"Antic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fairies, blithe and antic, Of dimensions not gigantic, Though the moonshine mostly keep us, Oft in orchards ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... Sidney; 'methought that it betokens disease in the mind of a nation when their festive revelry is thus ghastly, rendering the most awful secrets made known by our God in order to warm man from sin into a mere antic laughing-stock. Laughter should be moved by what is fair and laughter-worthy—even like such sports as our own "Midsummer Night's Dream." I have read that the bloody temper of Rome fed itself in gladiator shows, and verily, what we beheld to-night betokens something at once ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... snare drummer was performing a queer antic. It was as if his fingers were screwed into his hand and had become loosened while he drummed. No, he was tightening them so they wouldn't fall off. One finger after another he screwed up, and then went over them again to ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... I put my old Spad through every antic we two had ever done together. The observers in the balloons must have thought me crazy, a pilot running amuck from aerial shell shock. I had discovered a new meaning for that "grand and glorious feeling" which is so often ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... widow in the East, acknowledged his niece, who had been angling for poor Peter for years. And Peter was still free, Susie suspected, because in the presence of that widow he emulated Hamlet and always put an antic disposition on. Did the most absurd things, and appeared to be little more than half-witted. The widow in question had even spoken to Susie about her uncle's eccentricities and intimated that his segregative manner of life might in the ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... not help it, wench," said the Queen, laughing. "But we will have this same Sir Nicholas sent to Ireland or Scotland, or somewhere, to rid our court of so antic a chevalier; he may be a good soldier in the field, though a ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... keeping exact time to the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering round the skirts of the dance, and rattling a Christmas-box with many antic gesticulations. ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... has thought of. So he leads him outside by an arm and can hardly tell what he has to say because it's so funny he has to laugh when he thinks of it. They go up an alley where they won't be overheard, and Herman at last manages to keep his laughter down long enough to tell it. It's a comical antic he wants Manuel ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... for hoping, antic-ipation. 5. Breast'ed (pro. brest'ed), opposed courageously. 6. Numb, without the power of feeling or motion. Re-laxed', loosened. ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the halfpence; but several fresh spectators were yet to see the sight; and though the exhausted animals were but little inclined to perform their antic feats, their master twitched the rope, that was fastened round their necks, so violently, that they were compelled ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... presence I can only mourn; Your common gift shall two large goblets be Of silver, wrought with curious imagery, And high emboss'd, which, when old Priam reign'd, My conqu'ring sire at sack'd Arisba gain'd; And more, two tripods cast in antic mold, With two great talents of the finest gold; Beside a costly bowl, ingrav'd with art, Which Dido gave, when first she gave her heart. But, if in conquer'd Italy we reign, When spoils by lot the victor shall obtain- Thou saw'st the courser by proud ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... was at this point that another notion came into my mind, so antic, so impish, so fiendish, that if there were still any Evil One, in a world which gets on so poorly without him, I should attribute it to his suggestion; and this was that the procession which Jan saw issuing from the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... will, and admirable effect did he lace Mr. Hourigan, that the latter worthy, after cutting some very antic capers, and exhibiting in a good many other respects several proofs of his agility that could scarcely be expected from his heavy and ungainly figure, was at last fairly obliged to sing out,—"Oh, Misther John, Misther ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... knowingly answered his look with a winking and blinking of its great bright eye, that seemed to say, "Well, Uncle Juvinell, what shall we do for the entertainment or instruction of these little people to-night? Shall we tell them of that crew of antic goblins we wot of, who are wont to meet by moonlight, to play at football with the hanged man's head, among the tombstones of an old graveyard? Or may be that dreadful ogre, with the one fiery eye in the middle of his forehead, who was in the habit of roasting fat men on a ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... squirrel, turtles' eggs, or wild strawberries. It depicted moonlight rides to dance with Shenandoah girls; the playing of camp charades; and the singing of war, home, and love songs around the late camp fire, timed to the antic banjo or the sentimental guitar. Drolly, yet with tenderness for others, it portrayed mountain storm, valley freshet, and heart-breaking night marches beside tottering guns in the straining, sucking, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... to learn to play it." Then he asked me where I had bought it, and I told him like a dutiful son—"Tom Carrodus's in Church Green." He summoned my mother and asked: "Mally, what dos'ta think o' this lot?" She—good woman—said it was only another antic of her boy's, and "let him have his own way." But my father, on the contrary, got rather nasty about the matter, remarking that if I didn't take the thing away he would put it into the fire. He said he was sure it would only turn out a public house "touch," and informed me that ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... I had been milking my goats, which I had in the inclosure just by: when he espied me, he came running to me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the possible signs of an humble, thankful disposition, making a great many antic gestures to show it; at last he laid his head flat upon the ground, close to my foot, and set my other foot upon his head, as he had done before; and after this, made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... came the three times nine horses and mules, the latter being very handsome, but the horses had lost their beauty and condition, as, except one or two, they were very unfit for being sent or accepted between princes. This done, the Persian returned, with many antic tricks, to his place, which was far inferior to mine, as I stood alone, and above all the subjects, though Asaph Khan at first wanted to put me from it, but I maintained it as my right, having been appointed me by the king. This was only the first act ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... escaped her notice that since dinner her mental processes had undergone some subtle change. For one thing, her sense of humor had quickened. Joe had often maintained she had none. If Joe could see her now! No; that was not her meaning precisely; but at any rate, it had quickened. How every antic of the comedians appealed to her! The excessively tall and the excessively short Germans who talked into one another's teeth; the young person who sang coon songs in a fashion not negro, but all her own; the giant with a boutonniere which a midget mounted a step-ladder to spray; the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... he gave out the number of the short anthem which accompanied this manoeuvre, but today he made no such announcement. A discreet curtain hid the organist from the congregation, and veiled his gymnastics with the stops and his antic dancing on the pedals, and now when Mr Rumbold moved from his stall, there came from the organ the short introduction to Bach's "Mein Glaubige Herz," which even Lucia had allowed to be nearly "equal" to Beethoven. And ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... the night before, nothing of which contributed to make me less irritable. My head ached. The sun- glare on the water made my eyes ache, while I was suffering more than half a touch of mal de mer from the antic conduct of the outrigger on the blobby sea. The air was stagnant. In the lee of Waihee, between the white beach and the roof, no whisper of breeze eased the still sultriness. I really think I was too miserable to summon the ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... stop,—first let me kiss away that tear)— Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouch'd by sorrow, and unsoil'd by sin— (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... vain joys in which their wills consume Such powers of wit and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity, May be converted on works fitting men; And for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true heart, An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge, And spirit that may conform them actually To God's high figures, which ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... talk for all the characters. Still better puppets are doll heads and arms of various sorts, dressed in flowing robes and provided with holes for two fingers and a thumb of the operator, who moves them from below. They can be made to dance and antic as you like on a stage above the showman's head, as Punch and Judy have always done. The more elaborate marionettes are worked with strings from above, so that they can open and close their mouths ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... into the temples. I soon found my way down to the sea-shore, and used to pretend to be busy in picking up shells, and in stringing them together into necklaces and bracelets for my own adornment. Then I made others, which I presented, with many a strange antic, to anybody I met. Day after day did I continue this employment, my eye wandering anxiously over the blue sea in ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... and when I knew that I was still alive, I re-opened my eyes, and saw a man kneeling above me, rubbing me all over with his hands, and pushing my belly up under my ribs, and blowing into my mouth, and tickling my nostrils with a feather, and performing a great variety of such antic ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... popinjay, brought out for my lady's amusement!" said the stranger, smiling; "you make rare sport with your antic tricks, at the fort yonder, I doubt ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Three lads, Antic, Frolic and Fantastic, having lost their way, are given shelter by a countryman, Clunch—a smith, by the way, like our old friend, Adam—whose goodwife, Madge, entertains two of them with a tale ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... they seemed, they wore such a cruel, malignant aspect that Ludwig had felt a secret satisfaction in contemplating their helpless condition. He might have forgotten the scene by this time but for that ill-looking man by the fire. Now, while he capered about, boylike, and threw himself with an antic into his bed, he inwardly hoped that the voetspoelen would not haunt ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... herself, turning hurriedly away. Yet, for an instant, Death, triumphant, hideous, inevitable, and all the spiritual terror and physical disgust of it, grinned at her, its fleshless face, as it seemed, close against her own. And alongside Death—by some malign association of ideas and ugly antic of profanity—she saw the bel tete de Jesu of M. Paul Destournelle as she had seen it this morning, he looking back, hat in hand, as he plunged down the break-neck, Neapolitan side-street, with ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... ale, and antic ring Well tiptoed to the tabor string, And many a buss below the holly, And flout at sable melancholy— So, with a rouse, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... difficult task, as the packages were so awkward and heavy, the object being to make them secure against any antic on the part of the mules if they became restive, and also to guard against the corners of the plates ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... images that I saw were not worth forty pounds, so I stretched a little when I said a thousand. The Grub Street account of that tumult is published. The Devil is not like Lord Treasurer: they were all in your odd antic masks, bought in common shops.(29) I fear Prior will not be ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... husbandry? They foolish and not seeing, how should he Spend anger there or fear—great ceremonies Equal for none save great antagonists? The grave indifference of his heart before them Was moved by laughter innocent of hate, Chastising clean of spite, that moulded them Into the antic likeness of his toad Bidding for laughter underneath ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather, Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together. Science announced nonentity and art admired decay; The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay; Round us in antic order their crippled vices came— Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame. Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom, Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume. Life was a ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton |
