"Anecdote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... telegraphing, I will relate an anecdote here, if you will wait until I mend my pen. I had landed at Greenwich wharf on duty—this was the nearest point of communication between Port Royal and the Admiral's Pen—where, finding the flag lieutenant, he drove me up ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... others, by the reigning humour of the moment, yet warm, and (when not influenced by the baneful spirit of faction) steady in his attachments. On his independence he particularly prided himself. But that this was sometimes in danger from slight causes is apparent, from an anecdote related by Dr. Wooll, in his Life of Joseph Warton. When Huggins [4] had finished his translation of Ariosto, he sent a fat buck to Smollett, who at that time managed the Critical Review; consequently the work was highly applauded; but the history of the venison ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... methodical way, and with a great deal of amusing and scandalous anecdote, he furnished me with a catalogue and a guide, which, to a seeker of novelty ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... glorious one, and we walked back some miles of the way. The Cunningsburgh minister was full of stories. He alluded laughingly to one of his flock who, when under the influence of drink, was powerful in prayer. "When he gets a dram he goes to his knees at once." The anecdote seemed to me to run counter to the views of the hymnologist who says "Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint upon his knees." Another of his stories had reference to two old crofters, both over eighty, who began one evening to talk of the follies of the young fisher-lads when they took to ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... by anecdote and parable, won many followers. She pointed out that the doctrine of the Humanist in abolishing world competition hit at the fundamental principle that made for initiative and made man ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... darted a searching glance at the man, who looked as stolid as the Serjeant in 'Our's.' No one could have guessed he was thinking what a piquante anecdote it would be to relate to his inamorata, the cook, over their supper-beer. Bertie gave a laughing but relieved glance at his neighbour, whose eyes were fixed on her plate. They both began simultaneously talking louder, with an exaggerated openness, on general topics. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... may here insert an anecdote, which seems to prove that Charles attributed his misfortunes in a great measure to the counsels of Archbishop Laud. On the last night of his life, he had observed that Herbert was restless during ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... intelligence of sheep-dogs, a volume could be written on the facts concerning them, and a still more entertaining book on the fictions, for a New Zealand shepherd will always consider it a point of honour to cap his neighbour's anecdote of his dog's sagacity, by a yet stronger proof of canine intelligence. I shall only, briefly allude to one dog, whose history will probably be placed in the colonial archives,—a colley, who knows his master's brand; ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... than before; the peasants often put to death the fugitives; and always stripped and plundered them of everything they had. The gates of the fence were guarded night and day by faithful men, and it required often a good deal of ability and cunning to be able to pass through them. I was told an anecdote which exemplifies the expedients the soldiers resorted to in order to get out of the dreaded camp. One evening, about half an hour before sunset, a woman presented herself at the gate, carrying on her head one of the large flat baskets used for keeping ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... commemorated in Hogarth's "Rake's Progress" occurred at this time, A lady of rank, carried beyond herself by admiration of the great singer, leaned out of her box and exclaimed, "One God and one Farinelli!" The great power of this singer's art is also happily set forth in the following anecdote: He was to appear for the first time with Senesino, another great singer, who of course was jealous of Farinelli's unequaled renown. The former had the part of a fierce tyrant, and Farinelli that of a hero in chains. But in the course of the first ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... There is an anecdote told of the poet Hafiz, in Sir William Jones's Life, which, in reporting this instance of illiberality, recurs naturally to the memory. After the death of the great Persian bard, some of the religious among his countrymen protested strongly against allowing to him the right of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... anecdote to his government with much glee, but it may be doubted whether this bold way of giving the lie to a venerable statesman through his son-in-law would have been accounted as triumphant argumentation anywhere ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... come home, the old soldier could find but little fault with the young man. He had a frank and open manner, such as is common to men of his profession. He was full of life and anecdote. His manner to the squire was admirable, affectionate, and quietly respectful, without any air of endeavouring especially to ingratiate himself with him. Nor could the ex-sergeant find anything to complain of in the young man's ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... with brave dreams of what might be accomplished in the lecture-room,—so free and so unpretending a platform,—a Delos not yet made fast. I imagine an eloquence of infinite variety, rich as conversation can be, with anecdote, joke, tragedy, epics and pindarics, argument and confession." So writes Emerson ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... enthusiasm seldom witnessed in the old State House. She was introduced by the Governor, who was chairman of the meeting, and fully three- fourths of the members of the Senate and the House were present. Miss Drake's speech was a rare combination of originality, humor, arid pathos. Her aptitude at anecdote, her gift for description and dialect had fairly astounded her audience. The applause was so constant and persistent that the brave young speaker had difficulty in pursuing her theme. And when it was over the members of the ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... slightest attention to the plot of the piece, provided only that their favourite singers were taking part. Very often in that classic period the performers themselves knew nothing and cared less about the dramatic meaning of the works in which they appeared, and a venerable anecdote is current concerning a certain supper party, the guests at which had all identified themselves with one or other of the principal parts in 'Il Trovatore'. A question being asked as to the plot of the then ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... make it a source of indolence. He was a voracious reader and an admirable critic; he had forty years of parliamentary tradition on his memory; he liked to talk and to listen; he liked his dinner and, in spite of George Canning, his dry champagne; he liked wit and anecdote; but he belonged to the generation of 1830, a generation which could not survive the telegraph and railway, and which even Yorkshire could hardly produce again. To an American he was a character even more unusual and more ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the Invalides regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... happy and profitable day at Runnydale with old Candy, a horse-dealer, much affected by the well-to-do youth of the neighbourhood, he having a racy tongue, and a fund of anecdote, and a pleasant, joking, familiar way of transferring money from their pockets to his own. He returned in time for dinner at Cashelthorpe, his brother's country-house a few miles out of Brockenham, which the younger man also made his home. The two dined alone, as was ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... Dulwich Wood, where he composed his lines upon Shelley; asserts there is romance in Camberwell as well as in Italy; "Sordello"; the charge of obscurity against "Sordello"; the nature and intention of the poem; quotations therefrom; anecdote about Douglas Jerrold; Tennyson's, Carlyle's, and M. Odysse Barot's opinions on "Sordello"; "enigmatic" poetry; in 1863 Browning contemplated the re-writing of "Sordello"; dedication to the ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... I caught her glance. Nora was a woman to laugh and chat with; Nora was kind and gracious, and gentle too; Nora was amiable as well as witty; charming in manner, piquant in expression, inimitable at an anecdote, with never-failing resources, a first-rate lady-conversationist, if I may use so formidable a word—in fact, a thoroughly fascinating woman; but Marion!—Marion was one, not to laugh with, but to die for; Marion had a face that haunted you; a glance that made your heart leap, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... The Dark Lady of The Sonnets, was one of the incidents of that appeal. After some years of effort the result was a single handsome subscription from a German gentleman. Like the celebrated swearer in the anecdote when the cart containing all his household goods lost its tailboard at the top of the hill and let its contents roll in ruin to the bottom, I can only say, "I cannot do justice to this situation," and let it pass ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... Bridge, through Harlem lane, and well out into Westchester County. Returning, we stopped at O'Brien's Hotel for dinner. We fared sumptuously the whole day through, our dinner being particularly fine, my companion paying for everything, and really it was all highly enjoyable. He had a vast fund of anecdote, and many strange stories of city life and adventure, which naturally would be expected from one in his position. Many of those we passed or met during the day were personally known to him, and some, both women as well as men, who were then clothed in purple and fine linen, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... to her, perhaps, on fifty separate occasions. All this I mention to take away any appearance of a vulgar attempt to create omens; but still, in the very act of confessing the simple truth, and thus weakening the marvellous character of the anecdote, I must notice it as a strange instance of the 'Sortes Miltonian,'—that precisely at such a moment as this I should find thrown in my way, should feel tempted to take up, and should open, a volume containing such a passage as the following: and observe, moreover, that although the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Wife', in which the unfortunate husband of a literary lady pours out the tale of his domestic woes. In prose there were several perfunctory reviews contributed to the Litteratur-Zeitung, and also an anecdote—exhumed from an old chronicle and retold for the Merkur—relating to a breakfast given to the Duke of Alva by the Countess of Schwarzburg in the year 1547. To these may be added, finally, the short story entitled 'Play of Fate,' ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... can have no security that the impartial outsider would agree with the philosopher's self-complacent assumption. This point has been illustrated by the philosopher Chuang Tz[)u] in the following instructive anecdote: ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... hill-farm, as if holding on his own terms what is best in London. He was tall and gaunt, with a cliff-like brow, self-possessed and holding his extraordinary powers of conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humor which floated everything he looked upon. His talk, playfully exalting the most familiar objects, put the companion at once into an acquaintance with his Lars and Lemurs, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of men. Parliamentary history has few better passages than the debate in which Burke and Fox separated in the House of Commons; when Fox urged on his old friend the claims of old friendship with such tenderness that the house was moved to tears. Another anecdote is so close to my matter, that I must hazard the story. A tradesman who had long dunned him for a note of three hundred guineas, found him one day counting gold, and demanded payment:—"No," said Fox, "I owe this money to Sheridan; ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... very characteristic anecdote of this period deserves mention. In a letter to Hippel, dated "Plock, 3rd October, 1803," Hoffmann writes, "My uncle in Berlin will never do much more to recommend me, for he has become 'a grave man,' as Mercutio says in Shakespeare;[7] he died on the night of 24-25th September of inflammation ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... tradition illustrative of the Celtic theory of dreaming, of which I have since often thought. Two young men had been spending the early portion of a warm summer day in exactly such a scene as that in which he communicated the anecdote. There was an ancient ruin beside them, separated, however, from the mossy bank on which they sat, by a slender runnel, across which there lay, immediately over a miniature cascade, a few withered grass stalks. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... was a feeling common alike to mother and son, and, at times, even became a point of rivalry between them, from their respective claims, English and Scotch, to high lineage. In a letter written by him from Italy, referring to some anecdote which his mother had told him, he says,—"My mother, who was as haughty as Lucifer with her descent from the Stuarts, and her right line from the old Gordons,—not the Seyton Gordons, as she disdainfully termed the ducal branch,—told me the story, always reminding me ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... following anecdote, with a full belief of its truth: He had a friend who was zealously and perseveringly devoted to the study of alchemy. At one time, while he was intent upon his operations, a gentleman entered his laboratory, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... to break up the long tough hickory "gad" lying on his desk and to fling it out of the window. The next thing he did, after calling the school to order, was to tell the gaping, open-eyed children the most entertaining story to which they had ever listened. The anecdote had its moral too, for woven in and out and through its charming meshes was the woof of a life of heroic suffering, of trial ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... a while it has been my luck to meet among old soldiers the twenty-seven hundred and forty-sixth man who can tell a story well. Ben Tillye is one of them, and here is an anecdote I heard from him, which is rather interesting, and which may even ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... sad boaster, and was often guilty of describing deeds that he had done when an officer in the army, which those who knew him well felt sure were greatly exaggerated. He was in the midst of some such anecdote when the butler brought him word that a ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the only good anecdote in the book and the only verse worth printing are stolen. The story on page concerning Mr. Garrick and the Archbishop of York may be found in Fitzgerald's life of the actor, much better told. The verse (in Chapter X) is by an unknown author in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... asked how the blessed in paradise could be happy when missing some near relative or dear friend whom they were thus forced to suppose in hell. He replied, God will either cause believers to forget such persons or else to rest in expectation of their coming. The anecdote shows affectingly that the same yearning heart and curiosity are possessed by Moslem and Christian. A still more impressive case in point is furnished by a picture in a Buddhist temple in China. The painting represents the story of the priest Lo Puh, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Victorian part of it) with a supplement of wit and conversation. And one hardly knows at which to marvel most, the number of celebrities he hauls up in his net, of the number of laughs he gets out of them. His book is rich in fresh anecdote and the ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... Peter's and Downing. The halls are: Trinity, Catherine, and Clare. Bacon, Newton, Byron, Tennyson, and Macaulay were of Trinity College; Milton was of Christ's, Gray of Pembroke, Wordsworth of St. John's, and Coleridge of Jesus. There is an amusing anecdote of Byron current in the university, which I do not remember to have seen in print. The roof of the library of Trinity College is surmounted by three figures in stone, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. These figures are accessible only from the window of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Arminian Magazine, John Wesley publishes a story of a man who was hanged for murdering another man, whom he afterwards met in one of the Spanish colonies of South America. I shall not here interrupt the tale of the Perrys by explaining how a hanged man met a murdered man, but the anecdote proves that to inflict capital punishment for murder without proof that murder has been committed is not only an illegal but an injudicious proceeding. Probably it was assumed that Harrison, if alive, would have given signs of life in ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... little resemblance to a common-place book; his habitual deportment to a piece of clock-work. He is not remarkable either as a reasoner or an observer: but he is quick, unaffected, replete with anecdote, various and retentive in his reading, and exceedingly happy in his play upon words, as most scholars are who give their minds this sportive turn. We have chiefly seen Mr. Southey in company where few people appear to advantage, we mean in that of Mr. Coleridge. He has not certainly ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... book is scarcely less noteworthy than its fund of incident and anecdote. Parson Brownlow's book and speeches are brimful of invective. He's a good hater, indeed. He claimed in his Academy of Music speech that, "If there was any thing on God's earth that he was made for, it was to pile up epithets against this infernal rebellion!" Chacun a son gout. ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... the 1st Wisconsin Regiment, was one of them. I learned the following anecdote from a soldier who ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... the sentence may have been commuted without the tradition surviving on the circuit. All however agree, that no man who ever sat on the bench deserved the imputation of "obduracy" less than Baron Graham. I should not have noticed the anecdote but for its mythic accompaniments, which I disposed of in "N. & ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... which I tried to direct the conversation to interesting subjects—Coleridge, Southey, etc. He gave a very different impression from the preceding evening. His memory seemed clear and unclouded—his remarks forcible and decided—with some tendency to run off to irrelevant anecdote. ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... decorator. While on a visit to friends in Venice, he avoided every building which contains a Tintoretto, averring that the sight of Tintoretto's pictures would injure his carefully trained taste. It is probable that neither anecdote is strictly true. Yet there is a certain epigrammatic point in both; and I have often speculated whether even Venice could have so warped the genius of Poussin as to shed one ray of splendour on his canvases, or whether even Tintoretto could have so sublimed the prophet ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... earliest pictures I find of the every-day life of Longfellow when a youth is a little anecdote told by him, in humorous illustration of the woes of young authors. I quote from a brief diary. "Longfellow amused us to-day by talking of his youth, and especially with a description of the first poem he ever wrote, called 'The Battle of Lovell's Pond.' It was printed in a Portland newspaper ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... Macneill was much cherished among the fashionables of the capital. He was a tall, venerable-looking old man; and although his complexion was sallow, and his countenance somewhat austere, his agreeable and fascinating conversation, full of humour and replete with anecdote, rendered him an acceptable guest in many social circles. He displayed a lively, but not a vigorous intellect, and his literary attainments were inconsiderable. Of his own character as a man of letters, he had evidently formed a high estimate. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... A pretty anecdote is told of a little girl to whom the unseen world is very real. "Where does God live, mamma?" she asked, one evening, after ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... nineteenth century type; the same bright light, the same pleasant deglutition, the same hum of conversation; but, approaching, you discover each diner has a little drum-shaped body under his chin—his phonograph. So he dines and babbles at his ease. In the smoking-room he substitutes his anecdote record. I imagine, too, the suburban hostess meeting the new maiden: "I hope, dear, you have brought a lot of conversation," just as now she asks for the music. For my own part, I must confess I find this dinner conversation ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... genius unequivocally discovering itself in youth. In general, perhaps, a master-mind exhibits precocity. "Whatever a young man at first applies himself to, is commonly his delight afterwards." This remark was made by HARTLEY, who has related an anecdote of the infancy of his genius, which indicated the manhood. He declared to his daughter that the intention of writing a book upon the nature of man, was conceived in his mind when he was a very little boy—when swinging backwards and forwards ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... sorrows to all his friends and acquaintances, and continued to shower offerings of sour peaches and other raw produce from his garden upon the young lady's relatives; he was fond of repeating one and the same anecdote, which, in spite of Mr. Polutikin's appreciation of its merits, had certainly never amused anyone; he admired the works of Akim Nahimov and the novel Pinna; he stammered; he called his dog Astronomer; instead of 'however' said 'howsomever'; and had established in his household ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... relates an interesting anecdote connected with this alphabet, which occurred when he was a missionary in the North-West. During Lord Dufferin's visit there he conversed with Mr. Young in regard to the Indians in these distant regions, and expressed his solicitude for the welfare and happiness of these wandering races, and ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... can be no doubt that Jonson cherished genuine esteem and affection for Shakespeare till death. {176b} Within a very few years of Shakespeare's death Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, an industrious collector of anecdotes, put into writing an anecdote for which he made Dr. Donne responsible, attesting the amicable relations that habitually subsisted between Shakespeare and Jonson. 'Shakespeare,' ran the story, 'was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up and asked ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... goods and even provisions had to be sent by sea to those missionaries who lived in the most savage and uncultivated parts of the peninsula; and a curious anecdote on this subject was related to C—-n by one of these men, who is now a gardener by profession. It happened that some one sent to the monks, amongst other things, a case of fine Malaga raisins; and one of the monks, whose name I forget, sowed a number of the dried ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... marriage by a pretty girl he met on the road; and best of all the exciting history of the brave lass of Langholm, who ran through brooks and bushes to snatch her lover at the last minute from a rival he was marrying in the Blacksmith's Shop. This last anecdote had been "the doctor's" favourite. One chapter of his history was devoted entirely to the Old Glasgow Road. In it he gave three whole pages to the young man's bet and the two lassies who were ready to help ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of the Mogul Empire. [W. H. S.] The author seems to have used either the London edition of 1671, entitled The History of the Late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogul, or one of the reprints of that edition. The anecdote referred to is called by Bernier 'an uncommonly good story'. Aurangzeb made a long speech, ending by dismissing the unlucky pedagogue with the words: 'Go! withdraw to thy native village. Henceforth let no man know either who thou art, or what is become of thee.' (Bernier, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... about Defoe's famous little ghost-story, The Apparition of Mrs. Veal, praising Defoe's wonderful skill in making the unreal seem credible. In connection with this tale Scott developed a very interesting anecdote to explain the fact that Drelincourt's Defence against the Fear of Death is recommended by the apparition. "Drelincourt's book," he says, "being neglected, lay a dead stock on the hands of the publisher. In this emergency he applied to ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... person and agreeable manners, entertaining conversation, and fund of information and anecdote, became very popular in the neighborhood, and the county gentry feasted and lionized him ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... grim from a gripping religion that had squeezed all joy from his scripture-haunted soul, added an anecdote to the entertainment. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... continents, seemingly all of cinders and sweepings (though fragments and remnants do lie hidden, could you find them again):—-these are not details that will be available! Anecdotes there are in quantity; but of uncertain quality; of doubtful authenticity, above all. One recollects hardly any Anecdote whatever that seems completely credible, or renders to us the Physiognomy of Friedrich in a convincing manner. So remiss a creature has the Prussian Clio been,—employed on all kinds of loose errands over the Earth and the Air; and as good as altogether negligent of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... anecdote is printed at page 4 (Vol. II); but as it is used in illustration here, and is given more in detail, I have not ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... that Mosey and Bum wound up the evening with a series of gestes and apothegms, such as must not tarnish these pages—Willoughby occasionally taking part, rather, I think, through courtesy than sympathy, and ably closing the service with a fescennine anecdote, beginning, 'It is related that, on one occasion, the late ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Marquis adjourned to the "Grand Promenade," where the sultanas see the world, unseen themselves, in their carriages. "Though," as he writes, "I never had an opportunity of verifying any thing like Miss Pardoe's anecdote of the 'sentries being ordered to face about when presenting arms,' rather than be permitted to gaze on the tempting and forbidden fruit; but, on the contrary, witnessed soldiers escorting all the sultanas' carriages: it is nevertheless true, that a gruff ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... portals of old Trinity Church, over the dead body of the noble martyr, with grief in every countenance, and anguish in every heart, Coleman's acuteness of feeling paralyzed every movement of his frame, and drowned every faculty of his mind. While on this topic, the decease of Hamilton, I may state an anecdote, the import of which can be readily understood. It was not long prior to the time of his death that the new and authentic edition of The Federalist was published by George F. Hopkins. Hopkins told me of the delicacy with ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... wished that he should make his escape. On entering Smithfield, he jocosely said, that the place had long groaned for him. After being examined by the council, he was committed to the Tower, where his cheerfulness is displayed in the following anecdote. Being kept without fire in severe frosty weather, his aged frame suffered so much, that he told the lieutenant's man, that if he did not look better after him he should deceive his master. The lieutenant, thinking he meant to effect his escape, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... of anecdote, which was quite in the order of things, the Sixties having supplied anecdote for a whole library of books and magazines. Could I tell Sandys's stories with Sandys's voice I should be tempted to repeat them yet once again, though many were told us also by Whistler, and ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... to consider; and this conversation, which had been carried on apart, was suddenly broken into by the tall doctor, who wanted to know whether his lordship had ever heard the anecdote about Lord Thurlow and the late king. The anecdote was as long as the doctor himself; and when it was over, the gentlemen adjourned to the drawing-room, and all conversation was immediately drowned by "Row, brothers, row," which had only been suspended till the arrival of Mr. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the same chapter from which this extract is taken, the Doctor tells a story which, if faith could be put in the numerous accounts which men relate of themselves, (and such, we presume, was the original authority for the anecdote,) might deserve a place in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... most wise and beneficent provision of Nature, of which parents and teachers should be careful to take advantage. It is because of this disposition in children, that in all ordinary cases, the simplest narrative or anecdote in ordinary life, may be successfully employed in giving them mental strength, and in communicating permanent moral instruction. But whenever unnatural and injudicious excitements are used in their instruction, and the child's ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... go to England, and the offer of all his interest, and that of his friends, to make my residence there agreeable. I found in the country to which I had retired, the lord marshal, the countryman and friend of Hume, who confirmed my good opinion of him, and from whom I learned a literary anecdote, which did him great honor in the opinion of his lordship and had the same effect in mine. Wallace, who had written against Hume upon the subject of the population of the ancients, was absent whilst his work was in the press. Hume took upon ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... word of it; he was simplicity itself in such things; he didn't seem to have any idea of the game. He was wholly oblivious of the little cloud which his anecdote left on her. It was a little cloud, but many little clouds can make a canopy of gloom and beget a storm. Then came the words. It was at one of the church evenings in the parsonage—a regular affair, but ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... an anecdote, signifies that you will greatly prefer gay companionship to that of intellect, and that your affairs will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... was a very tall and handsome man, about fifty—very droll and full of anecdote; he had stories to tell about ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Fortescue Jones, the assistant-paymaster, whom I had taken a liking to in consequence of his having served under Sir Charles Napier, Dad's old captain and my own personal patron, he noticed this screen and he told me another anecdote of the old admiral, to add to ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as facts. Thus he states positively that Shakespeare attended a free school, from which he was withdrawn owing to "the narrowness of his circumstances, and the want of assistance at home." He repeats the deer-stealing anecdote, with further detail. As to his acting, Rowe reports, "Tho' I have inquir'd, I could never meet with any further account of him this way than that the top of his performance was the ghost in his own Hamlet." He corroborates ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... mounting spirit, one that entertained Scorn of base action, deed dishonorable, Or aught unseemly. I remember well Her reverend image: I remember, too, With what a zeal she served her master's house; And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age Delighted to recount the oft-told tale Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was, And wondrous skilled in genealogies, And could in apt and voluble terms discourse Of births, of titles, and alliances; Of marriages, and intermarriages; Relationship remote, or near of kin; Of friends offended, family disgraced— Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... other cases, next to nothing. He was an Athenian and must have been somewhere near the age of Scopas, though seemingly rather younger. Pliny gives the hundred and fourth Olympiad (370-66) as the date at which he flourished, but this was probably about the beginning of his artistic career. Only one anecdote is told of him which is worth repeating here. When asked what ones among his marble statues he rated highest he answered that those which Nicias had tinted were the best. Nicias was an eminent painter of the period (see ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... entitled to about as much credit as the story of Aladdin's lamp; and yet, in a case of this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it is clear that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The following anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated, that we may receive ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... volumes of The Minstrelsy. Lockhart describes the enthusiasm of dukes, fine ladies, and antiquarians. In the end of April 1803 the third volume appeared, including ballads obtained through Hogg and Laidlaw in spring 1802. Scott, by his store of historic anecdote in his introductions and notes, by his way of vivifying the past, and by his method of editing, revived, but did not create, the interest in ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... and wide. He was a member of the Synhedrion and taught the holy law within the shadow of the Temple. His school was called the "Great House," and was the scene of many incidents which formed the subjects for anecdote and legend. He was the first man who successfully combatted the Sadducees, and who knew how to refute their arguments, which were partly religious and partly juridical. But Jochanan's great fame was chiefly due to the influence which he afterwards ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... bell-wire. I do not remember how or why (but appositely) he repeated some verses, from a pretty little ballad about fairies, that had struck his fancy, and he wound up his talk with some acute observations on the characters of General Jackson and other public men. He told an anecdote, illustrating the old general's small acquaintance with astronomical science, and his force of will in compelling a whole dinner-party of better instructed people than himself to succumb to him in an argument about eclipses and the planetary system generally. Powers witnessed the scene ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had a vast collection of engravings and photographs. His plan with Carter was to show him some engraving presenting a fact or anecdote. First he would put under his eyes a cruel or unjust action. He would point out the signs of suffering in one of the figures. Carter would understand this because he saw it. Then Mr. Eden would excite his sympathy. "Poor so and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... nearly resembled the characters used by the Indians, he had no doubt the inscription was made long ago by some natives of America." Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. x. p. 115. This pleasant anecdote shows in a new light Washington's accuracy of observation and unfailing common-sense. Such inscriptions have been found by the thousand, scattered over all parts of the United States; for a learned study of them see Garrick Mallery, "Pictographs of the North American Indians," ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... His honor and His character. Haven't I hung my soul upon His "exceeding great and precious promise"? and if He would break His word He would make Himself a liar, and a' the universe would rush into confusion.' This anecdote reveals the true ground of the believer's safety. It is as high as the honor of God; it is as trustworthy as His character; it is as immutable as His promises; it is as broad as the infinite merit of His Son's atoning blood."—J. H. Brookes, in "The ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... literary and artistic matters enabled him to place an unfamiliar quotation or assign a painted tablet to the right artist. One tells how he was able to find a man in a crowd when everyone else had failed. And the last and most amusing is an anecdote of a court lady who tried to inveigle him into a flirtation with her maid by sending the latter, richly dressed and perfumed, to sit very close to him when he was at the temple. Kenko congratulates himself on having been adamant. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... whilst speaking of these female Thugs, relates an anecdote very characteristic of them; a device at which they are adepts, which they love to employ, and which is generally attended with success. It is the more deserving attention, as an instance of the same description, attended with very similar circumstances, occurred within ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... mention it, as a literary accident, but being a curious and unique anecdote it shall be stated. I had the honour at Christ Church of being prizetaker of Dr. Burton's theological essay, "The Reconciliation of Matthew and John," when Gladstone who had also contested it, stood second; and when ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... second that there will be a proper balance between the parts, that it will not be all introduction and conclusion; the third, that it will hang together, without awkward transitions. A toast may consist, as Lowell said, of "a platitude, a quotation and an anecdote," but the toaster must exercise his ingenuity in putting ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... heads turned, and are taught to consider nothing a sin that used to be sins. Many gentlemen, who come to our shop, have found out that Victoire is very handsome, and tell her so; but she is so modest and prudent that I am not afraid for her. I could tell you, madame, a good anecdote on this subject, but my paper will not allow, and, besides, ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... twist or other to their position before the world. The attitude of upright virtue is unbecoming, like sitting too straight in a fauteuil. Don't ask me for opinions, however; content yourself with a few facts and with an anecdote. Madame Blumenthal is Prussian, and very well born. I remember her mother, an old Westphalian Grafin, with principles marshalled out like Frederick the Great's grenadiers. She was poor, however, and her principles were an insufficient dowry for Anastasia, who was married very ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... answered, "I should like to have one, but, you see, it is quite impossible. One can't light the candles till after four o'clock, and before that time it is so dark here in the entresol that you can't see anybody." (I should have prefaced this anecdote by saying, for the benefit of those readers who have never been in Paris, that the entresol is a low story just over the shops, and that the Rue de Rivoli is one of the noisiest streets in the city.)—"But Feuillet has leased the third and fourth floors: why ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... one of those readers who, whether their subject be a murder case or a funny anecdote, adopt a measured and sepulchral delivery which gives a suggestion of tragedy and horror to whatever they read. At the church which he attended on Sundays, of which he was one of the most influential and respected members, children would turn pale and ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... This anecdote was not altogether to Audrey's taste. She walked to a shelf where Ted had put some bronzes, looked at them with a decided air of criticism, and arranged them differently. Having asserted her ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... the border towns, but even in the interior of the Pale, the students of German literature and secular science were not few, and Doctor Loewe discovered in Hebron an exceptional German scholar in the person of an immigrant from Vilna.[31] The tendency of the time is well illustrated by an anecdote told by Slonimsky, to the effect that when he went to ask the approval of Rabbi Abele of Zaslava on his Mosde Hokmah, he found that those who came to be examined for ordination received their award without delay, while he was put off from week to week. Ill at ease, Slonimsky ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... writer, Horae Subsecivae Brown, quotes, (without comment,) as a motto to one of his volumes, an anecdote from Pierce Egan, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... alteration in so important an usage. We are told by Quintus Curtius, that Alexander would not sit in the presence of Sisygambis, till told to do so by that matron, because it is not the custom in Persia for sons to sit in the presence of their mothers. There can be no stronger proof than this anecdote affords, of the great respect in which the female sex were held in that country, at ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... qu'on y arrivait prepare a jouer son role, et que l'envie d'entrer en scene n'y laissait pas toujours a la conversation la liberte de suivre son cours facile et naturel. C'etait a qui saisirait le plus vite, et comme a la volee, le moment de placer son mot, son conte, son anecdote, sa maxime ou son trait leger et piquant; et, pour amener l'a-propos, on le tirait quelquefois d'un peu loin. Dans Marivaux, l'impatience de faire preuve de finesse et de ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... John, went to sea in a merchant-vessel, and shortly became owner and commander of a ship, called the Benbow frigate. No man was better known or more respected by the merchants upon the Exchange. The following anecdote shows his character, and is in accordance with the spirit of the times in which he lived. In the year 1688 he was, while in command of the Benbow frigate, attacked on his passage to Cadiz by a Sallee rover of ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... This anecdote may tend better than any thing else to show us how Nature and grace were united in the Irish soul, to warm it, purify it, exalt it above ordinary feelings and earthly passions, and keep it constantly ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Suetonius, as far as they are extant, complete, his Lives of eminent Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets, of which a translation has not before appeared in English, are added. These Lives abound with anecdote and curious information connected with learning and literary men during the period of which ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... dark, and the floors felt gritty to the feet; it was an establishment at which the dreadful gras-double might have appeared at the table d'hote, as it had done at Narbonne. Never- theless, I was glad to get back to it; and nevertheless, too, - and this is the moral of my simple anecdote, - my pointless little walk (I don't speak of the pave- ment) suffuses itself, as I look back upon it, with a romantic tone. And in relation to the inn, I suppose I had better mention that I am well aware of the in- consistency ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Captain Dickert's book is that it presents the gay and bright, as well as the grave side of the Confederate soldier's experience. It is full of anecdote and incident and repartee. Such quips and jests kept the heart light and the blood warm beneath ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... an anecdote that is worth reading and worth preserving. Thus, under Machiavellist: "I have heard that a philosopher, being asked by a great prince about a refutation of Machiavellism, which the latter had just published, replied, 'Sire, I fancy that the first lesson that Machiavelli would have given ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... [12] This anecdote is accepted by Mr. Lodge in his life of Washington, but doubt is cast upon it by another historian. All that can be said is that there is nothing to disprove it and that ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... speaking of the young French sculptor allowed to go on with his work in the prison camp at Zossen, or the flower-beds in front of the French barracks there—"but, of course, the French are an artistic people. You can allow them liberties like that." Every now and then in the papers one runs across some anecdote from France in which the Frenchman is permitted to make the retort at the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... from the first used to take an active part in his son's education, and the following anecdote will show that he had at least a pupil who was anxious to learn. One day, when Charles was a very small boy, he came up to his father and showed him a book of logarithms, with the request, "Please explain." Mr. Dodgson told him that he was much too young ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... his personal experience. One of these was moreover in itself a curious and interesting chapter of observation, and it fructified, in Hawthorne's memory, in one of his best productions. How urgently he needed at this time to be drawn within the circle of social accidents, a little anecdote related by Mr. Lathrop in connection with his first acquaintance with the young lady he was to marry, may serve as an example. This young lady became known to him through her sister, who had first approached him as an admirer of the Twice-Told Tales ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... hundred pounds per annum, so that the bard 'more fat than bard beseems' was not in a condition to grow thinner, and could afford to make his cottage a Castle of Indolence. Leigh Hunt has versified an anecdote illustrative of Thomson's luxurious idleness. He who could describe "Indolence" so well, and so often ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... both could not be saved the choice should be left to chance, or decided by someone else. But no; unless she chose they would both be shot. At last she chose Diego. Afterwards she went mad, and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed my grandson Emilio.' This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I., whose short reign was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though there were enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... blushing up to the eyes. The Sergeant gazed intently at him for a minute or so, then stood at attention, gave the military salute, and said, "God bless you, sir." He then walked off and was seen no more. In recounting this anecdote, Mr. H. F. Dickens agreed with me that, reading between the lines, one can almost fancy some lingering reminiscences similar to those in the early experience of Private ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... remember Lorenzetti? Above all, the fresco at San Francesco, in which Saint Francois presents his order to the Pope, that was his best work.... Then, there is a cardinal, with his fingers on his lips, thus!" another gesture. "Well, I remember it, you see, because there is an anecdote. It is portrayed on a wall—oh, a grand portrayal, but without the subject, flutt!".... and he made a hissing sound with his lips, "while Pier della Francesca, Carnevale, Melozzo,".... he paused to find a word which would express ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... with half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, and how some Spaniards still honour this expression in life, while German art prefers lips pouting as for a kiss. His lively sense of anecdote, to which he gives the rein in all his ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... anecdote is told in connection with the travels and cooeperation of Mlle. de Scudery and her brother; once, on the way to Paris, while stopping over night at Lyons, they were discussing the fate of one of their heroes, one proposing death ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... fill freed memory with this value as a way of converting {heisenbug}s into {Bohr bug}s. As in "Your program is DEADBEEF" (meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory); if you start from an odd half-word boundary, of course, you have BEEFDEAD. See also the anecdote under {fool}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... something to tell you about some of your friends the birds, and perhaps your chicks can help answer the questions the anecdote raises. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... very interesting time at Portsmouth. We constantly visited the dockyard, which was my delight. He took me over the Victory, and showed me the spot where Nelson fell; and with old associations many a tale and anecdote which, long since forgotten, now returned to his memory, he poured into my ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... he swore in his cups that he had never met a Jacobite without pistolling him where he stood. Yet for all his vapouring and his violence he was so good a companion, with such a stream of strange anecdote and reminiscence, that Scarrow and Morgan had never known a ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reiterated the heroine of this remarkable anecdote, quite restored to good humour by finding herself looked upon as ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the man could not refrain from displaying the conversational art in which he excelled. Their talk dealt with Italy, Egypt, India. He spoke with the ease of culture and enthusiasm. Once he slipped into anecdote a propos of the helplessness of British soldiers in any matter outside the scope of the ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... Russian scandal, and the growth and development of stories, this anecdote of Lord Lyttelton deserves attention. So first we must glance at the previous history of the hero. Thomas Lord Lyttelton was born, says Mr. Coulton (in the 'Quarterly Review,' No. 179, p. 111), on January 30, 1744.* He was educated at ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... recals to my mind an amusing anecdote, told to me by a resident of one of our back townships, which illustrates, even in a cruel act of retaliation, the dry humour which so strongly characterizes the lower class of emigrants from the emerald isle. I will give it in my ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... just a little anecdote to show you how easy it is, by being inconsiderate, for one person to make another uncomfortable. But now tell me how you like Cumberland. You must be quite a mountaineer by ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... readers furnish me with information relative to this officer? His disastrous expedition against Fort Du Quesne, and its details, are well known; but I should like to know something more of his previous history. Walpole gives an anecdote or two of him, and mentions that he had been Governor of Gibraltar. I think too he was of Irish extraction. Is there no portrait or engraving of Braddock ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... more gay bons mots and repartees, a last epigram from the Abbe, a court anecdote from the Marquise which might have figured in one of those letters of Madame de Sevigne where the freshness of the haymaker of Les Rochers survives the glare and the terrible staleness of the Versailles of Louis ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... thought this sneer a very happy one, for he repeated it, fearing that Sally had not understood. The grocer who had placed a bas-relief of himself over his door was greatly wondered at, and Sally told an amusing anecdote regarding the invitations he sent out for the first dinner party. The conversation turned on the Measons. Jack's ship had gone to China, and he was not ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... parts to be restricted to one illustrative anecdote and one advisory monologue, neither to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... and distorted. Whoever had a sharp word for an adversary, which could not be spoken in Council, knew of an audience that would enjoy and carry the matter. The battles of the Aula were fought over again, with anecdote, epigram, and fiction. A distinguished courtesy and nobleness of tone prevailed at the beginning. When the Archbishop of Halifax went down to his place on the 28th of December, after delivering the speech which taught the reality of the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... shelter and sustenance for himself in this his first venture into London! Many years afterward, in the days of his social elevation, he startled a polite circle at Sir Joshua Reynolds' by humorously dating an anecdote about the time he "lived among the beggars of Axe Lane." Such may have been the desolate quarters with which he was fain to content himself when thus adrift upon the town, with but a few half-pence in ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Toby told her an anecdote about one of the other fellows at his work. Sally listened with a breathless interest that was only half-feigned. She wanted him to think she understood. She wanted him to like her. She even wanted to sympathise. It was such a mixture of feelings she had—some good, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... freed from its excessive amount of salt; after which it was frequently bathed in sweet milk, the addition of a little sugar being the concluding stroke in the process. This "sweet fresh butter from Epping" was sold at a profit of 100 per cent. Our dairy farmers might take a hint from this anecdote. Does it not prove that the mere removal of the salt added to Irish butter doubles the value of ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... confound their feminine minds by an anecdote," whispered the parrot in the ear of ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... night, Richmond.—I finished my short note of to-day with saying that I intended to have wrote to you a longer letter, but I sent you all which I had time to write before the post went out. It is, I think, a curious anecdote, and I know it to be a true one; I was surprised to find that the Duke had heard nothing of it, but I suppose that his Highness the D(uke) of O(rleans) does not find it a very pleasant subject to discuss, and if the allegation be true, no one in history can make a more horrid, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... me. At length, the desired despatch had come; it seemed written on the leaf of a lily with a pen dipped in dew. I opened it—and had nearly fainted with disappointment. It was from a stock-broker, who begins an anecdote of Mr. Rothschild before dinner, and finishes it with the fourth bottle—and who makes his eight children stay up to supper and snap-dragon. In macadamizing a stray stone in one of his periodical puddings, I once lost a tooth, and with it an heiress of some reputation. I ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... obtained boons whereby we shall excel all men." Thereat Bharadwaja said, "O my son, as thou hast obtained the objects of thy desire, thou wilt be proud. And when thou art puffed up with pride and hast also become uncharitable, destruction will soon overtake thee. O my son, there is a current anecdote narrated by the gods. In ancient times, O son, there lived a sage named Valadhi, possessed of great energy. And in grief for the death of a child, he practised the severest penances to have a child that should be immortal. And he obtained a son even as he desired. But the gods, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... christian only a few days before his death; but in battle he had for some time worn on his left hip a crucifix, given him by the missionaries, and which he believed rendered him invulnerable. We were told an anecdote that paints the violence of his character. He had married the daughter of an Indian chief of the Rio Temi. In a paroxysm of rage against his father-in-law, he declared to his wife that he was going to fight against him. She reminded him of the courage and singular strength of her ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... twenty-four seats and a guest for every seat. We need not enter into the details of the entertainment. It is enough to state that it was literally festive with its succulent viands, its inspiriting wines and its dazzling cross-fire of wit and anecdote. The present was forgotten, as it should always be at well-regulated dinners; the future was not thought of, for the diners were old men; the past was the only thing which occupied them. They talked of their ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... The Herodotean anecdote of the Egyptian King Mycerinus, his indignation at the sentence of death in six years as a recompense for his just rule, and his device of lengthening his days by revelling all night, is neither an unpromising nor a wholly promising subject. The ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... to popular magazines appears to hinge largely upon the quality of the thinking the writer does before he sets pen to paper. A classic anecdote of New York's Fleet Street may illustrate ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism[331] not of the schools, but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and has given that ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... writing). He could cook risotto better than any one else he knew. He was dubbed a "hippopotamus in trousers," and for six years before he died he could not see his toes, he was so fat. Sir Arthur Sullivan relates an anecdote which shows that Rossini was conscious of his grossness. Once in Paris Sullivan introduced Chorley to Rossini, when the Italian said, "Je vois, avec plaisir, que monsieur n'a pas de ventre." Chorley indeed was noticeably slender. Rossini could write more easily, so his biographers ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... this morning that our friend was connected with the theatre in this place, though he is not desirous to have it generally known, and this gentleman is a member of the same profession. He was about to favour us with a little anecdote connected with it, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... tremendously suited to human nature it is, as the Barrister may find in the arguments of the Pagan philosophers against Christianity, who attributed a large portion of its success to its holding out an expiation, which no other religion did. Read but that most affecting and instructive anecdote selected from the Hindostan Missionary Account by the Quarterly Review. [4] Again let me say I am not giving my own opinion on this very difficult point; but of one thing I am convinced, that the ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was quite ready. General Bullwigg apostrophized the weather and the links. He spoke at some length of "My game," "My swing," "My wrist motion," "My notion of getting out of a bunker." He told an anecdote which reminded him of another. He touched briefly upon the manufacture of balls, the principle of imparting pure back-spin; the best seed for Northern greens, the best sand for Southern. And then, by way of adding insult to injury, he stepped up to his ball ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... feelings in connection with it. Preaches in public under peculiar circumstances. Introduced to his future father- in-law's family. Visits their house. Reception. Description of his future wife and sisters. Anecdote. Commences business. Visits the States to buy tools. Takes Niagara in his way. Scenery above Lewiston. First sight of Rapids. Of the Falls. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... exterior she recognized the heart of a nobleman. The "cold, wise one," the "anchoress," fell in love with him soon after the lessons began, but carefully hid her feelings from every one. There is a charming anecdote of the early acquaintance of the ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... like to confirm by the following anecdote, which is going the round of the Brigade, what I recently told you about our friend Boyce. I shouldn't worry you, but I feel that if one has cast an unjustifiable slur on a brother-officer's honour—and I can't tell you how the thing has lain ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... this harmless entertainment. Cranmer tells us that in the time of Queen Mary a monk preached a sermon at St. Paul's, the object of which was to prove the truth of the doctrine of transubstantiation; and, after the manner of his kind, told the following little anecdote in support of it:—"A maid of Northgate parish in Canterbury, in pretence to wipe her mouth, kept the host in her handkerchief; and, when she came home, she put the same into a pot, close covered, and she spitted in another pot, and after a few days, she looking ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... nerve, but he had suddenly remembered that letter to Sheriff Hardenberg, regarding which he had long ago obtained confirmation from Pop Daggett. If he could rely on the meaning of Stratton's little anecdote—and he had an uncomfortable conviction that he could—the letter would be opened in case Buck met his death by violence. And once it was opened by the sheriff, only Tex Lynch how very much the fat ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... they talked on, in the apparently careless, but in reality guarded way which had become second nature to both of them. More than one strange and very shady anecdote was Hazon able to narrate concerning the place and its inhabitants, and especially concerning certain among the latter who ranked high for morality, commercially or otherwise. There were actions done in their midst every day, he declared, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... at the anecdote, even if we were not quite converted to Mrs. Arkwright's views. And I must in justice add that every visit which has taken us from home—every fresh experience which has enlarged our knowledge of the world—has confirmed the truth of ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... any considerations of vile dross will induce me to part with this rare and precious little volume, you are very much mistaken. It is like your impudence. Be off with you!' A not altogether dissimilar anecdote is related by Lord Lytton in that curious novel 'Zanoni,' in which one of the characters is an old bookseller who, after years of toil, succeeded in forming an almost perfect library of works on occult philosophy. Poor in everything but a genuine love for the ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... princely profusion—and while the strangely met and sympathetically united friends ate and drank, delicious music was played on stringed instruments by unseen performers. When, at intervals, these pleasing sounds ceased, Sah-luma's conversation, brilliant, witty, refined, and sparkling with light anecdote and lighter jest, replaced with admirable sufficiency, the left-off harmonies,—and Theos, keenly alive to the sensuous enemy of his own emotions, felt that he had never before enjoyed such an ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... If at any time)—Ver. 1. This is not a Fable; it is merely an anecdote in natural history, and one not very ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... evenings, Adam was the talker: such a fund of anecdote he had! Jinny never could hear the same story too often. To-night there was a bit of a sigh in them: his heart was tender: about the Christmases at home, when he and Nelly were little chubs together, and hung up their stockings regularly every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Poets, which thou wast kind enough to send me, and which I hope is having a wide circulation as it deserves. Its analysis of character and estimate of literary merit strike me as in the main correct. Its racy, colloquial style, enlivened by anecdote and citation, makes it anything but a dull book. It seems to me admirably adapted to supply a want ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... officer, on the conclusion of the foregoing anecdote, whether the time appeared long, or short, when he lay in that constrained ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... done?" He was kept at the head of the army on the Potomac just long enough to prevent Burnside from doing anything, and not much has been done since that time. Now, McClellan may be a very nice young man—I haven't the slightest doubt of it—but I have read a little anecdote of him. Somebody asked the president of a Western railroad company, in which McClellan was an engineer, what he thought about his abilities. "Well," said the president, "he is a first-rate man to build ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... table. "Why, my dear, what a beautiful book! Where did you borrow it?" You glance over the newspaper, with the quietest tone you can command: "That! oh! that is mine. Have you not seen it before? It has been in the house these two months." and you rush on with anecdote and incident, and point out the binding, and that peculiar trick of gilding, and everything else you can think of; but it all will not do; you cannot rub out that roguish, arithmetical smile. People may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The silent smile ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner |
