring phalanx, even as on the deck ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... differing in the composition used by different people for preserving their dead, are the Egyptian, Arabian, Pisasphaltos, and Lybian. The fifth mummy of peculiar power was made from criminals that had been hanged; "for from such there is a gentle siccation, that expungeth the watery humour, without destroying the oil and spirituall, which is cherished by the heavenly luminaries, and strengthened continually by the affluence and impulses of the celestial spirits; whence it may be properly called by the name of constellated or celestial ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... always to be endured before any one was allowed to dismount; but royalty and nobility were inured to listening with a good grace, and Mary, though wearied and aching, sat patiently in the hot sunshine, and was ready to declare that Buxton put her in good humour. In fact the grandees and their immediate attendants endured with all the grace of good breeding; but the farther from the scene of action, the less was the patience, and the more restless and confused the movements ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to Menecreta's tale. His sun-tanned face clearly showed how hard he was trying to gather up the tangled threads of her scrappy narrative. Nor did the lictors this time try to interfere with the woman. The praefect apparently was in no easy temper to-day, and when ill-humour seized him rods and ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Improvements may be made, in which the better Education of female Children is designd to be comprehended. All these things I know are pleasing to you. Our People treat Foreigners of Merit who come among them, with good Humour & Civility, being desirous of adopting the virtuous Manners of others, and ingrafting them into our Stock. Laudable Examples on their side & ours will be productive of mutual Benefits. Indeed the Men ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... which can make me cautious and tremble." But for that picture by himself we should have pronounced Carlyle's drawing of him to be almost as malicious as his own of the Serampore missionaries—"A mass of fat and muscularity, with massive Roman nose, piercing hazel eyes, shrewdness and fun—not humour or even wit—seemingly without ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... there; as far as money can go you can't beat this house. But why didn't you coom to dinner, lad?' he cried, his brother's remark having, as the latter intended, put him in a good humour. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... strange, my lord, I cannot eat or drink with you, to-night. Some humour, or some fever in my blood, At other seasons temperate, or some thought That like an adder creeps from point to point, That like a madman crawls from cell to cell, Poisons my palate and makes appetite A loathing, ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... themselves till they came to the last "Cheap Tea!" then Jock knocked Bauldie down among the hay, and Speug fell on the top of them, and they rolled in one bundle of delight, arising from time to time to study the advertisement and taste its humour. ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... he may be in character parts or where melodrama is indicated, he never allowed us to mistake him for a British Baronet. The only person (apart from le Briquet) who contributed nothing to the general gloom was the Dean's wife, played with the most attractive grace and humour by Miss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... handkerchiefs done up in bundles, with the neck of a bottle sticking out at the top, and closely-packed apples bulging out at the sides,—and away they hurry along the streets leading to the steam-packet wharfs, which are already plentifully sprinkled with parties bound for the same destination. Their good humour and delight know no bounds—for it is a delightful morning, all blue over head, and nothing like a cloud in the whole sky; and even the air of the river at London Bridge is something to them, shut ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... academic as the question was, Gaspard indulged his humour by hinting to his associates that, in certain contingencies, there might be work for their hands. He would not be more explicit, for he was distrustful of them; but this vague hint was quite enough to cause some perturbation. ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... powerful emotions of the mind subside, and grow weaker in proportion as the strength of the body decays, is here exemplified; and that such passions as remain after a certain age, are not properly the incentives of nature but of example, long habitude, or ill humour, Page 224. ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... command a circle of true friends, which, though smaller in number, is more deeply devoted in intention. But she will never be able to keep even these unless her sympathies are wide, her heart full of understanding, unless she keeps herself mentally alert and her sense of humour perpetually bright. Should she do so, hers will be the triumph of real charm; and, providing that she grows older not only gracefully but also cheerfully, not by plastering herself over with chemical imitations of her own ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... had first affected his subnormal pulse. Together they wandered over the lawns, and he showed the improvements wrought since her last visit. She gave the head-gardener the benefit of her unrestricted smile, and shed among all the retainers a bountiful largesse of good-humour. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... without anger about any thing or person; though as we were saying, not if he be angry and have a set purpose? We forbid earnest—that is unalterably fixed; but we have still to say who are to be sanctioned or not to be sanctioned by the law in the employment of innocent humour. A comic poet, or maker of iambic or satirical lyric verse, shall not be permitted to ridicule any of the citizens, either by word or likeness, either in anger or without anger. And if any one is disobedient, the judges shall either at once expel him from the country, or he shall pay ...
— Laws • Plato
... cheeks of a little Eolus: but what exquisite lightness in the figure!—how it mounts, how it floats, disdaining the earth! On leaving the gallery, I sauntered about; visited some churches, and then returned home depressed and wearied: and in this melancholy humour I had better close my book, lest I be tempted to write what I could not bear ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
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