"Tickle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cause a normally hidden bug to manifest itself through some known series of inputs or operations. "You can tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA card's highlight handling by trying to set bright ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... two very tall deer greyhounds, and presiding over half a dozen curs, and about as many bare-legged and bare-headed boys, who, to procure the chosen distinction of attending on the chase, had not failed to tickle his ears with the dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley, though probably all and each had hooted him on former occasions in the character of daft Davie. But this is no uncommon strain of flattery to persons in ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... smells, some to tickle a flat stomach, others to wrinkle the nose. Under the rider the big stud moved, tossed his head, drawing the young man's attention from the town back to his own immediate concerns. The animal he rode, the two he led were, at first ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... eyes with his hands and mused for a few minutes; then he finally said, "Mr. Sawyer, I have got an idea. That fellow, Strout, thinks he runs this town, and it would tickle him to death if he thought he made things uncomfortable for you. Then, again, I happen to know that he is sweet on Huldy Mason himself, and he would do all he could to widen the breach between 'Zeke and ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... was always glad 'cause I could ride the crank they had the mules hitched to. And then after the cotton was ginned they took it to the press and you could hear that screw go z-m-m-m and dreckly that 'block and tickle' come down. Yes mam, I sure did ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... been well for the writer of the above-mentioned leaderette had he referred to the ninth of ELIA's Popular Fallacies, and been thereby reminded how "a pun is a pistol let off at the ear; and not a feather to tickle the intellect." The Baron is prepared to admit that the lesson to be learned from this delightful Essay of CHARLES LAMB's is, that a pun once let off, has fizzled off, and cannot be repeated with its ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... to supper. My good wife knows how to tickle the palate of my friends, and you are ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... and fly, with a sarcastic grin, as if some evil genius outside himself had done the deed. Henceforth he will be in the mood to invite all mishaps that are possible and probable. In climbing a stile he will tickle the hawthorn hedge with his rod top, swing his suspended landing net into the thorns, and perhaps shake his fly-book out of his pocket in petulant descent from the top bar. If there is a bramble thicket anywhere in the parish, or a tall patch of meadow sweet in the rear, or a convenient ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... quite a space, until the tanner began to come upon the deer and to draw his bow in order to tickle the victim's ribs with a cloth-yard shaft. But just at this moment Robin unluckily trod upon a twig which snapped and caused the tanner to ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... fellow-man, with their handkerchiefs covering their bare heads. Nor of a judge who gallantly remembers the temper of a concierge. Nor of a whole court sitting in silence, while the windows are opened and closed. There was nothing in all this to tickle the play of French humor. But then, we remembered, France is not the land of humorists, but of wits. Monsieur d'Alencon down yonder, as he rises from his chair to address the judge and jury, will prove to you and me, in the next two hours, how ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... It was necessary to flatter their Vanity by telling them that they were the favour'd Children of God, to satisfy their Passions by allowing them to be treacherous and cruel to their Enemies, and to tickle their Ears by Stories and Farces by turns ridiculous and horrible, fit either for a Nursery or Bedlam. By such Contrivances I was able to attain my Ends and to establish the Welfare of my Countrymen. ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... roared Astro. "Promise you won't call me names again, or by the stars, I'll tickle you until you ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... you get down, too. 'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' You two are in such a sweatin' wax with me that you only curse. 'Member that. I'll tickle you up with a stump. You'll ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... think 'tis an ordinary house ... wouldst thou not?" he repeated, sinking his voice to a whisper, murmuring right into her ear so that his breath blew her hair about, causing it to tickle her cheek. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... seem to tickle the folks. I was about to kindle the fire with it one day when I happened to think that if it would make a high-school commencement laugh it ought to raise a laugh out of 'most anybody. So I touched it up and put ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... "I hope you've enjoyed our little joke. We don't want to carry it too far. Kidnappers! Well, wouldn't it tickle your uncle? My name's Rhinegelder, and I'm a nephew of Chauncey Depew. My friend's a second cousin of the editor of Puck. So you can see. We are down South enjoying ourselves in our humorous way. Now, there's two quarts of cognac to open yet, ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... crime, Mother, for a man to aspire to high office, if the bee's in his bonnet. You know I've felt it tickle ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... word, and no mistake. A sinful trespass on the works of God, to tickle the vanity of gals. But he never spread himself abroad like them. They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks, and smiles. But he never would have shown his nose, if he could help it, that stormy night when I come ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... pest. They were numerous and annoying, although we found that they did not bite so hard nor tickle the skin so much as do the flies in our country. Among the first purchases made by the tourists in Luxor were fly brushes made of palm fiber or of white horsehair with wooden handles and loops to attach them to the wrist. It was amusing to see English, German, and American tourists switching ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... Sumichrast," cried the Indian; "these beasts die very hard, and I still bear the marks of their claws on my skin. Let me just tickle him up with the point of ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... I love to lurk in the gloom of the wood Where the lithesome stags are roaming, And to send a sly shaft just to tickle their ribs Ere I smuggle them ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... said the latter, who had sprung from the box at Edith's order, "do you stand by the gate, an' I'll tickle that feller with this whip, an' see ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... cried Hugh, striding forward with his man-of-the-wide-world air, and holding out his big hand. 'No doubt they're having a high old time at the club. Does it please them? Does it tickle them?' ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... not matter whether they turn or not. But cobras have no business to imitate them till poor rookies think they have no poison in them, and that they can tickle them with a switch. What a great hulking brute that man was! You ricked him when you threw him! I saw him just before I left Adelaide. He's ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... to finish he lay with his nose on the grass; he was lifted in the air and thrown down with force—father had thrown him high up with his knees, according to his old habit. Yura felt offended; but father, entirely ignoring his anger, began to tickle him under his armpits, so that Yura had to laugh against his will; and then father picked him up like a little pig by the legs and carried him to the ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... Jerusalem coming down from God to man are antipodal to his conceptions. His God is seen going up to some cloudless region instead of coming down to tabernacle with men. His sermons feed the feelings but neglect the intellect and will, they tickle the ear and subordinate truth to eloquence. The greater emphasis he puts on churchianity is a loss to Christianity. The contribution which modern thought is making to Biblical interpretation is sealed to him. He pursues his beaten path along the old ruts of ecclesiasticism. He believes ...
— The Defects of the Negro Church - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 10 • Orishatukeh Faduma
... dinner-tables. Sampson's town and college pleasantries were all new and charming to the young Virginian. A hundred years ago,—no doubt there are no such people left in the world now,—there used to be grown men in London who loved to consort with fashionable youths entering life; to tickle their young fancies with merry stories; to act as Covent Garden Mentors and masters of ceremonies at the Round-house; to accompany lads to the gaming-table, and perhaps have an understanding with the punters; to drink lemonade to Master Hopeful's Burgundy, and to stagger into ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of suffering; he who had brought back out of the great shadow so touching a cry. He had been flung against that huge rock the frivolity of the fortunate. He believed himself an avenger; he was but a clown. He thought that he wielded the thunderbolt; he did but tickle. In place of emotion, he met with mockery. He sobbed; they burst into gaiety, and under that gaiety ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... bath Is famous, Subtle, by my means. Sweet Dol, You must go tune your virginal, no losing O' the least time: and, do you hear? good action. Firk, like a flounder; kiss, like a scallop, close; And tickle him with thy mother tongue. His great Verdugoship has not a jot of language; So much the easier to be cozen'd, my Dolly. He will come here in a hired coach, obscure, And our own coachman, whom I have sent as guide, No creature else. [KNOCKING ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... unknown in Samoa. I had to go to Folau, the chief judge here, in the matter. Folau had never heard of the offence, and begged to know what was the punishment; there may be lively times in forgery ahead. It seems the sort of crime to tickle a Polynesian. After lunch - you can see what a busy three days I am describing - we set off to ride home. My Jack was full of the devil of corn and too much grass, and no work. I had to ride ahead and leave Fanny behind. He is a most gallant little rascal is my Jack, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time if... if he took her out again. Yet there was little doubt of that, for when a man danced with one girl a whole day he did not drop her immediately. Almost she hoped that he was a prizefighter. There was a delicious tickle of wickedness about it. Prizefighters were such terrible and mysterious men. In so far as they were out of the ordinary and were not mere common workingmen such as carpenters and laundrymen, they represented romance. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... the feet and the palms of the hands are extremely sensitive, having abundance of nerves, as we find if we tickle them. If the feet are put often into hot water, they will become habitually cold, and make one more or less delicate and nervous. On the other hand, by rubbing the feet often in cold water, they will become permanently ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... answered. She bent a little lower, tracing out the lines on the dog's wrinkled forehead with her finger. "Several men have asked her to marry. But there is only one man in the world, I fancy, whom Mary would ever care to marry—poor Camp, did I tickle you?—and he, I believe, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... again! The Norma Beautiful Film Corporation doesn't tickle my pink rose on the eardrums! She doesn't ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... to worship Paul. He nursed the child on his knees from the time he entered Les Peuples to the time he left, sometimes holding him the whole afternoon, and it was marvelous to see how delicately and tenderly he touched him with his huge hands. He would tickle the child's nose with the ends of his long moustaches, and then suddenly cover his face with kisses almost as passionate as Jeanne's. It was the great trouble of his life that ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... trouble that the next stage was the introduction of codes and code names. At first these were very simple, we were "John" after Col. Jones, the 5th Lincolnshires "Sand," from Sandall, etc., while "gas" became the innocent "Gertie," and to attack was "to tickle." One very famous message was sent when an expected gas attack had to be suddenly postponed—"John can sleep quiet to-night, Gertie will not tickle." Later we became "Sceptre," when all units in the Division were called after race-horses, and still later, ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... exculpatory letter (May 7th), as to the disaster on his right, said: "Milroy's old brigade was attacked and gave way in great confusion, almost without resistance, carrying good troops with them."(10) This statement may have been made to tickle Halleck's ear, as he was known to hate Milroy and his friends, but it was, nevertheless, untrue and grossly unjust. Of the three regiments from the Shenandoah Valley, 494 (one third their number) fell dead or wounded on that field, through inefficiency and blunders ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... offspring safe beneath the waves. I fear me that, however our poor damsel be regarded, she will be treated as a mere bait and tool. If not bestowed on some foreign prince (and there hath been talk of dukes and archdukes), she may serve to tickle the pride of some Scottish thief, such as ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the influence of gin-and-water, and the tender passion, become violently affectionate: and the fair objects of their regard enhance the value of stolen kisses, by a vast deal of struggling, and holding down of heads, and cries of 'Oh! Ha' done, then, George—Oh, do tickle him for me, Mary—Well, I never!' and similar Lucretian ejaculations. Little old men and women, with a small basket under one arm, and a wine-glass, without a foot, in the other hand, tender 'a drop o' the right sort' to the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... valuable paper where he would be most likely to obtain a good, durable, wild fox which could be used for hunting purposes on my premises? I desire a fox that is a good roadster, and yet not too bloodthirsty. If I could secure one that would not bite, it would tickle ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... Mappo laugh. The merry little monkey laughed so hard that the next time he tried to tickle Jacko, Mappo's paw slipped, and Jacko, turning around, saw ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... you've got to walk. I don't mind your wiggling your tail, but you tickle my ribs with your hind claws and you pound my head with your hard old jaws. Now come along straight, or instead of being ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... suppose he likes it, Young one with annoying paw? If I only were your mother, I'd tickle you with birchen straw. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... white charger, his trappings set with turquoise, with a gorgeous canopy supported over his head. Just as he reached the bridge the air became full of the music of singing birds, twenty-five hundred of them at that moment released, and all fluttering, darting, singing amid the gorgeous scene to tickle the fancy of ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... that, with my facilities for getting about, I could get into a certain mangled farm on our left and remain in the roof unseen in daylight. From there I felt sure that, with the aid of a rifle, I could tickle up a Boche or two in their trenches hard by. I was immensely taken with this idea. So, one morning (like Robinson Crusoe again) I set off with my fowling-piece and ammunition, and crawled towards the farm. I got there all right, and entering the dark and evil-smelling ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... awhile yet," said the guide, "and then I'll put one of the Injuns on. Don't get scared if ye hear a shot early in the mornin', for I'm goin' out to see if I can get a caribou. I hear they're pretty thick up here in the foothills, and it'll tickle these Injuns to death. The poor fellers have been workin' the canneries all summer and ain't had a mouthful of fresh meat all that time. A little feast'll put more heart into 'em ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... intolerably close and there was a fly who persecuted me. As I lay there he came and settled on my hand. He waited, watching me with his wicked sneering eyes, then he crept forward, and waited again, rubbing his legs one against the other. Then very slyly, laughing to himself, he began to tickle me. I slashed with my hand at him, he flew into the air, sneering, then with a little "ping" settled on the back of my neck. I vowed that I would not mind him; I lay still. He began then to crawl very slowly forward towards my ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... remind him of, and therefore that it was bad. If the gallery could be bequeathed to the nation, something might, perhaps, be gained, but the nation would complain of the draughts and the absence of chairs. But no matter. In another world we shall see certain gentlemen set to tickle the backs of Circe's swine through all eternity. Also, they will have to tickle ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... him, with secret ioy therefore Did tickle inwardly in everie vaine; And his false hart, fraught with all treasons store, 395 Was fil'd with hope his purpose to obtaine: Himselfe he close upgathered more and more Into his den, that his deceiptfull traine By his ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... is a good thing to laugh, and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness, and ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... for authors nobler palms remain; Room for my lord! three jockeys in his train; Six huntsmen with a shout precede his chair: He grins, and looks broad nonsense with a stare. His honour's meaning Dulness thus express'd, 'He wins this patron, who can tickle best.' ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length one general cry Tickle and entertain us, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... paper which should be taken largely by the masses, and which is absolutely pure. When I came out with Tit-Bits there was not a single popular paper containing fun or jokes or anything of the kind—except the illustrated ones—but what relied more or less upon prurient matter to tickle the fancies of prurient minds. Besides, my idea is that, just at present, the Board Schools tend to a certain hardness and narrowness of character, which is perhaps softened down by the development by these papers ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in some Dutch canal, the fat ufrow gelt, impregnated by a jolly merchant of Amsterdam, was delivered: in Grub-street school didst thou suck in the elements of thy erudition. Here hast thou, in thy maturer age, taught poetry to tickle not the fancy, but the pride of the patron. Comedy from thee learns a grave and solemn air; while tragedy storms aloud, and rends th' affrighted theatres with its thunders. To soothe thy wearied limbs in slumber, Alderman History tells his tedious tale; ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... wire-draw poetry through inextricable coils of difficult rhymes and impossible measures; to hammer one golden grain of wit into a sheet of infinite platitude, with frightful ingenuity to construct ponderous anagrams and preternatural acrostics, to dazzle the vulgar eye with tawdry costumes, and to tickle the vulgar ear with virulent personalities, were tendencies which perhaps smacked of the hammer, the yard-stick and the pincers, and gave sufficient proof, had proof been necessary, that literature is not one of the mechanical arts, and that poetry can not be manufactured to a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the wine, however, came the consoling reflection that Iris as a scullery-maid might not tickle the fancy of the dotard who had undertaken to provide fifty thousand pounds for the new partnership. And she had promised—that was everything. His lack of diplomacy was obvious even to himself, but he had won where a man of finer temperament might have failed. Now, he must rush the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... father, stooping to tickle. 'I suppose,' he added, when maid and infant had gone, 'if one's going to have mumps, they may as well all have ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... and finally she found her line and then, sure enough, she and I are closer relations than you and Miss Ann. Then she called me Cousin Prudence and asked me to call her Cousin Betty. I'm afraid I can never get the courage to do that, but it does kind of tickle me for them to be claiming relationship with me too. We are the same folks we have ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... day,—clothes and jewellery and candy,—what the woman had desired that day. This group moved on and another took its place. The books and the magazines disappeared like the theatre tickets and the cigars and cigarettes at the neighboring stand,—feeding the maw of the multitude, which sought to tickle different groups of brain cells. Gay little books, saucy little books, cheap little books, pleasant little books,—all making their bid to certain cells in the gray matter of these sated human beings! A literature composed chiefly ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Cato's Res Rustica's far short of May. Here's taught to keep all sorts of flesh in date, All sorts of Fish, if you will marinate; To candy, to preserve, to souce, to pickle, To make rare Sauces, both to please, and tickle The pretty Ladies palats with delight; Both how to glut, and gain an Appetite. The Fritter, Pancake, Mushroom; with all these, The curious Caudle made of Ambergriese. He is so universal, he'l not miss, The Pudding, nor Bolonian Sausages. Italian, Spaniard, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... absence from nonsense or nauseating sentimentality. Were our present churches to observe more of this plain talk, for which the good old Anglo-Saxon is as fully expressive and convincing as the old Hebrew, and deal less in rhetorical flourishes and figurative mean-nothings to tickle the ears of our modern Pharisees, mankind as well as womankind would be infinitely so much the better off, mentally, morally, and physically, and there would be less of the conflict between science and religion. Luther's dream of restoring religion to its primitive purity has ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... to the negro than any others on this continent. The alluvial lands, which many persons believe the negroes alone can cultivate, on account of climatic conditions, are so rich that it might literally be said it is only necessary to tickle them with a hoe to make them laugh back a harvest. The common prosperity of the country—the agricultural interests of the South and the commercial interests of the North—will be best served, therefore, by the continued residence ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... haddock, to turn me adrift in the dark with such a spanker. D'ye think he don't, my dear?" To this question his fellow-traveller replied, "Swanker anan!" And the lover resumed his suit, saying, "Oons! how you tickle my timber! Something shoots from your arm, through my stowage, to the very keelstone. Han't you got quicksilver in your hand?"—"Quicksilver!" said the lady, "d—n the silver that has crossed my hand this month; d'ye think, if I had silver, I shouldn't ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Allardyce hoped that the proceedings might drag along for a couple of years, when Mistress Lucy would be of age and her own mistress. And so 'twas with a light heart that I went on to Shrewsbury, to tickle the ears of my old friends there with the ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... let it come. Look, look! Here comes in sooth, anon follows, close upon them quoth he, withal, sirrah, I trow, and a general sprinkling of sundry. But try again; tickle your throat; that will help. Hard, by has not come up yet, nor a-weary, nor rehearse, nor quandary. Oh, there are lots of them lurking yet, a whole stomachful. It would be well to get rid of some of them by ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... t' war started, and I telled t' cows all about it t' neet afore. 'Ye mun do your best, cushies, to-morn', I said. 'T' King'll be wantin' a sup o' milk to his ham and eggs, and I reckon 'twill do him more gooid nor his pint o' beer, choose how. An' just you think on that gentle-fowks has tickle bellies. Don't thou go hallockin' about i' t' tonnup-field, Eliza, and get t' taste o' t' tonnups into thy cud same as thou did last week.' Eh! they was set up about it, was t' cows; I'd niver seen 'em so chuffy. So next day, just to put ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... wooden plows and brush harrows, and then heard that they raise excellent crops of grain, I was satisfied that the land must be very fertile; and I was reminded of a certain humorist's remark about the fertility of some land in Kansas, of which he said, "All you need to do is to tickle the ground with a hoe, and it will laugh with a big harvest." Farther on the rocks almost entirely disappear, and there is spread out a beautiful valley, extending far to the south, whose fertility and pasturage attracted ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... people. When he was just midway across, the little door opened once more, and a gaudily-dressed fellow like a buffoon sprang out, and went rapidly after the first one. "Go on, halt-foot," cried his frightful voice, "go on, lazy-bones, interloper, sallow-face!—lest I tickle thee with my heel! What dost thou here between the towers? In the tower is the place for thee, thou shouldst be locked up; to one better than thyself thou blockest the way!"—And with every word ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... a pipe just now! I may just as well sit on a gate and think. No, hang it, I hate thinking now. There are troubles hanging over me, as sure as the tail of that comet grows. How I detest that comet! No wonder the fish won't rise. But if I have to strip, and tickle them in the dark, I won't go back ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... content she is," said the old dwarf; "and, oh! how she dances; my feet tickle at the ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and moon-rise Chill and burn at once on the earth— When love-tears and love-sighs Tickle up boisterous mirth— When fate-stars are shooting, Sparks of love to the maid To fill her funeral eye with light, And owlets are hooting Her sire's ghost, which she's unlaid With vexation, down backward in night; Then the lover may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... Some people prostrate themselves before the beast. His entrance into a house is supposed to bring a blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is a blessing. Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish. After being thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with arrows. His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed on the table where the feast is set out. Here they beg pardon of the beast and worship ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... don't laugh idly at Harry Champion. His gaiety is not the superficial gaiety of the funny man who makes you laugh but does nothing else to you. He does you good. I honestly believe that his performance would beat down the frigid steel ramparts that begird the English "lady." His songs thrill and tickle you as does the gayest music of Mozart. They have not the mere lightness of merriment, but, like that music, they have the deep-plumbing gaiety of the love of life, for joy ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... character of my reputation. I was at the mercy of the next man who should succeed in inventing a new slang, or a funnier way of spelling. These things, in literature, are like "fancy drinks" among the profane. They tickle the palates of the multitude for a while, but they don't wear like the plain old beverages. I saw very plainly, that much more was to be gained, in the long run, by planting myself—not with a sudden and startling jump, but by a graceful, cautious pirouette—upon a basis of the Moral and the Didactic. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... you be stabbed by a soldier? Mass, that's true! when was Bobadill here, your captain? that rogue, that foist, that fencing Burgullion? I'll tickle him, i'faith. ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... Maine are given to the French; Paris is lost; the state of Normandy Stands on a tickle point now they are gone. Suffolk concluded on the articles, The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter. I cannot blame them all: what is't to them? 'T is thine they give away, and not their own. ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... I did, mother. I did not know you intended to keep the matter secret. And it did so tickle them! But no one else knows it, so I will run back to John and pledge him to secrecy. You can caution Mr Jackman, who will ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... coachman? Is Miss Granville better? Has Mrs. Masham made a brave hand of this bad season, and lived upon carcases like any vampire? Adieu! I am just going to see Mrs. Muscovy,(1307) and will be sure not to laugh if my old lady should talk of Mr. Draper's white skin, and tickle his bosom ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... never—" She gasped between the kisses. And then she began, very softly and lightly, to tickle ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... it would be full as well for me to stay in to-day," replied Harry happily. He hemmed a little as he spoke, realizing the tickle in his throat with rather a pleasant sense of importance than annoyance. He stretched himself luxuriously in his chair, and gazed about ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his pocket. "You're a pretty good sociologist, after all, Mr. Hull. You're right. Face any group with Authority—with a capital A—and they quit thinking for themselves. And if they do, then the poor slob of an Authority doesn't have anything to tickle his own brains, so ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the captain of the guard to the gaoler. 'To be kept during the King's pleasure. I expect he means to get some pleasure out of them tomorrow! He'll tickle them up!' ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... life for the loot of it, Rainey," Lund declared. "Food an' drink to tickle my tongue an' fill my belly, the woman I happen to want, an' bein' able to buy ennything I set my fancy on. The answer to that is Gold. With it you can buy most enny thing. Not all wimmen, I'll grant you that. Not the kind of woman I'd want ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... business in China, and the Great Khan had loaded them with 'rubies and other handsome jewels of great value' to boot. Jewels were the most convenient form in which they could have brought home their wealth. But the inquiring Marco brought other things also to tickle the curiosity of the Venetians, as he lets fall from time to time in his book. He brought, for example, specimens of the silky hair of the Tangut yak, which his countrymen much admired, the dried head and feet of a musk deer, and the seeds of a dye plant (probably indigo) from Sumatra, which ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... ammunition. "Not a high explosive shell in the lot," he mourned. "I'll have to use percussion fire to get the range; then I'll drop back a little an' spray her with shrapnel. Seems a pity to smash up a fine schooner like that one with percussion fire. I'd rather tickle 'em up a bit with shrapnel an' scare ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... accordingly, dexterously contriving to tickle Andy as he did so, which occasioned Andy to split out into a laugh, greatly to Haley's indignation, who made a cut at him ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of bacon and eggs and fried potatoes, bread and jam and black tea, and ate it from the kitchen table as was his habit except on state occasions. Sometimes a touch of the absurdity of his behavior would tickle his imagination—he, who might dine in the midst of wealth and splendor, with soft lights beating down upon him, soft music swelling through arching corridors, soft-handed waiters moving about on deep, silent carpetings, perhaps round white shoulders across the ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... side-dishes at first, but there comes a time when you've got to quit fooling with the minced chicken, and the imitation lamb chops of this world, and settle down to plain, everyday, roast beef, medium. That other stuff may tickle your palate for a while, but sooner or later it will turn on you, and ruin your moral digestion. You stick to roast beef, medium. It may sound prosaic, and unimaginative and dry, but you'll find that it wears in the long run. You can take me over to the ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... pride of a queen. Billy was the old horse who had pulled the family to church through the sand every Sunday since the children were babies, and Bess and Clover were white-starred, gentle-eyed cows, who let Gypsy pull their horns and tickle them with hay, and make pencil-marks on their white foreheads to her heart's content, and looked at Joy's strange face with great musing beautiful brown eyes. But Joy was afraid they would hook her, and she didn't like to ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... whether it appears in brilliant fancy dress illuminated by electric lights, or in the discreet light of a fashionable boudoir; whether it is clearly revealed or equivocal, perverted in one way or depraved in another; in all its forms its aim is to tickle, to excite, to seduce, to allure, by arousing lewdness and inflaming ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... lay in a valiant determination to behave herself the rest of this particular day. She would study hard. She would get to the head of the class. She wouldn't put a single pin in the girls' chairs, nor tickle anybody, nor make up funny faces, nor whisper, nor make one of the girls laugh, not one, not even that silly Delia Guest, who laughed at nothing,—why, you couldn't so much as make a doll out of your handkerchief and gloves, and hang it ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... gold. It has silver ceilings and jasper floors And stairs of marble and crystal doors; And whenever I go there, early or late, The two tame dragons who guard the gate And refuse to open the frowning portals To sisters, brothers and other mortals, Get up with a grin And let me in. And I tickle their ears and pull their tails And pat their heads and polish their scales; And they never attempt to flame or fly, Being quelled by me and my human eye. Then I pour them drink out of golden flagons, Drink for my two tame trusty dragons... But John, Who's a terrible fellow ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... certainly. I will send for the man. . . . Your business is private, you say? . . . I am very sorry: we are all at sixes and sevens here, with every office crowded. But there's an empty saloon—one of those absurdities with which the management in old days sought to tickle the public taste. They are going to turn it into a ward in a couple of days, and that's why we have left it unoccupied. If that will do, and you'll come with me, we'll see if the electric light functions. I believe the fitters were ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... minds of their own egotistical demands, then art will flourish and the artist will be encouraged to communicate that universal which he has experienced. But if particular audiences demand this or that and are not happy until they get it, if they say to him—Tickle my senses—Persuade me that all is for the best in the world as I like it; that prosperous people like myself have a right to be prosperous; that I am a fine fellow because I once fell in love; ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... stress cannot easily be laid on this feeling of equality in the air as a potent enhancer of the pleasure of society. To feel yourself patronised—even, perhaps especially, when you know yourself to be in all respects the superior of the patroniser—may tickle your sense of humour for a while, but in the long run it is distinctly dispiriting. The philosopher, no doubt, is or should be able to disregard the petty annoyances arising from an ever-present consciousness of social limitation, but society is not entirely composed of philosophers, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... in to play with Archie and Quentin after they have gone to bed, and they have grown to expect me, jumping up, very soft and warm in their tommies, expecting me to roll them over on the bed and tickle and "grabble" in them. However, it has proved rather too exciting, and an edict has gone forth that hereafter I must play bear with them before supper, and give up the play when they have gone to bed. To-day was Archie's birthday, and Quentin resented Archie's having ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... for buttermilk. Sometimes, but not often, we found it. Once we met a genial old man just leaving his farm door, and told him that we were literally dying for a drink of buttermilk. Our expression seemed to tickle him. ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... we'll tickle their turnips, we'll butter their boxes. Shall strangers rule the roost? yes; but we'll baste the roost. Come, come; a ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... mine, thrown back in her fragrant hair. My feelings overflow, I can't resist such a chance for a jolly good game. I rummage and fumble about, excitedly poking my nose everywhere, till I find the crispy tip of a pink ear—Her ear. I nibble it just enough to tickle her—to make her cry out: "Stop, Toby! That's awful! Help! Help! ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... yo' want me to tickle yore back with the bud again. I don't allow to put up with no foolishness." He turned in explanation to the boy. "Brad Nickson seen him this side of the river to-day. He says this ain't the fustest time Roush has been seen hangin' 'round ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... another. Steam began to rise from the surface of the spring, little bubbles darted up from the bottom and burst. More hot stones were thrown into the water. Steam, soft and caressing, filled the cave. The temperature rose by leaps and bounds. The roots of Andramark's hair began to tickle—the tickling became unendurable, and ceased suddenly as the sweat burst from every pore of his body. His eyes closed; in his heart it was as if love-music were being played upon a flute. He was no longer conscious of hunger or thirst. He yielded, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... "Yo' don't tell me?" he said: "Half a milliun! dod rot it, but thet's good; thet's immense! how it would tickle ther boys out thar to know it! And yo' give the ole man a cool $100,000? What did they think of yo' then? Har, waiter, give us a quart of y'r—whatyer call it? O, yes, Widder Clicko (Cliquot); durned if we ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... religion degenerated into sordid avarice and ambition. Every church became a theater, where orators, instead of church teachers harangued, caring not to instruct the people, but striving to attract admiration, to bring opponents to public scorn, and to preach only novelties and paradoxes, such as would tickle the ears of their congregation. This state of things necessarily stirred up an amount of controversy, envy, and hatred, which no lapse of time could appease; so that we can scarcely wonder that of the ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... of a kid, after all, Billy," said Chet Belding. "Even if you are full of tickle," and he grinned ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... once defending a client, a lady of the name of Tickell, before one of the judges who was an intimate friend, and he opened his address to his lordship in these terms: "Tickell, my client, my lord." But the judge was equal to the occasion and interrupted him by saying: "Tickle her yourself, Harry, you're as able to do ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the flowers," said she. "They tickle the back of my neck, whenever I move my head. I am much ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... Laban. But although this hereditary succession to office with you may, in some degree, be founded in real family merit, yet in a much higher degree, it has proceeded from your strict alliance of Church and State. These families are canonized in the eyes of the people on the common principle, 'You tickle me, and I will tickle you.' In Virginia, we have nothing of this. Our clergy, before the revolution, having been secured against rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the trouble of acquiring ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... dinnertime. When they were at work they could not even wipe off their faces—they were as helpless as newly born babes in that respect; and it may seem like a small matter, but when the sweat began to run down their necks and tickle them, or a fly to bother them, it was a torture like being burned alive. Whether it was the slaughterhouses or the dumps that were responsible, one could not say, but with the hot weather there descended upon Packingtown a veritable Egyptian plague of flies; there could ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... welfare, science will be the doctrine of this vocation and welfare, and art will be the expression of that doctrine. That which is called science and art, among us, is the product of idle minds and feelings, which have for their object to tickle similar idle minds and feelings. Our arts and sciences are incomprehensible, and say nothing to the people, for they have not the welfare of the ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... A simple resolution of regret and respect is all that the occasion requires and would not inhibit any further utterance that friends and admirers of the deceased might be moved to make elsewhere. If any bereaved gentlemen, feeling his heart getting into his head, wishes to tickle his ear with his tongue by way of standardizing his emotion let him hire a hall and do so. But he should not make the Capitol a "Place of Wailing" and the Congressional ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... others to let the doctor pass when he arrived, I closed the door upon their curiosity, and went back to the King. He had left his bed and was standing near La Trape, endeavouring to hearten him; now telling him to tickle his throat with a feather, and now watching his sufferings in silence, with a face of gloom and despondency that sufficiently betrayed his reflections. At sight of the page, however, carrying the dead cat, he turned briskly, and we both examined the beast ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... laughed, and Harry, laughing too, cried out: "I don't mean that; I mean that they knit thumbs in their stockings, and stick their great toes in;—dear! how it must tickle!" ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... recognized? Then Mr. Washington said that our emancipation and enfranchisement were untimely and a mistake; that we were not ready for it. (Naturally, Mr. Washington said no such thing.) What did he say that for but to tickle the palates of the white people? Oh, yes, he was shrewd. He will get many hundreds of dollars for his school ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... was dealing fairly for the fish, if something smartly—was wind-bound at Heart's Ease Cove, riding safe in the lee of the Giant's Hand: champing her anchor chain; nodding to the swell, which swept through the tickle and spent itself in the landlocked water, collapsing to quiet. It was late of a dirty night, but the schooner lay in shelter from the roaring wind; and the forecastle lamp was alight, the bogie snoring, the crew sprawling at case, purring in the light and warmth and security of the ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... toes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It took him two days to die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away. But you? Ah! so easy! Chck!—the knife cuts your neck like that. It is finished. The knife may even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that way ever came back ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... was quick and quicker to learn— Bold and bolder to dare: He danced the dread Kloo-Kwallie Dance To tickle Itswoot the Bear! ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off her head comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off its ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... it possible?) said the long-handed fellow, "here's fun; let's tickle the old fellow's back ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... In this respect the Egyptians, Grecians, and Romans were no less blind or less brutish than the rudest and most ignorant Americans. Like these, they lay, as it were, buried within sensible things without going up higher; and they cultivated their wit, only to tickle themselves with softer sensations, without observing from what spring they proceeded. In this manner the generality of men pass away their lives upon earth. Say nothing to them, and they will think on nothing except what flatters either their brutish passions or vanity. ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... Gad, you're caught, struggle and flounder as you please, Sweetheart, you'll but intangle more; let me alone to tickle your Gills, i'faith. [Looking after her.—Uncle, get ye home about your Business; I hope you'll give me the good morrow, as becomes me—I say no more, a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... cruelty. On hearing, however, his own name imploringly pronounced, his English blood was up, and, rushing at the tyrant, he stayed his uplifted arm, and demanded the poor creature's life. He, of course, ran a great risk of losing his own; but the novelty of the event seemed to tickle the capricious chief, and he at once ordered the woman to ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... come to him, and rabbits and squirrels didn't mind him any more than if he was a tree. Did you ever tickle a lizard with a straw?" ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... borrow, he did not do so. He merely marked time, deriving a grim amusement at the way his popularity grew as his currency dwindled. It was a game, enjoyable so long as it lasted. Egotistical he knew himself to be, but it was a conscious fault; to tickle his own vanity filled him with the same satisfaction a cat feels at having its back rubbed, and he excused himself by reasoning that his deceit harmed nobody. Meanwhile, with feline alertness he waited for a mouse ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... of the earth along with their products. We have little doubt, could the fact be now ascertained, that it would be found turtle-soup was originally invented by just some such worthy as Jack Tier, who in filling his coppers to tickle the captain's appetite, had used all the condiments within his reach; ventured on a sort of Regent's punch; and, as the consequence, had brought forth the dish so often eulogized, and so well beloved. It is a little extraordinary that in ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... seh. Convussing to yo' 'eve'end fwend. You can ask him; he will co'obo'ate me in fact. Well, Mistoo Itchlin, it supp'ise me you not tickle at that. Me, I may say, I wish I had a wife to make ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... was first cast ashore at Holyhead, I had to go down to Dorsetshire. In those days the more enterprising farm-laborers used still to annually dress themselves up in order to tickle the gentry into disbursing the money needed to supplement a local-minimum wage. They called themselves the Christmas Mummers, and performed a play entitled Snt George. As my education had been of the typical Irish kind, and the ideas on which I had been nourished were precisely ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... pronounced, Paul turned against the older apostles, who insisted upon circumcision. With marvellous flexibility of mind, Paul placed circumcision and the Mosaic injunctions about meats upon a level with the ritual observances of pagan nations, allowing each feeble brother to perform such works as might tickle his fancy, but bidding all take heed that salvation was not to be obtained after any such mechanical method, but only by devoting the whole soul to righteousness, after the example ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... the car, holding his cigar between two thick fingers. "Then I guess she'll get it," he observed knowingly. "I don't think your musical friend is much on the grub-box. Has to keep her hands white to tickle the ivories." Giddy had nothing against Thea, but he felt cantankerous and wanted to get a rise out ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... melodious undertone, and Oliver liked her laugh, for it was peculiar, and had the effect of displaying a double row of pretty little teeth, and of almost entirely shutting up her eyes. She seemed to enjoy a laugh so much that he exerted all his powers to tickle her risible faculties, and dwelt long and graphically on his meeting with the irascible old gentleman in the lane. He was still busy with this part of the discourse when a heavy step was ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... knowledge of the meaning of words! When a bright light shines in your eyes, you see nothing else. When thunder rolls in your ears, you do not hear the ticking of a clock. When you suffer pain, you do not notice a feather's tickle. If my she-dog had linked her mind to yours, she would have experienced something which is knowledge more firmly fixed and more continuously known than anything else in your conscious life. This overwhelmingly strong conviction would have been so powerful ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... this act end? Listen to this. I quote largely from Andre Cheradame, a man who deals not in platitudes and conceits to tickle the vanity of a nation, ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell
... triumphs without a Rival, as was observ'd in the Preface to that Author; and for a just and close Observance of Nature, perhaps no Man living ever excell'd him. It ought to be observ'd, that Plautus was somewhat poor, and made it his principal Aim to please and tickle the Common People; and since they were almost always delighted with something new, strange, and unusual, the better to humour them, he was not only frequently extravagant in his Expressions, but likewise in his Characters too, and drew Men often more Vicious, more Covetous, more Foolish, ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... captain,' asked pathetic Smee, 'and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew?' Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wriggled it in the wound. One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... protested; "I have not got the least bit of cold, and I love the open window; it is so warm to-day. It was only a tickle; I get them sometimes—tell me about when you and Mrs. Pell were ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... "And doesn't the grass tickle your feet?" cried Frank, dancing about between the cots. "My, my! this is camping out in real earnest. O-o-o! Here's a trickle of water running under the side ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe |
