"Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the school-days well enough at first; chiefly because I devoted myself entirely to play and refused work. Besides, there was something amusing in the novelty of the thing, and there was much interest in the mischief that could be done in school; also in the deeds of daring and violence that could be done out of it, with the able assistance of a score or so of boys of almost every age and ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... according to the character of the crew, of the commander of the vessel, or of the poor fellows about to undergo the unpleasant and dreadful process of an introduction. They were generally of a harmless and amusing character, one of which was to bring them before old Neptune, and put them through the process of shaving. The chin, and the greater part of the face, would be plastered over with a composition made of tar and train oil, laid on thickly with a large tar brush. The razor was often fabricated ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... magnifying glasses through which age has the reputation of looking backward, nor the clever young men of to-day who write about that delectable decade and no doubt deplore my indiscretion in being alive to write about it myself, to show me how very much more amusing and interesting life was then ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... objected that the possession of clairvoyance destroys all privacy, and confers a limit-less ability to explore the secrets of others. No doubt it does confer such an ability, but nevertheless the suggestion is an amusing one to anyone who knows anything practically about the matter. Such an objection may possibly be well-founded as regards the very limited powers of the "test and business clairvoyant," but the man who brings it forward ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... looked at him as she spoke. But when he uttered the single word shoe, she turned as pale as a ghost; all her wisdom could not help her, for he had guessed rightly. Oh, how pleased the old king was! It was quite amusing to see how he capered about. All the people clapped their hands, both on his account and John's, who had guessed rightly the first time. His fellow-traveller was glad also, when he heard how successful John had been. But John folded his hands, and thanked God, who, he ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... thought. A conceit or fancy may be wholly unfounded, while a conception always has, or is believed to have, some answering reality. (Compare REASON.) An intellectual fancy or conceit may be pleasing or amusing, but is never worth serious discussion; we speak of a mere fancy, a droll or odd conceit. An emotional or personal fancy is a capricious liking formed with slight reason and no exercise of judgment, and ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that the report of Count Markof to his Court, describing this new and rare show, is a chef-d'oeuvre of wit, equally amusing and instructive. He is said to have requested of his Cabinet new and particular orders how to act—whether as the representative of an independent Sovereign, or, as most of the other members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, like ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... that at Chartres was rising,—is unlike any other, and shows how much the French architects valued their lovely French creation. On its octagonal faces, it carries upright batons, or lances, as a device for relieving the severity of the outlines; a device both intelligent and amusing, though it was never imitated. A little farther from Paris, at Senlis, is another fleche, which shows still more plainly the effort of the French architects to vary and elaborate the Chartres scheme. As for Laon, which is interesting ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... detail of such proceedings would only swell my narrative, without amusing my reader; I shall therefore content myself with observing, that things remained in this state till the 14th of March, when the long-looked for frigate at length arrived, and on the 15th, the first division of the army embarking, set sail for England. The wind, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... replied. "It really is such a pity. One so seldom meets any one worth talking to who doesn't know everything there is that shouldn't be known about everybody. About Count Sabatini, for instance, I could tell you some most amusing things." ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... well that nobody likes to be bored, but I think it would be better to be bored to extinction than to mortify and pain people by rejecting their society because they are not intensely amusing or distinguished, or even because they are intensely ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... had followed had been peaceful and amusing. He could not detect in any one of them a sign of the approaching shadow. They had been lazy days. His duties had been much more simple than he had anticipated. He had not known, before he tried it, that it was ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... There ought to be another word for her kind of popularity. Genevieve is clever, you know, and she's awfully funny," she continued, smiling as she remembered Genevieve mimicking Miss Langton in a temper; "anybody who is amusing can be popular," she ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... laughed Mrs. Val. 