"Childish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have lost and won your title, and it comes back shaped and gilded anew, for scores of childish lips have echoed it, and 'Emily did it' is written in the indelible ink of the great charity which has given ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... air of resignation, with a childish, half-hearted protest, that he counted out the desired amount into Lewis's hand, salving his conscience with the statement: "I'm doing this to help Adolfo out of his trouble, understand? I hope it'll enable you to ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... knuckles off on the front door of a country house without any knocker, I therefore made the best of my way along a little path, bordered with marigolds and balsams, that led to the back part of the dwelling. The sound of a number of childish voices made me stop, and, looking through the bushes, I saw the very image of my cousin Bill Fletcher, as he used to be twenty years ago; the same bold forehead, the same dark eyes, the same smart, saucy mouth, and the same "who-cares-for-that" toss to his ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... God has given in abundance, and take their repose on a bed of withered leaves, like the recluses of the Thebaid!—ah! you would not keep on three seconds the wool of fifteen merinos which covers you; you would fling away your childish switch, and go to live in the heaven of heavens! There you would find the love you sought in vain amid the swine of earth; there you would hear a concert of somewhat different melody from that of M. Rossini, voices more faultless than that of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the garret, and out of "best books" taken down from the secretary in the "settin'-room," and put into their hands, with charges, of a Sunday, to keep them still, they had got these things, jumbled into strange far-off and near fantasies in their childish minds. "Lake Ontario" included ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more; Is not your father grown incapable Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid With age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear? Know man from man? dispute his own estate? Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing But what he did being childish? ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... is sometimes to be accounted for, when desirable People are fearful of appearing precious and reserved by Denials; but they will find the Apprehension of that Imputation will betray them into a childish Impotence of Mind, and make them promise all who are so kind to ask it of them. This leads such soft Creatures into the Misfortune of seeming to return Overtures of Good-will with Ingratitude. The first Steps in the Breach ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... given to the history of religion itself. The study of religion's ancient records in ritual, monument and book, and of primitive faiths still existing among us in all stages of development, has made clear the general course which man's religious life has traveled from very childish beginnings until now. From early animism in its manifold expressions, through polytheism, kathenotheism, henotheism, to monotheism, and so out into loftier possibilities of conceiving the divine nature and purpose—the ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... certainly the awe, of Monte Cristo dwellers. We had not minded this so much, however, until when one day the Precious Ones paused on the stair a moment to rest, as was their wont, and were perhaps even laughing in their childish and musical way, Thomas, who had now been with us some three months or more, appeared suddenly from some concealed lurking-place and ordered them to their own quarters, with a warning against a repetition of ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... he rushed towards Drona, what became the state of your mind? What heroes surrounded those tigers among men, viz., the sons of Draupadi, when they rushed in battle against Drona like rivers rushing towards the sea? Those children who, giving up all (childish) sports for twelve years, and observing excellent vows, waited upon Bhishma for the sake of weapons, those children, viz., Kshatranjaya and Kshatradeva and Kshatravarman and Manada, those heroic sons of Dhrishtadyumna, O, who resisted them, seeking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in a small circle. It is a tale, crowded, as its title indicates, with blood and flames. The idea may have been taken from the burning of Frendraught. It was written when Dr Burton was quite a boy, and is now one of a heap of manuscripts in a childish hand on very yellow ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... children; and one would suppose that he could live in the beautiful cottage the elector had given him, independent of the favorite. But no; deprived of his old instrument all else was lost to him. For hours would he sit before his humble door, heedless of his wife's entreaties or the childish prattle of Franz and Nanette; his eye riveted on the old cathedral, and his hands playing nervously, as though cheating himself with the idea he was still at the organ. Then roused by a sudden inspiration, he would rush to the piano and play ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... scarcely hear it myself! the sound is crushed to death in the roar of the water. "That's right," I say to myself scornfully. "You ought always to stand by a deafening foss when you feel like humming a tune." And I laugh at myself again. With suchlike childish fancies do I ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... sinfulness of dissenting from the Church of England, established by the State and prelatic in its government. Even although we should concede that the visible Church and the character of its constituents are the subjects with which the parable deals, it would be childish trifling on the part of a Churchman to quote it as of authority against Nonconformists. In the same Bible stands the precept, "Come out from among them and be ye separate;" and the Nonconformist has as good a right, that is, no right at all, to quote it as of authority ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... them that somewhere beyond the neighboring horizon these objects were to be found in plenty. Spanish, French, and English have each in their turn chased American rainbows that existed only in the brains of imaginative tribesmen who had little other thought than a childish desire to ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... attended to birds in confinement well know that they often take individual preferences and dislikes: thus Sir R. Heron has described how one pied peacock was eminently attractive to all his hen birds. It may appear childish to attribute any effect to such apparently weak means: I cannot here enter on the details necessary to support this view; but if man can in a short time give elegant carriage and beauty to his bantams, according to his standard of beauty, I can see no good ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... discovered a lugsail, which had belonged to one of the ship's boats; this we hoisted; and our craft was ready to sail. Fritz begged me to decorate the masthead with a red streamer, to give our vessel a more finished appearance. Smiling at this childish but natural vanity, I complied with his request. I then contrived a rudder, that I might be able to steer the boat; for though I knew that an oar would serve the purpose, it was cumbrous and inconvenient. While I was thus employed, Fritz examined the shore with his glass, and soon announced ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... what a blushing grace he falls upon his knee And takes the lady's hand and whispers, "You are free." Ah! happy childish tales of knight and faerie! I waken from my dreams, but there's ne'er a knight for me; I waken from my dreams, and wish that I could be A child by the old hall-fire upon my ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... her room, where she fell again on the floor. There she remained lying for days. The brother caused the doors of the great suite of rooms to be closed, leaving them just as they were, with all the childish adornment scattered about, and the rain still falling in through the shattered windows. "Thus let them lie," said he, "till the rain and frost have cleansed them of paint and drapery: no storm can hurt the pillars and arches ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... with the mercurial hot-headedness of the Master; and each character stands forth more vividly because of its opposition to the other. Of the two women who are loved by Tito Melema, the one, Tessa, is simple and childish, the other, Romola, complex and intellectual. The most interesting stories present a constant contrast of mutually foiling personalities; and whenever characters of varied views and opposing aims come nobly to the grapple in a struggle that vitally concerns them, the tensity ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... is not yet a point, but may be a point which, together, shall be and shall have been. And with all this we crowd our memories with genealogies: this one is intent upon the deciphering of writings, that other is occupied in multiplying childish sophisms, and we shall see, for example, a volume full of: Cor est fons vitae. Nix est alba, ergo cornix est fons vitae alba, and one prattles about the noun; was it first, or the verb; the other, whether the sea was first or the springs; ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... days no thought of any but a cousinly affection had rippled the smooth surface of Virginia's childish mind, and she was the willing messenger between Poe and his "Mary," who lived but a short distance from the home of the Clemms, and who, when the frosts of years had descended upon her, denied having been engaged to him—apparently because her elders were more discreet than she was—but admitted ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... cast by the lights seemed to take form and move, making him feel that he could lie there no longer, that he must spring out of bed to face bravely these weird and shadowy forms, and convince himself that he really was alone, and merely a prey to a childish superstitious dread brought about by ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... whom he was going. He told him everything, how he had lived with his grandmother, how she had fallen asleep early that day, and did not wake up again; and that he was going to find a cousin in Zweisimmen and would have to live with him. Sami's childish description touched the driver so deeply ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... resembled Juliet sleeping in her tomb; Aline, rosy, vivacious, and more petulant than usual, looked very much the madcap Mademoiselle de Corandeuil had reproached her with being. Her face was full of that still childish grace, more lovely than calm, more pleasing than impressive, which makes young girls so charming to the eye but less eloquent to the heart; for are they not fresh flowers more rich in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... your childish talk. The game is done. Quite well you knew that, came I victor forth, I would not, for all treasure in the world, Have such an one as servant, who can serve No ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... several months everything had succeeded; it was during that happy period that he had visited Maggie. Perhaps it was well for his soul that success had not continued. He was a man whom failure improved, having a certain childish warmth of heart and simplicity of outlook when things went badly with him. Success made him abominably conceited, and being without any morality self-confidence drove him to disastrous lengths. Now once more he was very near destruction and he knew it, very near things like forging ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... a childish and yet hateful fancy. As he walked across the inner room towards the balcony, the large face of Sunday grew larger and larger; and Syme was gripped with a fear that when he was quite close the face ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... are familiar with the process of development, all a priori objections to the doctrine of biological evolution appear childish. Any one who has watched the gradual formation of a complicated animal from the protoplasmic mass, which constitutes the essential element of a frog's or a hen's egg, has had under his eyes sufficient evidence that a similar evolution ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... agonized by fear, three of the men came darting within. "It's all up! There's a million Indians!" they cried. Two of the demoralized fellows plunged into the passage that led to the cellar. One burst into childish wailing ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... pocketbook which was in her bosom, and in it I saw two photographs of quite young children, a boy and a girl, with those kind, gentle, chubby faces that German children have. In it there were also two locks of light hair and a letter in a large childish hand, beginning with German words which meant: 'My ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... had drawn their inspiration? Accordingly we find Aristophanes constantly bringing on the stage the "men of Marathon," the vigorous generation to which Athens owed her freedom and her greatness. It is no mere childish commonplace with our poet, this laudation of a past age; the facts of History prove he was in the right, all the novelties he condemns were as a matter of fact so many causes that brought about Athenian decadence. Directly ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... up his half accusation. He appeared to be expecting some reply. What? A childish promise to be a good boy, not to do it again? Drew's half-unconscious concern for this man burned away speedily, ignited by ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... we look in vain for any proofs of that meek and heroic firmness which might be expected to dignify and embellish the last moments of the apostle of God. On some occasions he betrayed such want of fortitude, such marks of childish impatience, as are in general to be found in men only of the most ordinary stamp; and such as extorted from his wife Ayesha, in particular, the sarcastic remark, that in herself, or any of her family, a similar ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... [Footnote: According to the division of the commandments adopted by the Church of England, it is the seventh that is here referred to.] They replied, "What is the Decalogue? Is not it the catechism? What have we men to do with that childish pamphlet?" I asked them, whether they had ever thought at all about hell. They replied, "Who ever came up thence to give us information?" I asked, whether they had ever thought at all in the world about a life after death. They said, "Just as much as about ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... knobs in the Marseilles counterpane with which my fingers used to toy. I have heard my mother tell that whenever I was most languid and suffering I used to whine out, 'O do read Frank and the little dog Trusty,' and never permitted a single word to be varied, in the curious childish love of reiteration with ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... world-cracking revelations of Monsieur Saupiquet, and was undertaken in the interest of his beloved lady, Lola Brandt. But it was like playing at pirates with a child, and my pity for Napoleon gave place to my pity for my valiant but childish little friend. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... familiar, she possessed what he felt to be a dangerous allurement. He had never imagined that anything so small could be so much alive. The electric light under which she passed revealed the few golden freckles over her childish nose, the gray-green colour of her eyes beneath the black eyelashes, and the sensitive red mouth which looked as soft and sweet as a carnation. It revealed also the absurd shoes of gray suede, with French toes and high and narrow heels, in which she flitted, regardless ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... we grudge it a few miracles? There is a touch of the sour-grapes philosophy in the rationalist attitude on this matter which Mr. Wells attributes to his Invisible King. Because we can't have any miracles, we say we don't want them. Also, no doubt, we see that the alleged miracles of the past were childish futilities, doing at most a little temporary good to individuals, never rendering any permanent service to a city or a nation, and much less to mankind at large. They were a sort of niggardly alms from omnipotence, not a generous endowment or a liberal compensation. But ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... best,' thought she, 'to test them, for they are not bad boys at heart, and she is far from childish for her age. But if they are really too rough, our plan must be given up. I am very much afraid that Miss Ward is not a success. Patrick,' she said aloud, 'I didn't want to keep on finding fault this first time of Rosamond's ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... childish trust, Which breathes a truth that Science mars; Our ladder, based upon the dust, Mounts ever nearer steadfast stars; And, though the rungs be still the same, The glimpses, as we strive to rise, Are, 'spite our mists of sin and shame, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... shrieks madly after Fact, Thinking, forsooth, to find therein the Truth; But we, my love, will leave our brains unracked, And glean our learning from these dreams of youth: Should any charge us with a childish act And bid us track out knowledge like a sleuth, We'll lightly laugh to scorn the wraiths of History, And, hand in hand, seek certitude in Mystery. —When the ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... Bondone, a tiller of the soil and a simple fellow. He, having had this son, to whom he gave the name Giotto, reared him conformably to his condition; and when he had come to the age of ten, he showed in all his actions, although childish still, a vivacity and readiness of intelligence much out of the ordinary, which rendered him dear not only to his father but to all those also who knew him, both in the village and beyond. Now Bondone gave some sheep into his charge, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... in after life, to attribute any literary taste that he may have inherited to his mother. From his earliest days reading was his passion, and he was rarely to be seen without a book. Old church architecture and the sound of church bells also kindled his childish enthusiasms, and he would hoard his pence to purchase the joy of being admitted into a locked-up church. So he was fortunate in being sent at the age of eight to Magdalen College School, where he had daily access to the old buildings of the College and the beautiful walks which had been ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... distant Thames is in front; the Medway, with Rochester and its old castle and cathedral, on one side." On every side he could not fail to reach, in those brisk walks with which he sought, too strenuously, perhaps, health and relaxation, some object redolent of childish dreams or mature achievement, of intimate joys and sorrows, of those phantoms of his brain which to him then, as to hundreds of thousands of his readers since, were not less real than the men and women of everyday encounter. On those seven miles between ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... whisper, of the shipwreck, of his lost parents, of the black Indian woman who nursed him, of the wilderness, the tigers, and the Kaffirs who fell on them, and many other things. By him sits Suzanne, a soft kaross of jackal skins wrapped over her nightgown, the dew of sleep still showing upon her childish face and in her large dark eyes. By him she sits, talking in some words which for us have little meaning, and in a voice now shrill, and now sinking to a croon, while with one hand she clasps his wrist, ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... discovered such fine things in her character. Ten long years and a half had she lived with Papa and the children, and not one of them had found out that her eyes were full of soul, and an expression "of mingled mirth and melancholy unusual in a childish face, and more like that of Goethe's Mignon than any thing else in the world of fiction!" Johnnie had never heard of "Mignon," but it was delightful to be told that she resembled her, and she made Miss Inches a present of ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... a lady's watch, and Uncle Tom's a lady's man," said Sir John, and the triple peal of childish laughter which greeted this remark made him fancy himself ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... floated to the front. The Ballyshannon people can talk with the volubility of a Hebrew cheap Jack, but their jaw-power, like their water-power, mostly runs to waste. They have the silly suspicion and the childish credulity of the Donegal rural districts. A fluent politician said, "Why are all the Protestants Unionists? Perfectly simple, that. Because they are all well off. There you are. And being well off, they want ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... in the old house of the faubourg Saint-Germain. He was proud of his wife, and quite as proud, perhaps, of the necklace that had conferred added luster to his noble house for generations. His wife, also, regarded the necklace with an almost childish vanity, and it was not without regret that she removed it from her shoulders and handed it to her husband who admired it as passionately as if he had never seen it before. Then, having placed it in its case of red leather, stamped with the Cardinal's ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... combination follows combination in bewildering sequence and fantastic chaos. Captures of pieces are planned, mating nets are woven, perhaps with two pieces, against a King's position, where five pieces are available for defence. This unsteadiness in the first childish stages of development makes it very difficult for the beginner to get a general view of the board. Yet the surprises which each move ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... Ghost. We can all see the dangers of this. As soon as human images of spiritual truths are pressed beyond decent limits, they lead to frivolity and folly; and that was just the effect at Herrnhaag. The more freely the Brethren used these phrases, the more childish they became. They called the Communion the "Embracing of the Man"; and thus they lost ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... as God lives, it shall compel a becoming respect. For more and more of these lessons in true honor do we pray; for the very name of manhood must make us blush, so long as it is identified with these airs of patronage and control, these insulting obeisances, these flatterers of what is childish in women, these sarcasms upon what is noblest; worse than all, this willingness to derive gain from the degradation and suffering of the sex it professes to adore. And words are poor to express the gratitude that shall be forever due to those women whose ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... happy eyes grow big, Big and innocent and soulful, Wistful, halting little notes Rise, unutterably doleful, Telling of all childish griefs— Baffled babies sob forsaken, Birds fly off and bubbles burst, Kittens ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... ne'er displayed a passion For dolls, e'en from her earliest years, And gossip of the town and fashion She ne'er repeated unto hers. Strange unto her each childish game, But when the winter season came And dark and drear the evenings were, Terrible tales she loved to hear. And when for Olga nurse arrayed In the broad meadow a gay rout, All the young people round about, At prisoner's base she never played. Their noisy laugh her soul annoyed, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... broke the silence. On either hand, the sheaves standing in the fields took, in the vague moonlight, the appearance of tall white women kneeling down; and I abandoned myself awhile to those wonderful childish fancies which the charm of night always suggests. After driving under the heavy shadows of the mall, we turned to the right and rolled up a lordly avenue at the end of which the chateau suddenly rose into view—a black mass, with turrets en poivriere. We followed a ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the ground-floor there was a great collection of mechanical toys. Sidi Boubikir explained that the French Commercial Attache had brought a large number to the Sultan's palace, and that my Lord Abd-el-Aziz had rejected the ones before us. With the curious childish simplicity that is found so often among the Moors of high position, Boubikir insisted upon winding up the clock-work apparatus of nearly all the toys. Then one doll danced, another played a drum, a third went through gymnastic exercises, and the toy orchestra played ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... preceded some sharp rebuke. I looked up and found his face grown suddenly so hard and stern, I was all affright lest my sleeping had offended him. His eyes were fastened on Lord Selkirk with a piercing, angry gaze. His Lordship was not nodding, not a bit of it. How brilliant he seemed to my childish fancy! He was leaning forward, questioning those Nor'-Westers, who had received him with open arms, and open hearts. And the wine had mounted to the head of the good Nor'-Westers and they were ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... riches were Jewish, though her grandfather had been nothing, and his family Christian. Owen adding, that but for her origin, she would be very good-looking; not that he cared for that style, and his manner indicated that such rosy, childish charms as were before him had his preference. But though this was evident enough to all the rest of the world, Phoebe did not appear to have the least perception of his personal meaning, and freely, simply answered, that she ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hopes into it that it had a peculiar and vital vividness in its power of affecting the feelings. Agnes had been familiar with this picture from early infancy. No day of her life had the flowers failed to be freshly placed before it. It had seemed to smile down sympathy on her childish joys, and to cloud over with her childish sorrows. It was less a picture to her than a presence; and the whole air of the little orange-garden seemed to be made sacred by it. When she had arranged her flowers, she kneeled down and began ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... to him. And scarcely a week passed that he did not turn the handle, and listen to the dear old tunes. And he always finished with "Home, sweet Home," for he still loved that tune the best. And when Miss Mabel came to see him, she always wanted to turn the old organ in remembrance of her childish days. She was not Miss Mabel any longer now, though Christie still sometimes called her so when they were talking together of the old days, and of Treffy and his organ. But Mabel was married now to the clergyman under whom Christie ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... have given could the frightful interval between this smile and the last she had seen before it have been wiped clean out! To her that interval had been one prolonged and gloomy frown. But now the three, Amos, Walter, and their sister, made their way downstairs. Oh, it was so like a bit of childish fun in days gone by! And now they arrived at the butler's pantry, the door of which was fast closed. Walter knocked. "Come in," said the old man. They entered; and all exclaimed at the sight which presented itself. On every available projection there was placed a portion ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... and the connection between the body of its thought and illustration and the application, or solution, of the poetical conundrum may be past our comprehension; but the [Page 112] play of the poet's fancy, whether childish or mature, is an interesting study, and brings us closer in human sympathy to the people who ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... The remainder of the passage is so admirable that I venture to quote it: "To him who is satisfied with amassing collections of curious objects, simply for the pleasure of possessing them, such objects can afford, at best, but a childish gratification, faint and fleeting; while he who extends his view beyond the narrow field of nomenclature, beholds a boundless expanse, the exploring of which is worthy of the philosopher, and of the best talents of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... them without orders is 28 to 90 days, first field punishment; therefore, I was taking a chance, but I hadn't the heart to resist the pitiful wail of that kiddie, and I felt that the risk I took was amply repaid by the cessation of her childish grief. The mother also had had nothing to eat all day, and she partook of some of the nourishment and was ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... on one leg, and smiling, and waving his arms, and causing the ample folds and sleeves of his smock to flutter until he seemed to be moving in the midst of a nimbus, Nilushka would sing in a halting whisper the childish ditty: ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... DeQuincey, no drug-born dream of Poe could equal it for grisly fascination. Frankenstein, de Maupassant's "Horla," all the fantastic literary monsters of the past faded to tawdry, childish bogeys beside the actual observations of Stern, the engineer, the man of science and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... that are not found elsewhere. The waving of the water gives a mottled effect surpassing the most delicate and richly-shaded marbles and onyxes. Watered-silks of the most perfect manufacture are but childish and puerile attempts at reproduction, and finest Turkish shawls, Bokhara rugs or Arab sheiks' dearest-prized Prayer Carpets are but glimmering suggestions of what the Master Artist himself ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... remembrance of the other letter - Otto's. She rose and went speedily, her brain still wheeling, and burst into the Prince's armoury. The old chamberlain was there in waiting; and the sight of another face, prying (or so she felt) on her distress, struck Seraphina into childish anger. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too. He tried to write a series of special articles on the shortcomings of our artillery, but had not the remotest idea of exposition and never finished a single article; he continued, however, covering large sheets of grey paper with his large, awkward, childish handwriting. Markelov was a man obstinate and fearless to desperation, never forgiving or forgetting, with a constant sense of injury done to himself and to all the oppressed, and prepared for anything. His limited mind was for ever ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... his retreat, and none of them were foreigners. Two or three Turks strolled by, holding their beads; and once some veiled women came, escorted by a eunuch, threw some petals of flowers upon the surface of the tinkling water, and walked on up the narrow valley, chattering in childish voices, and laughing with a twitter that was like the twitter ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... sense of hearing. About midnight the glare of a candle crossed her eyes, and she was broad awake in an instant. On rising in her berth she found Nanny Sidley, who had so often and so long watched over her infant and childish slumbers, standing at her side, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... went out, looking carefully round lest she had missed out some other night-birds. One of the Canons had come out of his door and was leaning against the lintel, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. He was a spare dry man who seemed to have measured life and found it a childish business. He jerked his head towards the gateway as he glanced at me. "That is a good woman," he said in French, "she lendeth unto the Lord.... Yes," he went on, nodding his head slowly backwards and forwards, "lends Him something every day." The cats ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... of really directing the administration. Such was his aversion to toil, and such his ignorance of affairs, that the very clerks who attended him when he sate in council could not refrain from sneering at his frivolous remarks, and at his childish impatience. Neither gratitude nor revenge had any share in determining his course; for never was there a mind on which both services and injuries left such faint and transitory impressions. He wished ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Beneath shame's level, tremblingly agreed, And sought by torture of the mind to wring Her sad consent to save him in his need, Falsehood and art together minist'ring, To soften her weak heart, and gild the deed; By prayers he moved her, and by childish tears, And fann'd into ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... that you take it as a token, I can't say that it isn't; only I really didn't mean to push you over the edge of things as I did. I didn't mean to go over the edge myself. If I had heard Senator Moyese talk, I couldn't have been so childish and ignorant. It was like urging you to jump a precipice and break your neck. I know now what the fight means. It isn't just the Valley. It's the Nation. I hadn't any right to let my (here a word was crossed ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... was the thought! Was linked with this childish delight; 'Twas strange what a vision it brought— As though he still ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... His childish thoughts outsoared thy reach; His godlike tenderness Would sometimes seem, in human speech, To thee than ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... keen and roving eyes would betray his internal wonder. Like Maoris in general, he is critically observant of every little thing among his Pakeha friends, but, with true native courtesy, endeavours to hide from you that he is so. But the extraordinary mixture of grave intelligence and childish simplicity in him is perpetually leading ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... glass in his eye, and the coldness in his heart, that made him act like this. He would even tease little Gerda, who loved him with all her heart. His games, too, were quite different; they were not so childish. One winter's day, when it snowed, he brought out a burning-glass, then he held out the tail of his blue coat, and let the snow-flakes fall upon it. "Look in this glass, Gerda," said he; and she saw how every ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did any African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready suspicion, the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength of the Moor, and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had the fixity of the eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a vulture's, by a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low and narrow, had something menacing. Evidently, this ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... exclaimed: "After all we are not made of wood like this, we too are flesh and blood and must defend our own people. A dozen times I have said, 'Let them come and take Manchuria openly if they dare, but let them cease their childish intrigues.' Why do they not do so? Because they are not sure they can swallow us—not at all sure. Do you understand? We are weak, we are stupid, we are divided, but we are innumerable, and in the end, if they persist, China will burst the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... again. Sister Desiree-des-Anges had soon guessed my love of reading, and she brought me all the books in the sisters' library, one after the other. Most of the books were childish books, and I read quickly, turning over several pages at a time. I preferred stories of travel, and I used to read at night by the night-light. Sister Desiree-des-Anges used to scold me when she woke up; ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... teens I used always to reply to similar demands, that I would be a "king's messenger"! I knew no other life which approached so nearly to perpetual motion. "The road" was my paradise, and it is a true saying that the child is father to the man. The Shakespearian passage which earliest impressed my childish mind and carried with it my heartiest sympathies was the song ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... darling, do,' she said, in her loving half-childish way, while Miss Rylance looked on with ineffable contempt. 'You are so clever and so beautiful; you were born ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... [Aside.] O base temptation! What if I betray His crippled person—imitate his limp— Laugh at his hip, his back, his sullen moods Of childish superstition?—tread his heart Under my feet, to climb into his place?—Use his own warrant 'gainst himself; and say, Because I loved her, and misjudged your jest, Therefore I stole her? Why, a common thief Would hang for just such thinking! Ha! ha! ha! [Laughing.] I reckon on her love, as ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... England. The brave Montault appears to have thought that he could not better prove to me how worthy be was of the post with which he was honored than by getting killed; whatever may be the result as regards my own affairs, my poor friend Montault has died on the bed of honor, and I feel a sort of childish joy in being certain that those English who have cut me up so much in their papers for the last four years will read therein that one of my ships has helped to take from them the most fertile of their possessions. And as for the enemies of M. d'Estaing and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... daylight. Through a partly-opened hatch he could see the fine spray that came over the side of the yacht. Amid misty particles touched by the sun shone a tiny segment of rainbow. This Mr. Heatherbloom watched with a kind of childish interest; then stretched himself more luxuriously on the hard bunk. It was very fine having nothing more important and arduous to do than watching prismatic hues; his thoughts floated back to long forgotten wonder-days when he had possessed ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... wrong; but little physical twitchings, and nervous peccadilloes are not worthy of grave legislation. The apostle's account of himself has some pertinence here. "When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child"—Paul, doubtless acted as a child; "but when I became a man, I put away childish things." The experience and observation of years often make salutary corrections, which you would in vain attempt to effect in early childhood, by all the laws of a ponderous octavo, or by all the birch saplings to be found in ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... think of their white souls, And mine so black and grim! I could not share in childish prayer, Nor join in Evening Hymn: Like a Devil of the Pit I ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... on, "at Nantes, where she created fourteen roles in six weeks. And folks imagine actresses have nothing to do! A fine thing, the stage! But the mischief is, there's not a single architect capable of building a playhouse with any sense. As to scenery, it is simply puerile, even at the Opera—so childish it might make a South Sea Islander blush. I have thought out a system of rollers in the flies so as to get rid of those long top-cloths that represent the sky without a pretence at deceiving anyone. I have likewise invented an arrangement of lamps and reflectors so placed as to light the characters ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... as a great moralising force, and he was well assured that the only form of it acceptable to the Italian people was the Latin form of Christianity established in Rome. Efforts to spread Protestantism in Italy struck him as childish. Freed from the log of temporalities, he expected that the Church would become constantly better fitted to ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... an unsteady hand, and clutched Jane by the shoulder. Tuppence heard other footsteps behind. She did not pause to ascertain whether they were friends or foes. Lowering her head, she repeated a manoeuvre of childish days, and butted their aggressor full in the capacious middle. The success of these unsportsmanlike tactics was immediate. The man sat down abruptly on the pavement. Tuppence and Jane took to their heels. The house they sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... a certain garden some distance from the town, which I granted; and they clubbed their pittances to purchase sweetmeats and fruits. I attended them on this excursion, and was as much delighted as themselves with the pleasure they enjoyed, and their childish gambols. When evening approached we returned homewards, and on the way, my boys having fatigued themselves with play, as well as eaten much sweets and fruit, were seized with extreme thirst, of which they heavily complained. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... and the cumulative effect of his sermons was, at least in many cases, great. They were always written in beautifully clear and fluent English, and were often decorated with a fine quotation in prose or verse. In substance they were extraordinarily simple, though not childish. For example, he often preached on such practical topics as Gambling, National Education; and the Housing of the Poor, as well as on themes more obviously and directly religious. He was at his best in commemorating ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... good empress expect to bribe me, for I hope she does not think me so silly and childish as to consider her words commands, merely because they fall from the lips of an empress. No, the little Morien is at this moment a more important person to the empress than the empress is to me, and it is, therefore, very natural that I should ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... grown so used to burning skies and swarthy faces that I could hardly believe in the reality of cool England, with its fresh fields and shady lanes; yet all these scenes are growing hazy, while clearly, and yet more clearly, there rises before me the picture of my old, old home and childish days, of special things that happened to me then, of little pleasures and troubles which then seemed very great, and in one sense really were so, no doubt, for they were ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the pavilion. The fine oval face, the eyes dancing with merriment at something her brother had directed her attention to, sent his thoughts flying to Bailey Harbor. As though consciously aiding his memory, she fell into the relaxed pose so happily caught by the photograph, with the same childish archness and ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... degree of tenderness and affection for the younger branches of the family;—more particularly for the younger son, his most constant companion, and who would often steal secretly away to share his daily meal with this affectionate participator in his childish sports: or, when fatigued with romping together, would retire to the well-kept kennel, and recruit his limbs in a refreshing sleep, while reclining upon the body of the faithful dog. If the little truant ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... great look of gentleness, especially about the eyes, a pair of very good, blue eyes, which smiled when he spoke and which, when at rest, were candid, childish almost, filled ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the noise of waters Comes a low, clear, trickling sound; And the child's face pales with terror, And his blossoms drop to the ground. He is up the bank in a moment And, stealing through the sand He sees a stream not yet so large As his slender childish hand. 'Tis a leak in the dike! He is but a boy, Unused to fearful scenes; But, young as he is, he has learned to know The dreadful thing ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... spearing a Wagner motive as it appears for a moment on the swift and boiling stream of the Strauss orchestral narration. But if you have attained the age of discretion you will not ask too much, forget such childish and sinister play, and enjoy to the full the ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... you, we might have gathered blackberries with them in umbrageous woods from morn till dewy eve, and not a professor shocked in the whole faculty; but we must not sit down with them to an intellectual dinner of herbs, and listen, in their company, to the pedantic terms and childish classifications of botany, in which kindred properties are ignored. Only the male student must be told in public that a fox-glove is Digitalis purpurea in the improved nomenclature of science, and crow-foot is ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... told Him his fears, all might have been well. But he let them pass, and, so far as we know, they never returned. He did meet Jesus at last, when Pilate sent him the Prisoner, as a piece of politeness, and in what mood?—childish pleasure at the chance of seeing a miracle. How did Jesus answer his torrent of frivolous questions? 'He answered him nothing.' That sad silence speaks Christ's knowledge that now even His words would be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... eyes at the same time, by the violent command of my mind, drank up their fountain wholly dry; and woe was me in such a strife! But when she breathed her last, the boy Adeodatus burst out into a loud lament; then, checked by us all, held his peace. In like manner also a childish feeling in me, which was, through my heart's youthful voice, finding its vent in weeping, was checked and silenced. For we thought it not fitting to solemnise that funeral with tearful lament, and groanings; for thereby do they for the most part express grief for the departed, as though unhappy, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... bright light had dazed them before. . . . She remembered, fell off the chair, struggled on the sand, then jumped up, and with a delighted yap dashed towards those faces. There was a deafening roar, interspersed with whistles and a shrill childish ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... handed out two double-bladed jackknives, new things in those days, wonderful things, precious treasures in their eyes, sources of endless joy; and even had they known that one marten skin would buy a quart of them, their pleasant surprise and childish joy would not have been in any way ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... explicable if only it is borne in mind that the Rowley poems were written by a boy, and that such lovely things as the Dirge in AElla suggest a maturity that Chatterton did not by any means perfectly possess. In some respects he was as childish (to use the word in no contemptuous sense) as in others he was precocious. And it is a thousand pities that the difficulties of Chatterton's language and the peculiar charm and invention of his metrical technique cannot be appreciated till the boyish love of adventure, delight ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... fray, and against this little army there was Holman, Kaipi, the two sisters, and myself. The Professor's insane craving for a sight of the antiquities would probably make him a partisan of the big brute till his devilish tricks were laid sufficiently bare to allow the childish mind of the scientist to see through them. The situation was pitiful to contemplate, and sick with terror at thoughts of the fate of the two girls, I found Holman and pulled him out of the circle of light thrown by the fire which Kaipi ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... out her hands to me, her lips smiling, her blue eyes just on the verge of tears. I drew her towards me and gently stroked her hair, as I used to do in the old days in Chelsea when she had come to me with some of her childish troubles. I felt an utter brute to think that I could ever have doubted her loyalty, even for ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... or Alice, as Perronel insisted on calling her to suit the ears of her neighbours. The girl was just reaching the borderland of maidenhood, which came all the sooner to one of southern birth and extraction, when the great change took her from being her father's childish darling to be Perronel's companion and assistant. She had lain down on that fatal May Eve a child, she rose in the little house by the Temple Gardens, a maiden, and a very lovely one, with delicate, refined, beautifully cut features of a slightly ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... thought Mrs. Arbuthnot, her own balance returning hand in hand with her compassion, and unable, because of the table, to see the length of Mrs. Wilkins's legs. All she saw was her small, eager, shy face, and her thin shoulders, and the look of childish longing in her eyes for something that she was sure was going to make her happy. No; such things didn't make people happy, such fleeting things. Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned in her long life with Frederick—he ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... in her blue cashmere dress, relieved by dainty collar and cuffs of lace, she seemed indeed no longer a young almost childish girl, but one who had passed the threshold and entered the mysterious realm ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... family, with the exception of her grandpa and Aunt Adelaide, were unusually cold and distant; while her father, although careful to see that all her wants were attended to, seldom took any further notice of her; unless to reprove her for some childish fault which, however ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... could well be imagined. The Major coughed and ahemmed continually; Patsy ah'd and oh'd and seemed half frightened; Uncle John walked after them silently, but with a pleased smile that was almost childish upon his round and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... with Lilly last night, in the very bed, I believe, I used to sleep in; and when I knelt beside it, I could think of no words to say but those of my little childish prayer, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.' Was n't ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... father, well-nigh overpowered him not only by its sweetness but by the many memories it called up. Visions of that father as he looked at all stages of their relationship passed in a bewildering maze before him. He saw him as he appeared to his childish eyes in those early days of confidence when the loss of the mother cast them in mutual dependence upon each other. Then a sterner picture of the relentless parent who sees but one straight course to success in this world and the next. Then the teacher and the ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... and all evil came into the human world; and the natural world was blighted. Thorns and briers and thistles sprang up on every hand; and animals which before had been peaceful began to fight and destroy each other. We all know this to be a childish myth, and pagan. The actual history of the world has been something entirely other ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... of a childish voice were heard echoing in the domed hall outside. Small feet came pattering, and the drawing-room door was burst open by Roger Barnes, holding a little girl of nearly two and a half ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... communings and conversations as the foregoing, during the leisure hours of aunt Judy and her loved Ali', that mutual confidence and disinterested friendship grew into maturity between them—the childish and helpless simplicity of the one, and kind and good-natured condescension of the other, producing the like effects in the hearts of both respectively—that is, disinterested friendship. Yet strong as ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... childish things,'" flashed inevitably into Cobden's mind. He was somewhat alarmed. "Why not since then?" ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... latter. Conduct like this could only recoil on the head of the person who was injudicious and spiteful enough to be guilty of it. The "Notices to Correspondents" in subsequent numbers continued to be filled with references and allusions to Seymour, dictated by a malice which was alike silly and childish. They are not worthy of repetition here, and we must refer the reader for them to the numbers of "Figaro in London" of 20th September and 15th November, 1834, or (if he have not access to its pages) to the short biographical notice prefixed to the latest edition of the "Sketches" by Mr. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... where the shell (p. 057) had exploded. At the far end a woman was working with a hoe, her head bowed over her work, and her back bent almost double. Two children, a boy and a girl, came along the road hand in hand, and deep in a childish discussion. The world, the fighting men, and the bursting shells were lost to them. They were intent on their own little affairs. For ourselves we felt more than anything else a sensation of surprise—surprise because we were not more ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... of her wielding it. If the silly portion of our ladies will but cease from their silly apprehension that the plan is to make them vote whether they will or no, and also cease from their ignorant and childish admissions that they already have all the rights they want—then will the American women quickly be enfranchised, and their nation will rapidly achieve a far higher civilization than it is possible for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... like a dog after all he had spent on her. Besides, for the last three months he had been living in such a whirl of sensual excitement that, beyond the need of possessing her, he had felt no very distinct impressions. His was a tardy awakening of the fleshly instinct, a childish greed of enjoyment, which left no room for either vanity or jealousy. Only one definite feeling could affect him now, and that was Nana's decreasing kindness. She no longer kissed him on the beard! It made him anxious, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... ones and the old ones that still couldn't believe a boy in velvet pants with curls on his shoulders could really put it over on 'em. His mother believed his clothes was tore and his face bunged up now and then in mere boyish sports, and begged him not to engage in such rough games with his childish playmates. And Shelley, the little man, let her talk on, still believing he was like little Paul McNamara, that had a crooked foot. He wasn't going to shame his mother as well ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... stipulated for a free exit for the Whites. Te Whero Whero haughtily refused; he would spare their lives, but would certainly make slaves of them. He had better have made a bridge for their escape. The siege dragged on. The childish chivalry of the Maoris amazed the English. Waikato messengers were allowed to enter the pa and examine the guns and defences. On the other hand, when the besiegers resolved on a last and grand assault they sent notice ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves |
