"Humour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 The policy had to be abandoned, and in the utmost ill-humour Congress repealed the embargo, on March 1, 1809, substituting non-intercourse with England and France.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
... to be my companions on my journey to Paris; and it required no great powers of penetration to perceive that the elder was decided upon viewing all with a jaundiced eye, whilst the younger was disposed to be pleased and in good humour, with all around him. The conducteur announcing that the Diligence was ready and that we must speedily take our seats, abruptly interrupted all my physiognomical meditations, and we quickly repaired to the heavy lumbering vehicle in which we were destined ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... 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
... 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, to perfection. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... 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 |