'Upon my word, my dear, it is amusing to hear you take it up. However, I assure you I meant nothing but what was kind and friendly. Come, Clementina, we have been sitting here a most unconscionable time. Will you allow me, my dear, to ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... that follow them, must always have corresponded with the stresses or absence of stress which would naturally be made apparent by the voice of an ideal reciter; and to me, as to some other people, the question has proved amusing of how far in English verse Latin prosody could be reproduced. Many attempts have been made at deciding this question by experiments. The most remarkable of these are two which were made by Tennyson. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... brother George's lively journals, written when he was abroad. You remember how we used to laugh over them when he sent them home? Well, when I was begged to give them an evening, I resolved to try one of those amusing journal-letters, and chose the best,—all about how George and a friend went to the different places Dickens describes in some of his funny books. I wish you could have seen how those dear girls enjoyed it, and laughed ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... situation. It was plainly her interest that the king's party should prevail, and nothing could have engaged her to stop their progress, or even forbear openly assisting them, but her intention of still amusing the queen of Scots, by the hopes of being peaceably restored to her throne. See, further Strype, vol. ii. Append. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... Nothing of me but my eyes was visible as I walked in. The landlady received us; two minutes later, my little friend (ever, I fear me, on the look-out for such guests as might prove amusing) made her appearance. Dinner and the wine were ordered. I sat down in the private room. A ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Colette displayed so genuine an interest in his friendship with Christophe that he went so far as to tell her the whole story, and even about certain of their amicable misunderstandings, which, at a distance, seemed amusing, and he took the whole blame for them on himself. He also confided to Colette Christophe's artistic projects, and also some of his opinions—which were not altogether flattering—concerning France and the French. Nothing that he told her was of any great importance ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... a nicer. It was called "A Tour Round my Garden," and some of the little stones in it—like the Tulip Rebecca, and the Discomfited Florists—were very amusing indeed; and some were sad and pretty, like the Yellow Roses; and there were delicious bits, like the Enriched Woodman and the Connoisseur Deceived; but there was no "stuff" in it ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... difference in their stations, clothes, and manners, Daniel and his young relatives met as equals. It would have been amusing to see anyone—even the Countess of Chell, who patronized the entire district—attempt to ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... it is, and have been going on like anything to Lizzie over her carelessness. Mrs. Cooper's walked up the village with Laura about some extra meat that's wanted, and when I came through for your tea if that girl hadn't let the kitchen fire right out!—Amusing herself down in the stable-yard, I expect, Mrs. Cooper being gone.—And the business I've had to get a ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... &c.—the oscillations by which they ultimately relaxed and tied up the law, just as their erring conscience, or the necessities of social life prevailed, would compose one of the interesting chapters in this science. But the Jewish relaxation is the most amusing: it coincides altogether with the theory of savages as to property, which we have already noticed under the head of Piracy. All men on earth, except Jews, were held to be fair subjects for usury; not as though usury were ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... are brooding lovers of knowledge in this world who are fonder of their own than of any other company. But most people can only think half thoughts and need other people to complete them. It is amusing enough to knock a ball against a wall, and a wonderful help in the perfection of strokes, but it is far more amusing to face somebody across a net and play ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... at the eyrie. Cecil and Miss Violet have made fast friends, and Duke, the greyhound, looks on approvingly, though with an amusing tint of jealousy. The child has forgotten her wounds, has had some berries, cake, and milk, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... relates an amusing instance of the universal charity of the kindly Dyer. Lamb once suddenly asked him what he thought of the murderer Williams,—a wretch who had destroyed two families in Ratcliff Highway, and then cheated the gallows by committing suicide. "The desperate attempt," says Talfourd, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... a few amusing results followed. Among a certain class in England a regular panic broke out, and in Holland and Belgium even the masses of the people became suspicious of gold and disliked to take it in payment. ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... guests came except those we desired to compromise. The invitations having been sent at short notice, it was amusing to read the notes and letters of excuse, which Sallenauve ordered to be brought to him in the salon as they arrived. As he opened each he took care to say: "This is from Monsieur the sub-prefect; this from the procureur-du-roi; ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... an opposition waiting patiently during several months for its principles to turn up would be amusing in times less critical than these. Nor was this the worst. If there might be persons malicious enough to think that the Democratic party could get along very well without principles, all would admit that a candidate was among the necessaries of life. Now, where not only ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... with the greatest alacrity, and my daughter was enabled, towards the close of the day, to enjoy the pleasure of again amusing the ship's company. I repeat it, that no present was ever received by me with more sincere gratitude. I greatly reproach myself for having neglected to make inquiries after the worthy seaman, who was only known on board by the ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... was Barbara who laughed. The idea of Eugenia's being managed instead of managing other people was amusing. Besides, it was unlike her to talk so fast and ask so many questions without giving ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... You see I know all about it, and told Mr. Carrington the story of every paper as we went on. It was quite amusing, I assure you." ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... advance in the cause of education for women, and reviewed the progress in each particular branch of science. Letters from various parts of the world were read by Mrs. Griffing and Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, the latter of whom demonstrated in an amusing and forcible manner that the women of our country did not form a part of the "people," according to the various banners and posters displayed about the streets in reference to the coming election. Woman did want ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "The really amusing thing about you is that you don't at all know how little brains you have," was the polite broadside delivered him as Violet began to sip the clear coffee from ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sugar-plums; she will then shut her eyes and see with ours, for have we not paid our tribute-money? Yes, gold is the passport to society; a chimney sweep, with pots of gold, would find a glad welcome where the beggared son of a belted earl would be driven forth. But, after all, 'tis an amusing age, and one must adapt oneself to one's time. I own there are some unpleasantnesses, as when one meets, as Mrs. Ross-Hatton did, a maid-servant from her mother's household; one would grow used to these mongrels in time, I suppose, as this is the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... behind the German lines and that the gunners were searching for a German battery. But I might as well have been observing a gang of Italians at blasting operations in the Montclair Mountains. And the officer with me said: "Our children are just amusing themselves." ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... me and master to Lady Griffinses,—I amusing myself with the gals in the antyroom, he paying his devours to the ladies in the salong. Miss was thrumming on her gitter; my lady was before a great box of papers, busy with accounts, bankers' books, lawyers' letters, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... times. Even people, "qui ne se rendent pas," have deigned both to run and to shout, "Sauve qui pent" at odd times of sunset; though, for my part, I have no pleasure in recalling unpleasant remembrances to brave men; and yet, really, being so philosophic, they ought not to be unpleasant. But the amusing feature in M. Michelet's reproach, is the way in which he improves and varies against us the charge of running, as if he were singing a catch. Listen to him. They "showed their backs," did these English. (Hip, hip, hurrah! three ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... found that, she found something to entertain her. She not only received Mr Ewing when he called, but talked to him at the gate when he went past—and he went past several times a day. Now, when the situation at home had grown desperate, and she was looking all ways for means to save herself, his amusing infatuation became a matter for serious thought. COULD she? She was a hard case, but even she wavered. He was probably sixty, and she was eighteen. Oh, she couldn't! But when, after Miss Keene's departure, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... asked. There was a trace of a smile on his face and a glow of what seemed to be amusement in his eyes as he listened, though Hanson could see nothing amusing in the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... soldier's canteens, and huts and buffets, and Hospitals, which show a little Londoner saying to a meek member of the aristocracy "washing up," "Nar, then, Lady Halexandra, 'urry up with them plaites," and we have an amusing little play of the same kind. The society girl who washes down the Hospital steps, and washes up for hours, and carries meals up and down stairs in her work, week after week, and month after month, and year after year, in our Hospitals, knows what work is now, and the soldier who is served, ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... as the dirty, ill-dressed servant of the court tailor), and who is not even present as a suitor. Her suitors, princes, have passed before her for three days. After the marriage the prince keeps up the disguise. His brothers by way of amusing themselves at his expense take "Stupid Peppe," as they call him, to the wood to shoot birds; he shoots a great number, while they run here and there and cannot find one. They agree to let him brand them with black spots on their shoulders, on condition ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... cloathed, from which the foregoing description must have been taken.[3] Being desirous to make prisoners of some of these giants, Magellan gave orders for this purpose to some of his crew. Accordingly, while amusing them with toys, they put iron shackles on their legs, which at first they conceived had been fine ornaments like the rest, and seemed pleased with their jingling sound, till they found themselves hampered and betrayed. They then fell a bellowing like bulls, and imploring the aid of Setebos in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... at this long before some of the wise blackbirds saw through it, and resented it with proper spirit. One of them would turn savagely after the sparrow who followed him, and the knowing rascal always took his departure. It was amusing to see a blackbird working seriously on a grain, all his faculties absorbed in the solemn question whether he should succeed in cracking his nut, while two or three feathered pilferers stood as near as they dared, anxiously waiting till the great work should be accomplished, the ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... his ideas to be embarrassed by any concern as to his appearance. He talks about himself with energetic gaiety. He talks to other people with a sweet forbearance (implying a kindly consideration for their stupidity) which infuriates those whom he does not succeed in amusing. They either lose their tempers with him or try in vain to ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... asked Pontellier, looking lazily and amused from one to the other. It was some utter nonsense; some adventure out there in the water, and they both tried to relate it at once. It did not seem half so amusing when told. They realized this, and so did Mr. Pontellier. He yawned and stretched himself. Then he got up, saying he had half a mind to go over to Klein's hotel and play a ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... and hid behind the curtain, but the old woman came to the window and closed it. The chevalier did not expect this denouement. There was nothing for him but to close his window also, and to come back and put his feet on the hobs. This was not amusing, and the chevalier began to feel how solitary he should be in this retreat. He remembered that formerly he also used to play and draw, and he thought that if he had the smallest spinet and some chalks, he could bear it ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... down from your head," advises the dry, quiet voice. "But don't tear up the papers!—they're too amusing to lose." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... picture of the want of uniformity in the preachers of his sect, all being under the 'Act of Uniformity,' is very amusing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... It was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the difficulties thus presented by it, bas-relief involves more direct exertion of intellect than finished solid sculpture. It is not so, however. The questions involved by bas-relief are of a more curious and amusing kind, requiring great variety of expedients; though none except such as a true workmanly instinct delights in inventing, and invents easily; but design in solid sculpture involves considerations of weight in mass, of balance, of perspective ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... glancing, intelligent, smiling eyes spoke fastidiousness and discrimination. Her voice was low and soft, with a vibrating sound in it, and she laughed often and easily, being very ready to see and enjoy the amusing side of life. But observation and emotion alike were instinctively veiled by a quiet, reposeful manner, so that she made herself further popular by appearing retiring. Edith Ottley might so easily ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... wull didna end here, for he insisted on takin' us a'—Nosey amang the lave—to the nearest public, where he gi'ed us a frien'ly glass, and we keepit tawking about monkeys, and what not, in a manner at ance edifying and amusing to hear.—Blackwood's Magazine. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... the truth of the parts to the beauty of the whole, the inmost nature of things to the exterior impression. Now, directly the substance is subordinated to form, properly speaking it ceases to exist; the statement is empty, and instead of having extended our knowledge we have only indulged in an amusing game. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he said, "Well, come in. It's rather amusing, Leila. Sit down. I've had James Penhallow here to say his wife's breaking down. I've had Mrs. Penhallow here to say James Penhallow is ill. Except the maids and the cats and you, all Grey Pine is diagnosing one another. And now, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... is one thing I would have altered. If He intended us for such a rough life, He should have made the human frame capable of going longer without food. To a poor soldier marching from Moscow to have to stop every three hours and gnaw a piece of horse that has died—and raw—it is not amusing." ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... long—although the task would be amusing—to call the roll of Daudet's novels written after "Fromont and Risler" had revealed to him his own powers, and to discuss what fact of Parisian history had been the starting point of each of them and what notabilities ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Scots, certain Welsh Princes, and those of Munster, Ulster, Leinster and Connaught, beside his hostages. At the same time Malachy, with the shadow, of independence, kept his unfrequented court in West-Meath, amusing himself with wine and chess and the taming of unmanageable horses, in which last pursuit, after his abdication, we hear of his breaking a limb. To support the hospitalities of Kinkora, the tributes of every province ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... first, if they could no shake me enough to make me stop singing, and they liked me the better when they found I would no stop. The soldiers soon began to laugh, but the joke was not all on me, and I could see that they understood that, and were pleased. Indeed, it was all as amusing to ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... adherents came to do him honour at his birthplace, over 500 of them on decorated horses having met him at Sisak station the previous evening. When I asked him what he had to say about the two afore-mentioned remarks he gave me an amusing account of how the interviewer had appreciated the various samples of wine which he (Radi['c]) had just brought down from his vineyard. The conversation lasted for about four hours, and in the course of it Radi['c] mentioned that a certain ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... pearls for the occasion, so that, as Prosperi reports, her jewels made almost as fine a show as those of the duchess. Nor was this rivalry in clothes and jewels limited to the royal ladies themselves. Our lively friend, Duchess Leonora's maid of honour, Teodora, gives Isabella an amusing account of the keen emulation that existed between the Milanese and Ferrarese ladies who were to accompany the two duchesses to Venice.[37] Beatrice's ladies each wore long gold chains, valued at two hundred ducats apiece, and her chief maids of honour had been provided ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... Well aware that the safety of their own precious carcasses depends on their returning to Khorassan with a receipt from the Khan of Ghalakua for my safe delivery, there is little reason to fear actual violence from them, and their childish attempts at extortion by other methods will furnish an amusing and instructive ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... yet another cause which increases the difficulty of describing undergraduate life with truth. There are very many varieties of undergraduates, who have very various ways of occupying and amusing themselves. A steady man that reads his five or six hours a day, and takes his pastime chiefly on the river, finds that his path scarcely ever crosses that of him who belongs to the Bullingdon Club, hunts thrice a week, ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... ones can wander with interest through coloured pictures and easy fairy tales. Among the coloured picture series, the Old Mother Hubbard of 1793, with its contrast, Old Mother Hubbard of To-day, is very amusing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... a Saturday afternoon in early winter, and the cadets of Colby Hall Military Academy were out in force to enjoy themselves on the smooth ice of the lake, near which the school was located. The cadets had been amusing themselves in various ways, playing tag and hockey, and in "snapping the whip," as it is called, when Gif Garrison, at the head of the athletic ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... but firm reasonableness of some of the representatives of the more considerable powers. The committee meetings were, in fact, not only more effective than the Assembly meetings, but more stimulating, more amusing. ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... becomes as much a beacon as it is a vehicle of amusement. We consider this to be the true art of novel writing, and that crime and folly and error can be as severely lashed as virtue and morality can be upheld, by a series of amusing causes and effects, that entice the reader to take a medicine, which, although rendered agreeable to the palate, still produces the same internal benefit, as if it had been presented to him in its crude state, in which it would either be refused ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... Brazil which they had not conquered to the king of Portugal, who agreed to leave that part which they had conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing about, with such good allies. But the Dutch government soon began to oppress the Portuguese colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves with complaints, took arms against their new masters, and by their own valour and resolution, with the connivance, indeed, but without any avowed assistance from the mother country, drove them out of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... not quite one of the inner circle, you know. But we like him. He is really clever and very amusing. He is one of the heads of the Medical Faculty of our London University. All medical men, you know, wear that purple. But, of course, people who are paid by fees for doing something—" She smiled away the social ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... to women. When you sit alone and silent you are defending in your mind the poor women from attacks which cannot possibly touch them. I wonder what can touch them? But to soothe your uneasiness I will point out again that an Irrelevant world would be very amusing, if the women take care to make it as charming as they alone can, by preserving for us certain well-known, well-established, I'll almost say hackneyed, illusions, without which the average male creature cannot get on! And that condition is very important. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I shall be—we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it sounds very reasonable. Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety, than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the matter—that is, if he is free. And yet—" He turned and frowned thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how the boy is supporting himself all this ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... part was a representation of "The Babes in the Wood," which went very smoothly, and appeared to suit the general taste of the spectators. Then followed a "skeleton dance," and next we gave with the puppets an amusing harlequinade by clown, pantaloon, and butterfly. Yes, and here the real fun of the evening came in. The butterfly took a great deal of catching. Mr Howard and his good lady and myself were leaning over a rail (behind the scenes, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... "we have been regretting your absence particularly this evening, because we are navigating the North Sea, where you have been so often tossed to and fro, and we thought it quite possible you might have met with some amusing or instructive incidents in your travels along the coast, which would agreeably relieve the tedium of our voyage. Now I see no reason why you should not accompany your friend to Scotland, and charm us with a soul-stirring ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... mean the use of a word in vulgar Latin with another meaning from that which it has in formal Latin. We are familiar enough with the different senses which a word often has in conversational and in literary English. "Funny," for instance, means "amusing" in formal English, but it is often the synonym of "strange" in conversation. The sense of a word may be extended, or be restricted, or there may be a transfer of meaning. In the colloquial use of "funny" we have an extension of its literary sense. The same is true of "splendid," "jolly," "lovely," ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... first carriage closed with a snap, there was a relaxing of ceremony, and an interchange of congratulations, earnest, though somewhat amusing. For when Hervey raised his eyes to the despised mother's face, he saw there the soft features of Mrs. Raynor, while his father smiled in contented expectancy. His own ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... work for anyone from cover to cover, the hard piety, the snobbishness, the brutality of taking the children to the old gallows and seating them before the dangling remains of a murderer, while the lesson of brotherly love is impressed are shocking when they are not amusing; but to the child the doings of the naughty and repentant little Fairchilds are engrossing; and experience proves to us that the twentieth-century child is as eager for the book as were ever ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic story of ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Montezuma is transformed into a barbarous Indian chief, and the city of Mexico becomes a rude Indian village, situated among the islands and lagoons of an everglade which afforded unusual facilities "for fishing and snaring birds." One goes so far as to maintain this with considerable vehemence and amusing unconsciousness of absurdity. He is sure that Montezuma was nothing more than the principal chief of a parcel of wild Indian tribes, and that the Pueblos are wild Indians changed to their present condition by Spanish influence. There is something in ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Clissold, and as a rule were ridden, the sea having only recently frozen. The exercise ground had lain on the boulder-strewn sand of the home beach and extending towards the Skua lake; and across these stretches I soon saw barebacked figures dashing at speed, and not a few amusing incidents in which horse and rider parted with abrupt lack of ceremony. I didn't think this quite the most desirable form of exercise for the beasts, but decided to leave matters as they were till our pony ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... to the incursions of this time into politics, which, if not much happier, were more amusing. The chief monument of them is the long unreprinted Friendship's Garland, which has always had some fervent devotees, and is very characteristic. It so happened that the period when Essays in Criticism, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... he had shown when entering it. Dr. Martineau had thrust him back from his intenser prepossessions to a more generalized view of himself, had made his troubles objective and detached him from them. He could even find something amusing now in his situation. He liked the immense scope of the theoretical duet in which they had indulged. He felt that most of it was entirely true—and, in some untraceable manner, absurd. There were entertaining possibilities in the ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... my finger for the world. You are my world, Dora. If you approve, then I am game. I shall be all right in a few days, and then—then I'll go and do my bit of time, and see the inside of Sing-Sing. It'll be amusing. There's a cab. That's ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... same time, and Alick and Terence accompanied Jack to that often-talked-of and well-loved home of his in Northamptonshire. It must not be forgotten that they had in their train the most sensible of travelled apes. Master Queerface, who, by his amusing antics and performances, and extraordinary monkeyish sagacity, gained the admiration of the whole surrounding neighbourhood. There they remained for some weeks, when, after Alick and Terence had paid a short visit ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... more like a rough than an ill-natured rag; but the whimpering unseen victim seemed to have no kick in him: and Roy could only sit there wondering helplessly what people were made of who found it amusing to hurt and frighten other people, who had ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... an amusing companion who, during the long night journey to the Mediterranean, recounted to me many of his interesting experiences. His French was better than his English, so we conversed in ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... show how easily I could disarm and kill them. This practice excited some interest in Kua-ko, who had a little more of curiosity and geniality and less of the put-on dignity of the others, and with him I became most intimate. Fencing with Kua-ko was highly amusing: no sooner was he in position, foil in hand, than all my instructions were thrown to the winds, and he would charge and attack me in his own barbarous manner, with the result that I would send his foil spinning ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... showed no sign of fatigue. High-spirited and intensely amusing, it seemed to promise many more—for into almost old age he had carried the imagination and energy in which as a very young man we saw his resemblance to the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... to laugh at the amusing figure I cut after I had really ceased to have any deep feeling in the matter. It was then I took it into my head to be a Blighted Being. This was about two weeks after the spectral ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... badly sharpened axes that had hacked, without destroying, Messieurs de Chalais and De Thou upon the scaffold. She recovered herself, however, and said, "I was perfectly right in saying you were a witty woman, for you are making the time pass away most agreeably. This joke is a most amusing one, for I have never ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... discovered a few centuries ago, that the time would come when I should write upon this subject, in the very land, and almost on the very spot that gave birth to Moses and the Pharoahs, I should have thought him amusing himself with a jest; nevertheless such is the fact. I write this book; on the banks of old Nile, and in sight of ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... the goose eat, and from that on Mr. Pryor laughed until you could easily see that he had very little feeling for suffering humanity. It was funny enough when we fed her, but now that she was bursted wide open there was nothing amusing about it; and to roar when a visitor plainly told you she was in awful trouble, didn't seem very good manners to me. The Princess and her mother never even smiled; and before I had told nearly all of it, Thomas was ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... a likely place ahead there," remarked Larry, who had been amusing himself with a pair of marine glasses Phil had brought along with him; and which promised to be particularly useful, once the motor boat reached the big waters ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... unentertaining, our author has, in this group of faces, ridiculed the want of capacity among some of our judges, or dispensers of the law, whose shallow discernment, natural disposition, or wilful inattention, is here perfectly described in their faces. One is amusing himself in the course of trial, with other business; another, in all the pride of self-importance, is examining a former deposition, wholly inattentive to that before him; the next is busied in thoughts quite foreign to the subject; and the senses ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... guild, but a rather startling, amusing neighbor, who always minds Ins own business and is an ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... above twenty pages to instances of the superstition and credulity of the Jews about the time of Christ. The contents of these pages would be amusing if they did not reveal such deep mental degradation in a race which Christians regard as sacred, because of God's ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... The reproach of being amusing has somewhat dimmed your fame—for a moment. The shadow of this tyranny will soon be overpast; and when "La Curee" and "Pot-Bouille" are more forgotten than "Le Grand Cyrus," men and women—and, above all, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... let at last to a friend and colleague of the Professor. Mrs. Walker doubtless would remember Professor Theobald, who used to come and stay at Craddock Place rather frequently some years ago, a big man with beard and moustache, very learned and very amusing. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... pause. "Is there anything amusing about being loved?" she thought; "what patient women the great coquettes of the world must have been! How I wish I were a crisp intelligent old maid, with a talent perhaps for gardening ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... obtains absolution. On his return to the hall he solaces the ladies with comely carols and all kinds of joy (ll. 1866-1892). The dark night came, and then the lord of the castle, having slain the fox, returns to his "dear home," where he finds a fire brightly turning and his guest amusing the ladies (ll. 1893-1927). Gawayne, in fulfilment of his agreement, kisses his host thrice.[1] "By Christ," quoth the other knight, "ye have caught much bliss. I have hunted all this day and nought have I got but the skin of this foul fox (the devil have the goods!), and that is full poor ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... Grangers had been no whit behind in sanguinary reprisals. He remembered seeing this same Jase Vaughn, now riding unsuspectingly toward the loaded rifle, at a corn shucking once. Ralph then thought him a very jolly, amusing fellow. ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown |
