"Amusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... noticed by travellers; as, for instance, Kohl, Custine, &c. &c. Our readers will find the singular colour of the St Petersburg atmosphere (particularly observable in the winter, or at night) very well described in Sir George Lefevre's amusing "Notes of a Travelling Physician." This greenish tint is as peculiar to the banks of the Neva, as is the reddish-black to the neighbourhood of Birmingham or the Potteries; or the yellowish-brown (in November—"let rude ears be absent!") to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... town possesses, I presented myself with early dawn at the house of the Mudir. Although not yet 8 o'clock, I found him with the whole Medjlis in conclave around him. Thence the entire party accompanied me to inspect the fort, or such part of it as had escaped the ravages of time. It was rather amusing to see the abortive attempts at climbing of some of these fur-coated, smoke-dried old Mussulmans, who certainly did not all equal the Mudir in activity. The fort is a quadrilateral with bastions, and gates in each of the curtains; in two of ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... Yes: it is indeed. Frank will take you for a walk, Mr Praed, if you like. I'll ask you to excuse me: I must take the opportunity to write my sermon while Mrs Gardner is away and you are all amusing yourselves. You won't mind, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the canvas and, scarcely able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying to make ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... as the quarrel was Bertha's account of the occasion when she fell into the creek, and many funny recitations by Mr. Warner also made amusing records. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... dear," he said from within. "I am so sorry I disturbed you! But the reason is rather an amusing one: I fell asleep and dreamt that I was fighting that fellow again who insulted you, and the noise you heard was my pummelling away with my fists at my portmanteau, which I pulled out to-day for packing. I am occasionally liable to these freaks in my sleep. Go to bed and think ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... consented she returned to Paris and wrote the following cablegram from her own mother's house: "You have acted as a good son and a faithful husband. Bring back with you the mother of our (sic) child." And so, the author evidently feels, it all ended happily. His book is an interesting and amusing presentment of an older civilisation, but if it won't strain the Entente I am bound to say that I disagree ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... by the king's order, to a hut constructed of corn stalks of a square form, and a flat roof, supported by forked sticks; but out of derision to the Christian, Ali had ordered the wild hog before mentioned to be tied to one of the sticks, and it proved a very disagreeable inmate, the boys amusing themselves by beating and irritating the animal. Mr. Park was also again tormented by the curiosity of the Moors. He was obliged to take off his stockings to exhibit his feet, and even his jacket and waistcoat ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... was "his Majesty" while this work was being done? How was it with Catharine? We hear of no regrets, no misgivings; that she was calm, collected, suave, and unfathomable as ever; but that Charles, in a strange, half-frenzied state, was amusing himself by firing from the windows of the palace at the fleeing Huguenots. Had he killed himself in remorse, would it not have been better, instead of lingering two wretched years, a prey to mental tortures and an inscrutable malady, before ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... centres of flame, and all is soon stagnation, cold, and darkness. The "tripod of life" a French physiologist called these three organs. It is all clear enough which leg of the tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you exactly what the difficulty is;—which would be as intelligible and amusing as a watchmaker's description of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It is enough to say, that I found just what I expected to, and that I think this attack is only the prelude of more serious consequences,—which expression means you very well ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... interested to note how persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He suspected that it was all a feverish anodyne ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... made various excursions into the interior, visiting Simpheropol and Baktchiserai. I travelled to Simpheropol with a pretty large party, and had a very amusing journey. My companions were young and full of fun, and tried hard to persuade the Russians that I was Queen Victoria, by paying me the most absurd reverence. When this failed they fell back a little, and declared that I was the Queen's ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... that," Scott answered shortly. "Moreover, she is fully capable of taking care of herself. But Miss Bathurst is not. She is a mere child in many ways, but she takes things hard. If you are merely amusing yourself at her expense—" ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... began to twinkle with a new and amusing interpretation. "Ah!" she cried, "are you the gentleman ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... amusing anecdote, and in the wish to prepare future Authors, as young as I then was and as ignorant of the world, of[812:3] the treatment they may meet with, I will add, that the Person[812:4] who by a twice conveyed recommendation (in the year 1797) had urged me ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the best masters as models for the students, and proposed several of those in the Orleans collection. This recommendation was not relished, and in 1799 Barry was expelled from the academy, soon after the appearance of his Letter to the Dilettanti Society, a very amusing but eccentric publication, full of enthusiasm for his art and at the same time of contempt for the living professors of it. After the loss of his salary, a subscription was set on foot by the earl of Buchan to relieve him from his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... invited to theatrical entertainments, quite as amusing, and almost as refined as any which his celestial Majesty can command to be exhibited before a foreign ambassador. The king of Yourriba made a point of our traveller staying to witness these entertainments. They were exhibited in the king's park, in a square space, surrounded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... brig he hailed her harshly and asked if the master was on board. Schultz, smart and neat in a spotless white suit, leaned over the taffrail, finding the question somewhat amusing. He looked humorously down into Heemskirk's boat, and answered, in the most amiable modulations of his beautiful voice: "Captain Allen is up at the house, sir." But his expression changed suddenly at the savage growl: "What the devil are you ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... He and Voules had made the acquaintance of the lieutenant of the neighbouring coastguard station, who, having seen a great deal of service, and being a merry fellow, with a fund of anecdote, was an amusing companion. Lieutenant Hilton had several times been invited to dine at the hall, an honour he highly appreciated, although it cost him a long trudge there and back, over a somewhat wild region, with the risk of encountering some of the lawless characters of the neighbourhood, who looked upon him ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... amusing picture of Reynolds' hospitable but motley establishment, in an account given by a Mr. Courtenay to Sir James Mackintosh; though it speaks of a time after Reynolds had received the honor of knighthood. "There was something singular," said he, "in the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... to be ill-balanced, and the cargo had to be shifted. As this was being done she detected a number of swords hidden below the bags of kernels. Her eyes flashed, and the people scattered out of the way as she pitched the arms out on the beach. With a meekness that was amusing the men scrambled into their places and the canoe shot into the river, Mary taking a paddle and wielding it with the best of the men. The journey was made through dense darkness and drizzling rain, and occupied ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... calling at The Durdans, the home of Wilkins' former pupil, Lord Berkeley, found there a remarkable group, Petty, Rooke, and Wilkins, amusing themselves with "contrivances for chariots, and for a wheel for one to run races in,"—the first forms possibly of a hansom, and a cycle. "Perhaps," continues Evelyn, "three such persons were not to be found elsewhere in Europe for parts and ingenuity." Lord Rosebery, we may safely ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... I was thinking of the good-humoured face of Mrs McShane, which was much better than being in high company, and forgetting her entirely. Let me alone for amusing myself after my own fashion, O'Donahue, and that's all I wish. I suppose you have heard nothing in your travels about ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... the early part of the commercial period may be read in almost every book of the time, expressed in various degrees of dull or amusing pedantry, and show a naif arrogance and contempt of the times just past through which nothing but the utmost simplicity of ignorance could have attained to. But the times were stirring, and gave birth to the most powerful individualities in many branches of literature, ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... was a dance around the apple-basket, and a dance in which every man kissed every other man's vrow, and in which the Dominie joined, and was as jolly as any of his flock. And they danced to the music of a fiddle, played by Lame George, who lived up in the mountain. Then the Dominie told a number of amusing stories, and the school-master sang them several of his best songs, and ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... this matter, that the Provincial Secretary, at the period alluded to, was an official in the Colonial Office, and had never seen Canada, although he afterwards received from the province a pension of L400 a year, in consideration of his long and valuable services; and it is in a high degree amusing to find Mr. Ryland informing this functionary "decidedly" and "frankly", that he had acted wisely in not asking for an increase of salary, although it was a different thing to solicit additional assistance in an office where the public business was constantly increasing! Mr. Ryland and a ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... at nine last night and has never turned up since," Kelson said with an air of telling an amusing story. "Poor Host Dipper is taking it quite tragically, notwithstanding the satisfactory point in the case that the egregious Henshaw's elaborate kit still remains ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... both of you. Her father don't believe there is a man after her at all. Jane's just sitting on the fence, in fact, and waiting to see if she can't shake him off me. And if I'm turned down, then you'll be turned down. 'Tis rather amusing in a way." ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... sulphur came to his nose as the waiter bent over the table to light the gas above him. "Would Monsieur like to see the journal? There is a most amusing story about—— The ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... them at irregular intervals with various calibres, and trips across resembled the noble game of running the gauntlet. This portion of night reliefs was naturally particularly exciting. The late Lt.-Col. Marshall, V.C., when second in command to the 6th L.F's., provided an amusing story for the division one day when a couple of officers failed to salute him in the middle of Putney Bridge, he walking calmly across, and they—obviously hurrying. He pulled them up and strafed them duly, then, to force his point, he stood on the bridge and caused them to pass him two or three ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... the delights in store for her. He laughed and joked perpetually during that last day, and promised the girl that he would take a vacation while she was gone and visit his old colonel in Virginia, which she knew was the rarest pleasure he could enjoy. And now he stood upon the deck amusing them all with his quaint sayings and appearing so outwardly jolly and unaffected that only Patsy herself suspected the deep grief that was gripping his ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... surprise and withering scorn cast on those who despise their goods: but they show no concern when the buyers turn up their noses at them. Little girls run about selling cups of water for a few small fishes to the half-exhausted wordy combatants. To me it was an amusing scene. I could not understand the words that flowed off their glib tongues, but the gestures were too expressive ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... humour was to be found? Yet here is Miss JESSIE CHAMPION writing a whole book, The Ramshackle Adventure (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), all about the comical vagaries of a cheap car—a history that, while it has inevitably its dull moments, has many more that are both amusing and full of a kind of charm that the funny-book too often conspicuously lacks. I think this must be because almost all the characters are such human and kindly folk, not the lay figures of galvanic farce that one had only too much reason to expect. For example, the owner of the car ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... thirty sheets, written, as he says, 'in a hurry,' but, as Fitzjames declares, with 'only two slips of the pen, without an "erasure," in a handwriting which fills me with helpless admiration,' and in a style which cannot be equalled by any journalist in England. 'And this you do by way of amusing yourself while you are governing an empire in war-time,' and yet compliment me for writing at leisure moments during my vacations! Fitzjames, however, does his best to keep pace with his correspondent. Some of his letters ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... could not see Roger have his nightly bath. It was impossible for Mr Blackshaw to quit his arduous and responsible post before seven o'clock in the evening. Later on, when things were going more smoothly, he might be able to get away; but then, later on, his son's bath would not be so amusing and agreeable as it then, by all reports, was. The baby was, of course, bathed on Saturday nights, but Sunday afternoon and evening Mr Blackshaw was obliged to spend with his invalid mother at Longshaw. It was on the sole condition of his weekly presence thus in her house ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... far from amusing to awake some zero morning and find the house without water because the well pipe has frozen. It can be thawed with a blow pipe but that means calling a plumber or a handy man who happens to have a tool ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... parodying a well-known guide book to British restaurants, so the unknown authors of The Merry-Thought had some notion, however discontinuous, of parodying the nation's polite literature. Were not Pope and Swift famous for their distinguished miscellanies? What could be more amusing than a collection of poems that represented a different poetic ideal—a collection of verse with none of the pretensions to artistic merit claimed by the superstars of the poetic world—the spontaneous productions of nonpoets in moments of idleness or desperation. ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... were held over the Aquarium; for there was never an end of things that might be told of old and new discoveries connected with what was in it. The conversations diverged often to other matters, religious or scientific as the case might be; and were clever, bright, interesting, or amusing accordingly—and invariably. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... It was amusing to observe Mark's look of astonishment when immediately afterwards a party of grotesque figures appeared clambering over the bows. The first was an old fellow with a long white beard, a gold paper crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand, and dressed ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... of entertainment for me to ask almost anybody with whom I happened to be conversing, for his opinion on some great subject or of some noted personage; for the reply was always to me unique, sometimes very amusing, and not infrequently instructive. On the way for the second time from our evening meal to my room, I stopped for a moment in the "Gentlemen's sitting-room," where I in part overheard a conversation ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... making L150 suffice for L200, or perhaps it has to plan out the heads of a very important letter. We meet a pretty woman, and away that undisciplined, sagacious brain runs after her, dropping the scheme or the draft letter, and amusing itself with aspirations or regrets for half an hour, an hour, sometimes a day. The serious part of our instinctive self feebly remonstrates, but without effect. Or it may be that we have suffered a great disappointment, which is definite and hopeless. Will the brain, like a sensible creature, leave ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... very well belong to Christmastide. It is said that, wishing to know what the Danes were about, and how strong they were, King Alfred one day set out from Athelney in the disguise of a Christmas minstrel, and went into the Danish camp, and stayed there several days, amusing the Danes with his playing, till he had seen all he wanted, and then went back without any ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... aged eighty-one, and for fifty years he had lived but to record the dialogues of Socrates. It was curiosity that first attracted this fine youth to the old man—Socrates was so uncouth that he was amusing. Plato was interested in politics, and like most Athenian youths, was intent on having a good time. However, he was no rowdy, like Alcibiades: he was suave, gracious, and elegant in all of his acts. He had been taught by the Sophists ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Note.—An amusing anecdote is related, by Miss Edgeworth, of a bishop, who, descending to his kitchen to superintend the dressing of a turbot, and discovering that his cook had stupidly cut off the fins, immediately commenced sewing them on again with his own episcopal ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... time the jailer had tired of sticking pins in the General, and was amusing himself by carefully pulling the Nome's whiskers out by the roots, one at a time. This enjoyment was interrupted by the Grand Gallipoot sending for ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... me,' says he. 'I'm due to dine with little Boney tonight at eight sharp, and I must be up to time. Truth is I'm not in the Little Corporal's best books just now. He caught Josephine and me amusing ourselves in the rose-walk at Malmaison last week; and he wasn't ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... instead of working with us, was employed in watching the natives; though he pretended all the time not to be taking any notice of them, but to be amusing himself by playing a number of strange antics calculated to excite their curiosity. This, after a time, he succeeded in doing. The man, having directed his companions to retire to a distance,—for the purpose, as we supposed, of placing them out of danger,—advanced ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... districts, Jack varied the entertainments by a lecture on the properties of guano, which he threw in for nothing, and which was highly appreciated by the agricultural interest. Jack's books were principally works of travel. His Journey to the Fountains of the Niger is generally esteemed highly amusing, if not instructive: it was knocked off at Highbury; and his Wanderings in the Mountains of the Moon, written in Little Chelsea, has been favourably reviewed by many well-informed and discriminating organs of literary intelligence, as the work of a man evidently ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... seats again, and then he commenced thundering out one of the songs the soldiers used to sing on the march. Several Mexicans came running up from the camp to ask if anything was the matter, Rube's yell having reached their ears. They were told it was only those mad Americanos amusing themselves, and with many angry threats of the different sort of yells we should give next day, they sauntered off again. "That's rather a good thing," Rube said to me when he stopped making a noise. "If any sound ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... know most of the villagers; and being a quaint child, with a lively and amusing curiosity, which some little refinement and good-breeding stayed from degenerating into impertinence, I was, I ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... English contractor why he used no wheelbarrows in his work. He had some hundreds of stalwart navvies employed carrying dirt in small wicker baskets to an embankment. He said the men would not use them. Some said it broke their backs. Others discovered a capital way of amusing themselves by putting the barrow on their heads and whirling the wheel as rapidly as possible with their hands. This was a game which never grew stale. The contractor gave up in despair, and went back to the baskets. But it is in the official regions that tradition is most powerful. In the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... responsible for its realization in paint. The artists compete with each other for a prize which is awarded for the best design, the judges being the artists themselves. It is the art of the poster, art with a purpose of the most definite kind. The result is sometimes amusing, interesting, startling, but, whatever else it does, hammers home a ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... sleeping, he was amusing him self in a quaint way at the back of his cage. He had a small lassoo made of cord, and was throwing it at an object near the wall at a distance of ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... to see us last evening, and talked for about two hours in a very amusing and interesting style, his topics being taken from his own personal experience, and shrewdly treated. He spoke much of Greenough, whom he described as an excellent critic of art, but possessed of not the slightest inventive genius. His statue of Washington, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of shoes, upon the Mussel shoals. He then found occasion to talk of the thousand and one mishaps that had occurred upon the aforesaid Mussel shoals; and thence branched off into the various modes of water-carriage which the enlightened inhabitants of Alabama were accustomed to employ. After amusing us for some time with long histories concerning steam-boats and keel-boats, barks and flat-boats, broad-horns, dug-outs, and canoes, he glided into some canal-making scheme, which was to connect the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... rapidly, and he was now receiving twenty times more letters than all the other mail in Orangeville combined. It was amusing to see how the letters were addressed. They read, "Dr. Penloe, Rev. Dr. Penloe, Rev. Penloe, Penloe, Esq., Prof. Penloe, D.D., and LL.D." Letters came to him from every state in the Union. Here ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... be objected by some that in providing those outlets for the destitute, we should in the end only aggravate the difficulty by enormously increasing the population. This reminds one of the gigantic folly of the miser with his hoards of gold. An amusing eastern anecdote is told of one who having gone two or three miles to say his prayers to a mosque suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to put out an oil lamp before leaving home. He at once retraced his steps and on reaching his house called out to the servant girl to be sure ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... no vocation for a nun. I—there is a huge rock half-way down the hill with a clear view of this place. I have spent hours there, watching these lawns and verandas, and the things you all did. It all seemed so amusing and, and happy. You see, where I lived there were almost no white people except my father and a priest at the Catholic mission. So I learned to know Phillida ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... life in the Atrium, each thronged by the most fashionable ladies in Rome, who competed for invitations. Her vogue in no way spoiled Terentia, who played with just as much zest for her co-inmates of the Atrium, or when she was entirely alone amusing herself at the organ. Teaching her, playing with her, listening to her, took up a good deal of Brinnaria's time and came to be a great ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... found himself looking into the face of a German officer who was amusing himself by kicking ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... Quaere a place in Florence? One of the commentators, with characteristic carelessness, states that the places mentioned in the preachment of Fra Cipolla (an amusing specimen of the patter-sermon of the mendicant friar of the middle ages, that ecclesiastical Cheap Jack of his day) are all names of streets or places of Florence, a statement which, it is evident to the most ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the two was amusing, or would have been had not the atmosphere been so surcharged with passionate feeling, for Rhett Sempland was six feet high if he was an inch, while Fanny Glen by a Procrustean extension of herself could just manage ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... boasting also about his doings, as he could not help doing and remain himself. Mixed up with his own exploits, and his daily triumphs as a lobbyist, especially in the matter of the new University, in which Harry was to have something handsome, were amusing sketches of Washington society, hints about Dilworthy, stories about Col. Sellers, who had become a well-known character, and wise remarks upon the machinery of private legislation for the public-good, which greatly ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... had also formed a portion of Annatoo's pilferings. It seems she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. But after amusing herself by again and again counting over the leaves, and wondering how so many distinct surfaces could be compacted together in so small a compass, she had very suddenly conceived an aversion to literature, and dropped the book overboard as worthless. Doubtless, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... And since these stalwarts can do so much, it is well that there should also be one who does nothing, to the end that they may have the more to do." With these and similar pleasantries Fra Sebastiano was always diverting himself, being a man who was never anything but humorous and amusing; and, in truth, a ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... stories for children from three to eight years, tells of the adventures of the four-footed creatures of our American woods and fields in an amusing way, which delights ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... occasion! Her spun-gold hair was marveled at, but her eyes—surely they were lent by a god for the event! They were bluer than the water of Himalayan lakes; bluer than turquoise, sapphire, the sky, or any other blue thing you can think of—laughing blue,—loving, understanding, likable, amusing blue—two jewels that outshone all the other jewels in the durbar ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... letters, now resident in Europe, who spent many years in North Carolina, has said to the writer that he had noted, in the course of a long life, at least a thousand instances of white persons known or suspected to possess a strain of Negro blood. An amusing instance of this sort occurred a year or two ago. It was announced through the newspapers, whose omniscience of course no one would question, that a certain great merchant of Chicago was a mulatto. This gentleman had a large dry goods trade ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... slept in the trench, slept heavily. I put my equipment under me, that kept the damp away from my bones. In the morning Stoner told an amusing story. During the night he wanted to see Bill, but did not know where the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Inn, Coventry, and next day reached the Hall at Ashby Saint Ledgers, where the widowed Lady Catesby held her solitary state. Lady Catesby (nee Anne Throckmorton) and her worthy son were not on the best terms, having found it necessary or amusing to sue one another in his Majesty's Law Courts; and shortly before this, Lady Catesby had been to Huddington to request Robert Winter's assistance in making peace with her son. He was now on his way to advise her, and had heard nothing of the proceedings ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... An amusing incident is related in Forster's "Life of Dickens," which shows how entirely unknown was smoking among women of the middle and upper classes in England some ten years after Queen Victoria came to the throne. Dickens was at Lausanne ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... at most, To meet his eye, with the other trophies, Now outside the hall, now in it, To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen, At the proper place in the proper minute, {190} And die away the life between. And it was amusing enough, each infraction Of rule—(but for after-sadness that came) To hear the consummate self-satisfaction With which the young Duke and the old dame Would let her advise, and criticise, And, being a fool, instruct the wise, And, childlike, parcel out praise ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... an indifferent child aroused or a hostile one conquered to affection by a beguiling tale, you can hardly appreciate the truth of the first statement; but nothing is more familiar in the story-teller's experience. An amusing, but—to me—touching experience recently reaffirmed in my mind this power of the story to establish ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... continually reproved, and even obliged to undergo real penance. An iron cross was placed at my back to make me hold myself upright, and my limbs were enclosed in a kind of wooden box, to straighten them. I must however think that they were already quite straight enough. All that was not very amusing for me, who thought myself already a young lady. Since Barbara's marriage I had myself been asked in marriage, and the prince palatine had not treated me as if ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... being now given over to monks and nuns. Then I recollect how a rarely-dark annular eclipse of the sun convulsed the whole school, bringing smoked glass to a high premium; and there was a notable boy's library of amusing travels and stories, all eagerly devoured; and old Phulax the house-dog, and good Mr. Whitmore an usher, who gave a certain small boy a diamond prayer-book, greatly prized then, though long since lost, and suitably inscribed for him "Parvum parva decent;" ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... observe, not in a tragic, adventurous, or military story, but merely as the further enlivenment of a narrative intended to be amusing; and as a properly representative average of the statistics of civilian mortality in the center ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... because, when he read over her shoulder, she always turned the page before he was ready. And his decision that Dickens's characters were never gentlemen, and her saying perhaps that was why he was so amusing. And then how he got the book from her and went on reading while she went away for her lawn-tennis shoes, and when she came back found he had only two more pages to read, and then he would ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... which forms a lair for tigers and many other wild beasts, and so close do these tigers approach to Rangoon that one was recently shot inside the great pagoda, in which it had taken refuge. While there I heard of an amusing adventure which befell the keeper of the lighthouse at the mouth of the Rangoon River. He was enjoying a morning stroll along the beach, reading a book as he walked, and, as the sun was bright, he held ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... that she recognized that her hopes, and those of the friend to whose safety she had already sacrificed so much, had just received their death-blow, she gave a quick order to the girl who, taking the child by the hand, sat down on the steps Mrs. Carew now quitted and laid herself out to be amusing. ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... that I won't speak the word, and he mustn't throw the business over. It is quite amusing I tell him, and I hope he'll win his bet. As for the picture—he may pay as he chooses. But about the proper introduction—Heaven knows where I shall be in a fortnight. My brother loves to make up his mind the night beforehand, where ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Lady Audley is rather late in the half-century as a "skit" on Miss BRADDON's celebrated novel. Now and then I found an amusing bit in it, but, on the whole, poor stuff, says ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... proposed that they should try throwing sticks, provided for the purpose, at a row of penknives, and if any one knocked a knife over it would be his. This was amusing for a little while; but when no one could get anywhere near a knife, the boys grew tired of trying, especially as they each had to pay ...
— Archie's Mistake • G. E. Wyatt
... a few days the novelty began to wear off, and I began to get tired of my own company. I still made the most of my elbow-room in class and at meals, but it ceased to be amusing. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... every reason to be glad that I detained her, for she not only made my meeting with the equerries easy and pleasant, but was full of odd entertainment herself. She has a large portion of whimsical humour, which, at times, is original and amusing, though always eccentric, and frequently, from uttering ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... she asked. I looked intently at the spot from which the sound seemed to come: a perfectly solid stone block less than three feet from my right shoulder. It must have been very amusing. She ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... for recurrence of similar appearances. To illustrate this by one instance:—how pleasing is it to have a ready and frequent opportunity of watching, at the outlet of a lake, the stream pushing its way among the rocks in lively contrast with the stillness from which it has escaped; and how amusing to compare its noisy and turbulent motions with the gentle playfulness of the breezes, that may be starting up or wandering here and there over the faintly-rippled surface of the broad water! I may add, as a general remark, that, in lakes of great ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Miss Elaine, rising from his knee, with much coldness, "I hardly understand you, I think. If you find it amusing (and you seem to) to pretend that I——" she said no more, but gave a slight and admirable toss of the head. "And now I am very sleepy," she added. ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... has got into me. I have lately learned terribly well how to be idle. I am afraid to think how long it is since I wrote to my mother or to Mary. Heaven help them—poor, patient, trustful creatures! I don't know how to tell you what I am doing. It seems all amusing enough while I do it, but it would make a poor show in a narrative intended for your formidable eyes. I found Baxter in Switzerland, or rather he found me, and he grabbed me by the arm and brought me here. I was walking twenty miles a day in the Alps, drinking milk in lonely ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... replies were considered necessary testifies both to the popularity of Absalom and Achitophel with the layman in politics and to the Whigs' fear of its harming their cause. Settle's was of course a mercenary pen, and it is amusing to note that after ridiculing Halifax here he was quite prepared to publish, fourteen years later, Sacellum Apollinare: a Funeral Poem to the Memory of that Great Statesman, George Late Marquiss of Halifax, and on this count his place among Pope's Dunces seems ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... a theatrical journal, and he presently looked up from it to say: "I hear the second play at the Athenee is amusing." ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... horses they all entered the house, nor was there naturally any want of conversation. Cadurcis had much information to give and many questions to answer. He was in the highest spirits and the most amiable mood; gay, amusing, and overflowing with kind-heartedness. The Doctor seldom required any inspiration, to be joyous, and Lady Annabel was unusually animated. Venetia alone, though cheerful, was calmer than pleased Cadurcis. Time, he sorrowfully observed, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Bautru is amusing, Franks; but he's nothing to Vandy. 'Homme incomparable!' On the whole I find Menage rather dull. The Countess? what an accomplished liar that woman is! She seems to have stepped out of Tallemant's Gallery. Concerning the Countess, I suppose you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Isn't he too amusing? I brought him up as much to help dear Chad as for any other reason. But he is incorrigible at times and I fear I shall have to send him back to his mother. I thought the livery might increase his self-respect, ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is so characteristic and amusing, that we copy it verbatim et literatim:—The author of "Whims and Oddities" has the honour of informing the public, that, encouraged by the popularity of the Ballads in the first and second series of that work, he intends to communicate a succession of similar vocal crotchets, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... herself. The other horses all knew too if there was any failure or mistake, and the offender was closely watched by them, and in some way reproved by them if they could get the opportunity, and at times this little by-play became very amusing. ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... whole, a most amusing episode," he said. "We are not a penny the worse—nay, we are immensely gainers. Our philosophy has been exercised; some of the turtle is still left—the most wholesome of delicacies; I have my staff, Anastasie has her new dress, Jean-Marie is the proud ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been written of late about the pessimistic spirit pervading modern reformative literature. When an earnest writer presents a gloomy picture of life as it really is, he is frequently judged by that most shallow of all standards, "Is it pleasing or amusing?" His fidelity to the ideal of truth is often overlooked or dismissed with a flippant word. We all know that great and dangerous evils exist and menace our civilization. They are growing under the fostering influence of the "conspiracy of silence"; ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... an amusing enough contraption honey," said he, "but what makes you stand out there in the hot sun staring at them that way? It's ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... often amusing, and it is sometimes politically profitable, to picture the City of Washington as a madhouse, with the Congress and the Administration disrupted with confusion and indecision and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the stamp of truthfulness, they illustrate their authors' lives with marvellous lucidity, and they are full of interest as stories. But it is to the contrast which they present that our attention should be chiefly drawn. Other biographies may be as interesting and amusing. None show in a more marked manner two distinct natures endowed with genius for one art, and yet designed in every possible particular for different branches of that art. Alfieri embodies Tragedy; Goldoni is the spirit of Comedy. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... explained. "Has he exhibited any contempt or ridicule at what I have said?" This gentleman assured him that he had never heard Byron allude to the subject in any way which could induce him to suspect that he was merely amusing himself. "But, on the contrary, he always names you with respect. I do not, however, think you have made much impression on him: he is just the same fellow as before. He says, he does not know what religion you are of, for you neither adhere ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... at last ended by the Edict of Nantes issued after Henry of Navarre became Henry IV. of France. Besides the political bearing of the letters, they give a picturesque account of Court life at the end of the 16th century, the fashions and manners of the time, piquant descriptions, and amusing gossip, such as only a witty woman—as Marguerite certainly was—could inject into such subjects. The letters, indeed, abound in sprightly anecdote and small-talk, which yet have their value in lightening ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... see that the lectures being both amusing and instructive must be conducive to the expansion of the mind, at the same time making an agreeable change in the general ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... beginning. From the concealment of her lofty bluebell Maya commanded a splendid view of the social life coming awake beneath. Watching it she forgot, for the moment, her anxiety and mounting homesickness. It was too amusing for anything to be safe in a hiding-place, high up, and look down on the doings of the ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... come here!" cried Matty eagerly; "there's nothing amusing to look at on the counters of Conjunction or Preposition, but Interjection has something very funny! Look at these gutta-percha balls shaped like faces, some showing pleasure—some horror—some surprise; just give them a little squeeze, and hear ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover that they live near each other and that they ought to have known each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck anyone else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when I met her at last and could talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, the man of ill luck ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... did not pursue the subject. In fact, we were too much taken up with the interesting and amusing sights that met our gaze in that singular forest; insomuch that on several occasions I neglected my peculiar duty of watching Jack, and was only made aware of my carelessness by hearing him shout, "Hallo! Bob, look alive!—I'm over!" when I would suddenly ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... signal! They heterodyned it right back along my own beam. They'll be landing in a week. I don't think I'll take this manuscript with me. I couldn't use it—and somehow I don't feel like burning it. Maybe I'll make a time capsule out of it. It will be amusing to speculate about what sort of a reaction it'll provoke, providing it is ever read. I can see them now, huge-headed humans, wrinkling their noses and saying "Intelligent algae—fantastic—the man must have ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... rhetoric is not oppressive, is the account of the sea fight at the end of Act III. Even when Harris followed his original most closely, we seem to hear the actor, speaking in a new tongue, in a more relaxed and colloquial rhythm. The reader will find it both amusing and instructive to compare the two versions of Act II, scene ii. The new cadences do more than merely prove that Harris had no ear for ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... better times, if we lived in them, I could certainly arrange this matter more according to my own fancy; and there is nobody who could not make to himself some theory on this subject, the very framing of which is an amusing occupation of the mind, and for which it then acquires a parental fondness. But now, if ever, and here if in any matter, stare super vias antiguas is the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... men—some of them with grey heads and beards—as they marked time or tramped along singing this childish twaddle, would have been amusing if it had ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... yet a singularly childish look—who urged that he come to his cabin to minister to a sick friend. He knew the fellow for one that the village of Edom called "daft" or "queer," yet held to be harmless—to be rather amusing, indeed, since he could be provoked to deliver curious harangues upon the subject of revealed religion. He remembered now that the man's face had stared at him from far back in the church the night before—a face full ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... want of uniformity in the preachers of his sect, all being under the 'Act of Uniformity,' is very amusing and instructive!!—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... taking up her position by the curtain almost opposite the door, "don't introduce me. I like to look on. The amusing thing," she went on, addressing Mr. Salvin, who, owing to his lameness, was accommodated with a chair, "the amusing thing about a party is to watch the people—coming and going, coming ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... she complained; "you know how weary I get when you ignore me." He gazed down at her untouched. "I have left Lao-tze for Greece," he replied. She found this stupid and said so. "Has he been no more amusing than this?" she asked Linda. "But then, you are a child, it all intrigues you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... forget to tell of an amusing little comedy of error played at the Opera-house this season (1752). All Paris was agog to see the famous English—or rather Irish—beauty, my Lady Coventry, newly arrived in the Capital. She was one of the Gunning sisters, over whom all London had already lost its head ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... walls. Suvaroff was fascinated by these dancing shadows. They seemed familiar and friendly. He sat sipping his brandy, now, with a quieter, more leisurely air. The shadows were indescribably fascinating; they were so horrible and amusing! He began to wonder whether their antics would move him to laughter if he sat and drank long enough. He had a feeling that laughter and sleep went hand in hand. If he could but laugh again he was quite sure ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... dull; but suggests the possibility of its containing an agreeable surprise. An amusing anecdote to this effect ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was beating the other. So the next day he went to the wood, and he cut a hurl; and he was all that day and the next shaping it; and his mother asked was he going to a match, and he said he was only amusing ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... the same with his charity. He was always putting favourable constructions on people's motives and believing good things of them, even when other people could find very little ground for doing so. In all sincerity he would carry this sometimes to amusing lengths. Reference has been made to this already, but the following further illustration of it may be added here. One day, when in company with a friend, the conversation turned on a meeting at which Dr. Cairns had recently been ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... Man's Plea, was written in the spirit of the parliamentary address. It was of no use to pass laws and make declarations and proclamations for the reform of the common plebeii, the poor man pleaded, so long as the mentors of the laws were themselves corrupt. His argument was spiced with amusing anecdotes to show the prevalence of swearing and drunkenness among members of the judicial bench. Defoe appeared several times afterwards in the character of a reformer of manners, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose. When the retort was made that his own manners ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... They had left their ship, perhaps without leave, and were amusing themselves upon the island. The men in our boat watched them, and presently landed cautiously and surrounded them. They made a gallant struggle, but were captured at length. And now they have been brought to ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... figures called tarascas gamboled about; and the auto, which was more like our operas than any other composition of the Spanish stage, was begun by a loa, written or sung. After this came the play, then an amusing interlude, followed by music and sometimes by a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... never thought in the way of pride or vanity. But of her feet and ankles she was both proud and vain—in a reserved, wholly unobtrusive way, be it said, so quietly that she had passed unsuspected. There was reason for this shy, secret self-satisfaction, so amusing in one otherwise self-unconscious. Her feet were beautifully formed and the curves of her instep and ankle were beautiful. She gave more attention now to the look of her shoes and of her stockings than to all the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... unfortunately, when you try not to speak in jest you are amusing—just as when you wish to avoid seriousness you sometimes say ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... come, and I cease remembering anything. "Hal will be home for Easter; he will bring two or three of his friends with him from Cambridge," she says. And straightway she falls to devising schemes for amusing the boys. When is she ever occupied, but with plans ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she answered cheerfully and managed to conceal her terror. Then the Beast asked her how she had been amusing herself, and she told him all ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Anonymous
... wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... has taken Nell from her saddle and is in the reception room where he finds you grouped and gazing at him in a manner rather trying even to his soldierly gravity, and decidedly amusing to the wise fairy, who glances at him with a laugh and betakes herself ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... of the bird's peculiarities. The song not only varies in individuals, but in different localities, which may be one reason why no two ornithologists record it alike. Doubtless the chief reason for the amusing differences in the syllables into which the songs of birds are often translated in the books, is that the same Notes actually sound differently to different individuals. Thus, to people in Massachusetts the white-throated sparrow seems to say, "Pea-bod-y, Pea-bod-y, ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... place and after a while turned his eyes to the other quarter, where the elements of air and water managed to make between them so comparatively poor an opposition. Even his American novelist was more amusing than that, and he prepared to return to this author. In the great curve which it described, however, his glance was arrested by the figure of a young lady who had just ascended to the deck and who paused at the ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... less amusing, but was not less appreciated by the rank and file. Riding one morning near Front Royal, accompanied by his staff, Jackson was stopped by a countrywoman, with a chubby child on either side, who inquired ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... character appears to weave naturally into the tale of fiction, it becomes as much a beacon, as is a vehicle of amusement. We consider this to be the true art of novel-writing, and that crime and folly and error can be as severely lashed, as virtue and morality can be upheld, by a series of amusing causes and effects, that entice the reader to take a medicine, which, although rendered agreeable to the palate, still produces the same internal benefit as if it had been presented to him in its crude state, in which it would either be ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... before that a private governess has no existence, is not considered as a living and rational being except as connected with the wearisome duties she has to fulfil. While she is teaching the children, working for them, amusing them, it is all right. If she steals a moment for herself she is a nuisance. Nevertheless, Mrs. Sidgwick is universally considered an amiable woman. Her manners are fussily affable. She talks a great deal, but as ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... professions of duty and proposals of reconciliation only for the insidious purpose of amusing and deceiving, was equally reprobated. It was insisted that, on the contrary, these had from the beginning told them honestly, openly and bravely, without disguise or reserve, and declared to all the world, that they never would ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... when some of the gentlemen present would rather not be amongst the aspirants, it is amusing to see them retire behind the others, hoping to escape without offence against the rules of good breeding. Should one of these be called by the lady superior, he will probably give himself awkward airs, and endeavour to be as little engaging as possible. The maiden generally looks modest ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... but we in India shift and are transferred so often that, at the end of the second year, the Dead have no friend only acquaintances who are far too busy amusing themselves up the hill to attend to old partners. The idea of using a Cemetery as a rendezvous is distinctly a feminine one. A man would have said simply, 'Let people talk. We'll go down the Mall.' A woman is made differently, especially ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... and other strictly family affairs women were allowed to take part; and we have an amusing fragment of Menander as to how, on such rare occasions, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... to the fair in a motor, but a slight delay occurs on the way. How they finally arrived at the fair ground and their amusing experiences are ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... Mandan and put into intelligent English, was as follows:— The boy belonged to the Pawnee Loups, whose tribe lived on the Wolf Fork of the Platte. One day, in company with several of his young comrades, he had gone down to the river to indulge in the luxury of a swim, and while they were amusing themselves in the water, a raiding band of the Tetons came suddenly upon them, making a prisoner of him while the others managed to make their escape. He was instantly snatched up, tied on a horse, and hurried away. The animal he rode was led by one of the band, and goaded on by another ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... she would write a letter or two first. And she had written her letters, but still felt no inclination to sleep. Then there fluttered across her memory somehow the conversation she had held with Mr. Furnival in the morning. It would be amusing, she thought, to cheat him out of some of those six-and-eightpences he pretended to think so much of. It would be still more amusing, next time the subject of her will was recurred to, to give his arm a little tap with her fan, and say, "Oh, that is all settled, ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... is bunched and off for the lines. You begin climbing again, gulping to clear your ears in the changing pressure. Surveying the other machines, you recognize the pilot of each by the marks on its side—or by the way he flies. The distinguishing marks of the Nieuports are various and sometimes amusing. Bert Hall, for instance, has BERT painted on the left side of his plane and the same word reversed (as if spelled backward with the left hand) on the right—so an aviator passing him on that side at great speed will be able to read the name ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... improved system, of her own invention, which, in some of its parts, has been successfully introduced into several female seminaries, with advantage. This plan combines singing with a great variety of amusing and graceful evolutions, designed to promote both health ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... century. A copy of his work is preserved in the Book of Ballymote, which was compiled in the year 1391. There is certainly evidence enough to prove the fact of the melee, and that this was not a "legend invented from the tenth to the twelfth centuries." It is almost amusing to hear the criticisms of persons utterly ignorant of our literature, however well-educated in other respects. If the treasures of ancient history which exist in Irish MSS. existed in Sanscrit, or even in Greek or Latin, we should find scholars devoting their lives and best intellectual ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... that," she said. "We got back all right the last time. What I want to know is what are we to do next? I see no way out of this hall, and though it's rather nice, it's not very amusing. Dudu, I wish you would sit still—you keep giving little juggles on my head that are very uncomfortable, and make me feel as if I had a hat on that was always ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... businesses which depended on them personally. Compulsion has cut the knot and eased their consciences. They'll make fine soldiers! But we want more—more!" And then follows talk on the wonderful developments of training—even since last year; and some amusing reminiscences of the early days of England's astounding effort, by which vast mobs of eager recruits without guns, uniforms, or teachers, have been turned into the magnificent armies now ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of October 8th, reviews his book of travels, which has been republished in England, and reviews it seriously. We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this tribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can hardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very first day of his enlistment, and willing to begin as garcon d'aerodrome; the joke about the German airplane sunk so deep in the wet ground that it would have to be dug out, and the surprise of the pilot; the delight over Raymond's promotion; the amusing allusion to sea-sickness by the man who had no equal in air ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... twenty-four is as far advanced as a captain of forty. Between Selkirk and myself, if the wealth is on my side, on his will be gratitude and little attentions. At all events, I prefer a young husband who will whisper words of love in my ear, to amusing myself by pouring out drink for my lord and master, while he smokes his pipe, with his feet on the brands. Was it not thus that icicle, dressed in blue, called Stradling, talked to me of the pleasures of marriage? And what a name! But Mistress ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... the following pages to the public, the author has been principally influenced by a desire of uniting useful information with that which he hopes may prove amusing to the reader, endeavouring as much as possible to keep in view the spirit of the title "How to enjoy Paris;" and having been accustomed to hear such constant and bitter murmurings from the English, in consequence of their having been so frequently imposed ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... startlish with having to stand in the rain and chill night air, in the open road, while the debates were going on as to the best method of attaching them to the sunken vehicle,—when once put back into their own traces, they took to rearing and kicking instead of proceeding. It is by no means amusing to sit in a diligence behind five plunging horses, on a cliff-road,—one edge of which overhangs the sea, and the other consists of a deep ditch or water-way, beneath a sheer upright rock,—"when rain and wind beat dark December"; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... politicians and the men who are running things. Everything is in miniature, you see, in a little nation like this, which, although only as large as one of our smaller States, has a King and court, diplomats, and army, and foreign policy. All in the family, so to speak, and the chanteuse will sing amusing verses about the prime minister as if she really knew what he was going to do, and, curiously enough—for things are sometimes very much in the family, indeed, in these little capitals—maybe ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... after-deck. Miss Proctor leaned her back against the low gunwale astern. The men disposed themselves about her. They talked with a great deal of laughter; but Bobby did not find their conversation amusing. Finally they began to entreat Mr. Bradford to play his banjo. That young gentleman became suddenly afflicted ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... jeering and reviling, there were now those who remarked that 'perhaps the chap was no worse than the rest of us,' whilst others were glad they had been stopped in time, for only a few weeks before a man had been killed, whilst standing in the pillory, by those who were only 'amusing' themselves in much the same fashion as folk on ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... custom at the ranch to have an entertainment of some sort at the ranch afterward. This was started for the purpose of amusing the buyers with cowboy tricks and that sort of thing, but it had developed into something far greater, until now all the world was invited to the barbecue and the "doings" afterward. No one ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... large sacks, mercifully clean. An individual in charge, wearing a faded blue suit and a two days' growth of stubbly beard, told them briefly to help themselves, and then take their sacks to the barn and fill them with hay. Preparing their own mattresses was a new experience, but an amusing one. It was fun stuffing the sweet-smelling hay into the rough canvas bags, and more fun still carrying the bulky bedding back over fields and stiles to the tents. Here, amid a chaos of unpacking, they at last disposed their belongings to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... when the young go out of the nest on their first foraging that the parents, full of a crass and simple pride, make their indescribable chucklings of gobbling, gluttonous delight. The little ones would be amusing as they tug and tussle, if one could forget what it is they ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... Without amusing our selves with what Notes are most Musical, to lye behind, we will come to the matter of Fact; for those Methods of Peals that are prick't on Six, may be the same upon Eight, Observing only, ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... had expected, but added that they would be better able to judge to-morrow at twelve. Claudius and Margaret exchanged a few sentences, with tolerable tact and indifference; but, for some occult reason, Mr. Barker undertook to be especially lively and amusing, and after the dinner was somewhat advanced he launched out into a series of stories and anecdotes which served very well to pass the time and to attract notice to himself. As Mr. Barker was generally not very talkative at table, though frequently epigrammatic, his sudden eloquence ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... from Livingstone during my absence. His letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not indicated a vein ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... duke themselves, but they didn't want Blakely's mother to have him; Blakely's mother and Mrs. Sanderson-Spear, and Mrs. Tudor Carstairs. In a way, it was better than a comic opera; it was fearfully amusing. ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... replied the favorite, "and you must find some amusing disguise and procure masks for him and for me and, if you like, for yourself too. He wants to join the revel as a satyr and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tea-dances or pow-wows in times of peace, the squaws and children joined in, and it was a very amusing sight to watch them. We often went three miles to look at a tea-dance, and I found it as attractive and interesting as a big circus would be to the children of a civilized place. But I had then no idea of the war- dance. ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... a swarm of other manuals and popular works have appeared since, excellent in their way, and almost beyond counting. But all honour to those, and above all to Mr. Gosse and Mr. Johns, who first opened people's eyes to the wonders around them all day long. Now, we have, in addition to amusing books on special subjects, serials on Natural History more or less profound, and suited to every kind of student and every grade of knowledge. I mention the names of none. For first, they happily need no advertisement from me; ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley |
