"Whimsically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for the mace in the De Chenier quartering," thought the Count whimsically. "It is obviously the weapon of the family." And he drew ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... arrangements Peter witnessed with delight. He longed to tell his father so, but unfortunately was granted no opportunity. Once, and once only, did Mr. Coddington refer to the project and that was to inquire whimsically of Peter if his friend Strong was satisfied with the preparations, and whether he had any suggestions to make. Young Strong had no suggestions, Peter declared. He thought the park perfect. And indeed it was! Neither thought nor money had been spared ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... complicated and various that he made the eyes that watched him wink as at a play of sparks in a furnace, and his arms and hands were never still, yet never, even for a second, fell into a curve that was ungraceful. Sometimes his head was bent whimsically forward as if in invitation. Sometimes he threw his whole body backward, exposing his brown throat, and staring up at the sun like a sun worshipper dancing to his divinity. Sometimes he crouched on his haunches, clapping his hands together ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... nowadays the degree of Baudet's excellence in his art?), favour would not be wanting for the greatest ballade-maker of all time. Great as would seem the incongruity, it may have pleased Charles to own a sort of kinship with ragged singers, and whimsically regard himself as one of the confraternity of poets. And he would have other grounds of intimacy with Villon. A room looking upon Windsor gardens is a different matter from Villon's dungeon at Meun; yet each in his own degree had been tried in prison. Each in his own way also loved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... going to give up the whole evening to those old fellows. Miss Buck, Judith! Yes, I have a perfect right to call you Judith. You are my cousin. I—I—just found it out the other day. In fact, I am your nearest male relative," Jeff said whimsically, "and as such I forbid you to spend the whole evening wasting your sweetness on the old men. They may be very fine ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... joint debate," she replied whimsically, her voice betraying nothing of the tumult within. "But we are having it in an unlocked for place and fashion. And you have the worst of it. Be careful, please. Don't try to get up. The men have gone back for help. Our affairs seem to be decidedly mixed; but never mind; we shall soon ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... nothing brave about that. I wanted to get in badly enough, but there wasn't, room. Jove! It was cold, wasn't it?" His ready smile played whimsically about his lips, and the girl felt herself curiously drawn to him. Since he chose to make light of himself, she determined to allow nothing of ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... bright whiteness of house and householder, the trim array of flower-beds and kitchen-garden, struck her as strange and artificial. She felt as if Don Annunzio ought to be wound up from behind, and was whimsically surprised to see him rise and ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... He thought whimsically that it was lucky no one else had heard that question. "So hard that my success ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... myself to be willing, against my will," returned Mrs. Fayre, whimsically. "I confess I just hate to have you go, but I can't bear to deprive you of the pleasure trip. And, as you say, it would also keep Dotty at home, and so, altogether, I think I shall have to ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... action on the part of an International Committee of Artists; but Middletown, though startled by its own good fortune, clung with Yankee tenacity to its rights. Raphael Collin, of Paris, commenting on this in the Revue des Deux Mondes, cried out whimsically upon the woes of an art-critic's life, "as if there were not already enough wearisome pilgrimages necessary to remote and uncomfortable places with jaw-breaking names, which must nevertheless be visited for the sake of a single picture!" And a burlesque resolution to carry off the picture ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... began whimsically. "I met a tourist with spectacles walking along Duke of Gloucester Street. 'Sir,' he said courteously, 'I am looking for Kingsborough. I am told that it is a city.' 'Sir,' I responded, with a bow that did honour to my grandfather's ghost, 'it was once a chartered city; it ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... but I could not help him, and again he was forced to meet the kindly, almost whimsically accusing gaze of the censor, who was by no means done ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... heaved a sigh, and whimsically shot into his mind the memory- picture in his nursery-book of the old woman who lived in a shoe. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and was dimly aware of the area of the numbness that bordered the centre that was sensationless ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... he begged half-whimsically, "may I implore you to use some restraint? Inured as I am to the unbounded licence of your tongue and to the abandon that seems so inherent in you, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the mountainous waste lay Lund, halfway up a canyon that led to higher reaches in the hills, rich in silver, lead, copper, gold. Silver it was that Casey had found and sold to the men from Tonopah, and it was a freak of luck, he thought whimsically, that had led him and his Ford away over to Starvation Mountains to find their stake when they had probably been driving over millions every day that they made the stage trip from ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... don't forget you're a gentleman," and then have wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish sentiment. The great cricket match was perhaps the most searching and awkward time they annually went through together, for Jolyon had been at Eton. They would be particularly careful during that match, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lucky," said Orville Wright, whimsically, on Monday. "It is the irony of fate that at the critical moment I was not able to get away with my folks on one of my own machines. However, we came through all right and there doesn't seem to be anything ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... Smith, so thoughtfully that his companion glanced at him. "By the way, you didn't happen to be here half a century ago, did you?" he asked whimsically. ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... John, whimsically, "you remind me of Wampus. You should strut around and say: 'Behold me! I am ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... of this ballad of mine that led me to think of Monna Vittoria, whom you will remember if you bear in mind the beginning of this, my history, the lady that Messer Simone of the Bardi was whimsically pledged to wed if he failed to win a certain wager that I trust you have not forgotten. And thinking of Monna Vittoria led, in due time, to a meeting with Monna Vittoria ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... whimsically. "I haven't the advantage of being a girl with a brother and a baker's dozen of beaux in bell buttons and gray. I'm only an old fossil of a 'cit,' with a scamp of a nephew and that limited conception of the delights of ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... for not believing me. It is against your whole theory of life. Not to believe in yourself were a great calamity. My grandfather was so unfortunately accurate that with advancing years he came whimsically to consider himself infallible. And when, urged by the clamoring of his equally accurate family, he sometimes consented to consult the dictionary, and he found that he differed from it, it never disturbed his belief in himself. He closed the book, saying, ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... last plate was stored in the cupboard and Farquaharson hung his dish towel on its rack, he said whimsically, "And to-morrow your butler leaves your service. Are you going to ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... phantom than any thing human. His complexion was the colour of pale dust, and of that same colour was all that pertained to him, hat and clothes. His boots were dusty of course, for it was midsummer, and his very horse was of a dusty dun. His features were whimsically ugly, most of his teeth were gone, and as to his age, he might be thirty or sixty. He was somewhat lame and halt, but an unequalled rider when once upon his steed, which he was naturally not very solicitous to quit. I subsequently discovered that he was considered ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... later in the day is of course contemporary history. If the interruption I had whimsically sanctioned was almost a scandal, what is to be said of that general scatter of the company which, under the Doctor's rule, began to take place in the evening? His rule was soothing to behold, small comfort as I was to have at the end. He decreed ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... some skill in bakery and the handling of half-broken teams; but she had once or twice given him what he recognised as excellent advice. There was something incongruous in the situation, but, as usual, he preferred to regard it whimsically. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... to a very short time ago I thought you one of the most whimsically entertaining men I ever met, but as I said just now, a spiritual disparagement has arisen between us, a thick fog, and I wish you ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... were a tailor," said Miss Bordereau whimsically; and then she added quickly, in a different manner, "This house is very fine; the proportions are magnificent. Today I wanted to look at this place again. I made them bring me out here. When your man came, just now, to learn if I would see you, I was on the point of sending for ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Penrod hasn't much chance to escape the penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves in some things; and there are people who really want someone else to take the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all right, the world seems to be getting on." She gazed whimsically upon her great-nephew and added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think about him, it doesn't seem to ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... But this I can say. Tell our friends in America—and also those who do not love us—that I am looking forward with unshakable confidence to the final victory—and a well-earned vacation," he added whimsically. "I should like nothing better than to visit your Panama Exposition and meet your wonderful General Goethals, the master builder, for I imagine our jobs are spiritually much akin; that his slogan, too, has been 'durchhalten' ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... sins he must." Sir Arthur smiled whimsically at his wife. "Judge for yourself how contentedly he did it to-day, my sweet one. The Durbar knew that the home mail had come in, and scented a glorious opportunity. Every man had to be satisfied of the health of her Majesty, Prince Albert, all the little ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... interrupted by Astronomia's mother Physica. This dialogue is a specimen of the whole piece: very flat, and very gross. Yet the piece is still curious,—not only for its absurdity, but for that sort of ingenuity, which so whimsically contrived to bring together the different arts; this pedantic writer, however, owes more to the subject, than the subject derived from him; without wit or humour, he has at times an extravagance of invention. As for instance,—Geographus and his man ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... where he had experienced the unique sensation of being a pioneer in at the rebirth of a great city, as well as the outdoor sports that kept him fit, that had endeared California to Ruyler, and in time caused him whimsically to visualize New York as a sternly accusing instead of a beckoning finger. Long before he found time to play polo at Burlingame he had conceived a deep respect for a climate where a man might ride horseback, shoot, drive a racing car, ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... She whimsically broke in upon his passionate declaration, saying with a pretty petulance: "Oh, you ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... I should. But will you?"—whimsically. She glanced at the sophisticated simplicity of Magda's white gown, at the narrow suede shoes and filmy stockings—every detail of her dress and person breathing the expensiveness and luxury and highly specialised civilisation ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... laughed quietly. "That is an unfair question," he equivocated, narrowing his eyes whimsically. "If I were heir to the property and felt that I did not care to assume the danger of managing it I should sell, without doubt. If, on the other hand, I had decided to continue my father's fight against an unscrupulous company, I would stay no matter what the consequences. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... her, she's like a whirlwind," he said whimsically. "She raced me off here before I could ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... lively and cultivated widow, Lady Austen, who told him the story of John Gilpin and called for a ballad on the subject. She also urged him to write a long poem in blank verse; and when he demanded a subject, she whimsically suggested the sofa, which was a new article of furniture at that time. Cowper immediately wrote "The Sofa," and, influenced by the poetic possibilities that lie in unexpected places, he added to this poem from time to time, and called his completed work The Task. This was ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... easily—he could not help talking easily, though his tone had the true ring of sincerity. There seemed to be no bit of agressive self-assurance about this young gentleman; he seemed to be just quietly, pleasantly, whimsically, unsubduably his natural self. "But, Clara, you must remember that it was as sudden with me as with you. I hardly thought about explaining. And then, I'll be frank, I was afraid if I did tell, you wouldn't have me. I did side-step ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... engagement was contracted," he says, "in all the simplicity but also in all the truth of nature, in the presence of two men of worth and honour.... During the short and simple act, I saw the honest pair melted in tears."[148] He had at this time whimsically assumed the name of Renou, and he wrote to a friend that of course he had married in this name, for he adds, with the characteristic insertion of an irrelevant bit of magniloquence, "it is not names that are married; no, it is persons." "Even if in this simple and holy ceremony ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... large parties rather than close intimacies. In the high lift of its ceilings, the ample openings of its doors, the swept, garnished, polished beauty of its cold surfaces, it proclaimed itself conceived, created and decorated for large, fine functions. She thought whimsically that any one who knew her, coming into her house, would realize that some one other than herself had ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... every Body, because every Man thinks he is so to him. He does not seem to contribute any thing to the Mirth of the Company; and yet upon Reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was whimsically said of a Gentleman, That if Varilas had Wit, it would be the best Wit in the World. It is certain, when a well-corrected lively Imagination and good Breeding are added to a sweet Disposition, they qualify it to be one of the greatest Blessings, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... whimsically, for she was too wise to be ignorant of the fact that such men as were in that schooner must first be caught before they might be commanded. Yet the giant's plan suggested another ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... by the ungentle tread of pitching hoofs, skidded twice as far as in calm weather. The gray sky bent threateningly above them, wind-torn into flying scud but never showing a hint of blue. Later there might be rain, sleet, snow—or sunshine, as nature might whimsically direct; but for the present she seemed content with only the chill wind that blew the very ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... dressed in a jacket of reddish brown merino, holding in her left hand a green cord, which was tied to the collar of an English terrier, and with her right arm linked with that of a man in knee-breeches and silk stockings, whose hat had its brim whimsically turned up, while snow-white tufts of hair like pigeon plumes rose at its sides. A slender queue, thin as a quill, tossed about on the back of his sallow neck, which was thick, as far as it could be seen above the turned ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... she persisted whimsically, "I believe they will open some time. I shan't be content until they do; and somehow or other I shall ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... she repeated, "it has seemed strange to me. When I've thought that I wanted to do things, you always took a lot of interest and trouble, but when I knew that I wanted to do one thing, you gave me a dreadfully cold shoulder." She smiled whimsically. "I shall do an allegory ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... one Christilius, Sisenna, who was counsel for the defendant, told him, that several parts of his accusation were absolutely spitatical. [Footnote: In the original sputatilica, worthy to be spit upon. It appears, from the connection, to have been a very unclassical word, whimsically derived by the author of it from sputa, spittle.] My Lords, cried Rufius to the judges, I shall be cruelly over-reached, unless you give me your assistance. His charge overpowers my comprehension; and I am afraid he has some unfair design upon me. What, in the name of Heaven, can be ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... at me, said "Ah! Well," irresolutely. I got up from my chair and offered to come again later. He looked whimsically alarmed. "No, no. It's bad enough to lose my money but I don't want to waste any more of my time over your friend. We must be done with this to-day. Just go and have a look at that garniture de cheminee yonder. There's another, something like it, in the castle of Laeken, but mine's much superior ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... unusually gracious to Seaforth, who came along just then, and though evidently in some haste, stopped to talk to her; while when she had promised to accompany him to witness the chase, and he strode away towards the stable, her father sauntered out of the house and glanced in her direction whimsically. ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... is what you get for bringing a woman along," she said. She smiled at me whimsically, gloriously, and I knew there was no ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... and not to be deprecated on other grounds, since probably it deceived nobody. They lived a very tranquil life, and Clara had no grief of her own unless it was that there seemed to be no great things she could do for him. One day when she whimsically complained of this, he said: "I'm very glad of that. Let's try to be equal to the little sacrifices we must make for each other; they will be quite enough. Many a woman who would be ready to die for her husband makes him wretched because she won't live for him. Don't despise ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Bill grinned whimsically and assented. He could keep quiet when he had to; but the day following found him again restlessly investigating anything that seemed worth the trouble and the afternoon saw him standing looking upward toward the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... behaved as I have presently to relate of Nicolete, that no parents were ever so accommodating in the world of reality, I reply,—No doubt you are right, but none the less what I have to tell is true and really did happen, for all that. And not only did it happen, but to the whimsically minded, to the true children of fancy, it will seem the most natural thing in the world. No doubt they will wonder why I have made such a preamble about it, as indeed, now I think of it, so ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... removed. While this was done Miles stood again with his hands in his little pockets and his back to me—stood and looked out of the wide window through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled me up. We continued silent while the maid was with us—as silent, it whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned round only when the waiter had left us. "Well—so ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... wife was because she crossed the field of his vision; his second glance was because of her beauty; his third because her name was SHELLEY. It is marvellous how whimsically sentimental commonplace people can be where their own interesting personality is concerned: her name he instantly associated with SCALLOP-SHELL, and began to make inquiry about her. Learning that her other name was Miriam, one ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... He bowed whimsically and passed out. Dorn laid aside his book and approached the divan. In the week since their return from Weimar he had become interested in the moody, dynamic young creature. The fact that she had resisted the expert persuasions of the Baron—a subject on ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... borrow a suit of the Mayor's clothes—into which he gets in time to interview that worthy when he returns with his grim lady. "You'll get a month," says she with damnable iteration; and the resourceful Felix, with an eye to the whimsical will, whimsically suggests that justice would be better fulfilled by his putting in the month at the Mayor's house as odd-job man than by his being conveyed to the county jail. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... herself had been sociable to the last degree with her neighbors, they openly preferred her taciturn companion. "It is well that virtue is its own reward, for it certainly does not get any other, in my experience," she remarked whimsically. ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) was appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Samuel accompanied his brother as private secretary. The journey was made largely in a stagecoach, the inconveniences of which are whimsically set forth in the following ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... of the amount in some degree account for the betting?" she asked whimsically. "You know, I bet a little—just a little. If I have but a small sum, I already regard it as a stake; I am ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had his turn at autobiography. He told rather whimsically of his three months' experiences at the tail of the juvenile whirligigs, and his auditors listened to them with mild smiles. He ventured upon numerous glowing parentheses about Julia, and they at least did not say that they did not want to know her. They heard with politeness, too, what he could ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... six volumes by the Delegates of the University Press under the title of A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714. He also left a personal diary in English, but whimsically written in Greek characters, consisting principally of entries recording the hours of his rising and going to bed, the manner in which he spent his time, what friends called to see him, the sermons he heard, where and how he dined, and the occasions, which were not infrequent, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... its way, except some of the happier efforts of the late Mr. Charles Bennett, to which, nevertheless, it is greatly superior in execution. To this clever artist's invention everything seems to present itself with a train of fantastic accessory so whimsically inexhaustible that it almost overpowers one with its prodigality. Each fresh examination of his designs discloses something overlooked or unexpected. Let the reader study for a moment the famous "Birds of a Feather" of 1875, or that ingenious skit of 1877 upon the rival ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... after the housekeeping, but robs him, and ruins that child. Would you believe it? she and two tall churls of sons that she has about her amuse themselves with terrifying that little girl by dressing themselves up whimsically, and acting the goblins in the twilight. It is more than a miracle if they ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... astonishment at what had fallen from the last speaker; for he had evidently confessed that the Slave Trade was inhuman and unjust, and then he had insinuated, that it was neither inhuman nor unjust to continue it. A more paradoxical or whimsical opinion, he believed, was never entertained, or more whimsically expressed in that house. The noble viscount had talked of the interests of the planters; but this was but a part of the subject; for surely the people of Africa were not to be forgotten. He did not understand the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... picnic, the Finley annual, that he asked Hester, then seventeen, to marry him. She was darkly, wildly pretty, as a rambler rose tugging at its stem is restlessly pretty, as a pointed little gazelle smelling up at the moon is whimsically pretty, as a runaway stream from off the flank of a river is naughtily pretty, and she wore a crisp percale shirt waist with a saucy bow at the collar, fifty-cent silk stockings, and already she had almond incarnadine nails with points ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... lifted whimsically. "Of course. How should you know? There was a clumsy attempt to do me bodily harm, to—assassinate me. Funny, isn't it? So ill considered and so impracticable.—But about this Avenger matter, if you find it ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... line. If ever in all the years to come you should have need of me, I am at your service. I shall count nothing too hard that you may ask. I am whimsically aware that in the midst of all this darkness and tragedy my offer is that of the Mouse to the Lion. But there came a day when the Mouse paid its debt. Ask me to pay mine, and I will come—from the ends of ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... just like a grand old lady holding off her skirts so's not to touch anything," Robin thought, now, whimsically. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... temporary home, and the aspect of every one seemed somewhat changed. In fact, his career at college had disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt his being the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsically alludes to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, "The Man in Black," in the Citizen ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... to praise Robin Drummond, not too suddenly nor too effusively at first, but by degrees, so as not to awaken Nelly's suspicions. He amazed Robin Drummond by his cordiality in those days, and the young fellow commented on it whimsically ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... million—and when he calls he means business. I'll have to speak up, I suppose." She sighed, tucked a chocolate into her cheek, and went scowling to the table. "Can't the idiot see I'm out?" she complained whimsically. "What's that card for, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... village on the opposite bank, resided the witty but profligate Sir Richard Steele, in a house which he whimsically denominated "the hovel;" and "from the Hovel at Hampton Wick, April 7, 1711," he dedicated the fourth volume of the Tatler to Charles, Lord Halifax. This was probably about the time he became surveyor of the royal stables at Hampton Court, governor of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... It isn't my doing. I'm hired to do certain work—for trapeze performing is work, though it may look like fun to the public. Well, I'm on my way, as the fellow said when the powder mill blew up," and Joe smiled whimsically. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... it, if you had seen us first," Theodora responded half whimsically, half discontentedly. "Hope and Hubert are all right; but the rest of us are enough to turn your hair white. I was bad enough; and now Phebe is forsaking the world and taking to skeletons, and Allyn is ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Rodebush sat at the control panel of Triplanetary's newly reconstructed space-ship, his hands grasping the gleaming, ebonite handles of two double-throw switches. Facing the unknown though the physicist was, yet he grinned whimsically ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... what I should have to boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill, by two bits of paper on his fingers." But neither of these statements seems to have more weight in solving the mystery of the editor's name than the evidence of the whimsically satirical notes themselves. How like the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" and the children's "Fables in ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... in the afternoon, trying to be cheerful, trying to cheer her with those futile subterfuges we are forced to, trying to get it all clear in my own troubled mind, when she smiled whimsically at me and begged me to spare ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... in the successful musical comedy, The Girl of Forty-Seven, there is a scene in which Miss Verbena Vaine, as Clementina, the horse-dealer's beautiful daughter, denounces the disreputable old veterinary surgeon, Binnett, so whimsically played by that ripe ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... Travers' turn to hide the triumph which the willing acceptance aroused. Nevertheless, his next words were whimsically regretful. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... until this mud dries up," went on Jimmie, "or I might feed up Stamp until he is strong enough to pull me out. Only that would take too long, I'm afraid. He's been kept on a diet of carpet tacks, lately, to judge by the many fine points about him," he added, whimsically. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... and when, three days after, he was found at Chunar, at the distance of 200 miles, still searching for affidavits, and, like Hamlet's ghost, exclaiming, 'Swear,' his progress on that occasion was so whimsically rapid, compared with the gravity of his employ, that an observer would be tempted to quote again from the same scene, 'Ha! Old Truepenny, canst thou mole so fast i' the ground?' Here, however, the comparison ceased; for, when Sir Elijah made his visit to Lucknow ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... the downright plunge of precipices, all the savageness of harsh rock, unsoftened by other vegetation than rusty moss and the dull green splashes of lichen, all this was hidden, except when the mist, white and delicate where we stood, but thick and black above, opened whimsically and delusively, as mountain mists will do, and gave us vistas into the upper desolation. After such momentary rifts the mist thickened again, and swooped forward as if to involve our station, but noon sunshine, reverberated from the plains ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... on Miss Howe;* and another time, when he imagined himself treated contemptuously.** Miss Howe, it must be owned, (though not to the credit of her own character,) treats him ludicrously on several occasions. But so she does her mother. And perhaps a lady of her lively turn would have treated as whimsically any man but a Lovelace. Mr. Belford speaks of him with honour and respect.*** So does Colonel Morden.**** And so does Clarissa on every occasion. And all that Miss Howe herself says of him, tends more to his reputation than discredit,***** as ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... scarcely realize it when the steward passed along to take orders for luncheon. Four hours out? It seemed like forty minutes. And we had a pleasant feeling of intimacy in the discovery that both of us liked lobster salad and detested oysters. It was another bond; I told her whimsically that it was an omen, nor did she object ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... yet so bewildering) to flush with pink blossom and to make one wish to sit on benches—under this magic of expansion and condonation Mrs. Bonnycastle, who during the winter had been a good deal on the defensive, relaxed her vigilance a little, became whimsically wilful, vernally reckless, as it were, and ceased to calculate the consequences of an hospitality which a reference to the back files or even to the morning's issue of the newspapers might easily prove a mistake. But Washington life, to Count Otto's apprehension, ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... centuries to come—than as a pledge, a token of his love, which made even the Verdurins and their little pianist think of Odette and, at the same time, of himself—which bound her to him by a lasting tie; and at that point he had (whimsically entreated by Odette) abandoned the idea of getting some 'professional' to play over to him the whole sonata, of which he still knew no more than this one passage. "Why do you want the rest?" she had asked him. "Our little bit; that's all we ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... brotherly appreciations His Highness walked away, leaving Dick to ponder on the joyous prospects they contained. His sinister prediction Richard Crowninshield soon found to be true. Thorough was no name for Bob King. Before a week had passed Dick whimsically remarked to his father that it must be a task to Bob to swim on the top of the sea without diving down with a spy glass and examining every particle that was on the ocean's bottom. The fact that the new tutor never dipped into any subject but ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... willing to have him say good-night and go home or stay and confess to me, just as he chose. I knew he needed me; a good many men need their mothers once in a while as much as they ever did when boys. There was something whimsically boyish about Charlie as he leaned over the back of a tall chair and debated secretly whether or not he ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... I would mind?" He smiled whimsically. "Flavia, I've had a lot of nonsense knocked out of me. It took a bad shock to cure me of Isabel, but I'm well. There's nothing left of that. In fact, I feel all full of holes where ideas have been jolted out of ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... fellow he is anyway, and how thoroughly he knows his job. I thought how well he was equipped with unilluminated knowledge, and it came to me whimsically, that here was a fine bit of road-mending for ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... wings, which are of no use to them except when in the water. Their bills are narrow, like that of the albatross, and they stand and walk quite erect, from which circumstance, and their white bellies, Sir John Narborough has whimsically likened them to little children standing up ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... her giving into begging, and in assuring her of the love and loyalty she longed for, all forgot their words of thanks till Larry said whimsically, "I'm afraid things are getting a little mixed here, and I'm not quite certain, now, whether we're to be grateful to Joyce for a beautiful home, or she to us for ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... come to me to seek my aid to rescue his young master from the clutches of a king's man and three men-at-arms. I tell him I may not do such a thing except upon compulsion, and he layeth hands upon me." And he smiled upon them whimsically. ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... and oratory. So many of the brilliant young politicians of this period had been brought into close relations with Cicero in this way, that when he found himself forced out of politics by the Caesarians, he whimsically writes to his friend Paetus that he is inclined to give up public life and open a school, and not more than a year before his death he pathetically complains that he has not leisure even to take the waters at the ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... stood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief so exceedingly oily, that he might have been in the act of mistaking himself for one of his charges. He was a spare man of about the Barbox Brothers' time of life, with his features whimsically drawn upward as if they were attracted by the roots of his hair. He had a peculiarly shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned by constant oleaginous application; and his attractive hair, being cut short, and being grizzled, and ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... man turned away. "Perhaps," he thought, whimsically, as he went cautiously down the path, searching out every step of the way, "there was no sunset ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... casually up and down the hill, and then, fixing his quiet grey eyes on me, said whimsically, "I am a man of peace, and unarmed; the road is of a truth very lonely, and I have considerable sums of money ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... from his credit. Every general fights with two heads—his own and his adversary's; and, for the rest, we have to do what we can do with our material." The Commandant halted and gazed down whimsically upon the courtyard, in the middle of which his twenty-five militiamen were being drilled by M. Etienne and Sergeant Bedard. "My whole garrison, sir! Eh? you seem incredulous. My whole garrison, I give you my word! Five-and-twenty militiamen ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with Coleridge; "The South Sea House" with his daily work; "Old China" with his home life; "The Superannuated Man" with his feelings when he was retired on a pension; and finally, "Character of the Late Elia," in which Lamb whimsically writes ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... it, John?" he inquired, whimsically. "Maybe I could help you over the shoals. You and Gertie think you'd like to get married sometime or other, I presume likely. Is that what you're ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... counterfeit bill in settlement of the debt. This may have led to a blow, or more likely only to an argument during which a bomb was dropped and exploded, followed quickly by the other explosion. Dead hand, counterfeit bill and ring were flung whimsically to the surface of the earth together, and the leaning rocks had been astonishingly broken from beneath through this trivial quarrel. Had it not been for this squabble the Jasper B. and all on board must have been destroyed. Verily, the minds of wicked men compass their own downfall, and retribution ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... were inclined to joke, I should say, How much this seems like Paradise!" he remarked whimsically, looking at her with ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the orchard ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... to make a little money out of the boom. Many visitors are now coming and going on business connected with the new works. They have started a boarding-house—or, rather, Mrs. Snedden has. There's a daughter, too, who seems to be very popular." Kennedy glanced whimsically at me. ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... the paved channels of London. A beautiful poem, but how immeasurably sad, an invocation to the memory and to the spirit of Robert Browning, not speaking of him in an elegiac strain as of a great poet who had lived his life to the full and struck his clear-toned harp, solemnly, sweetly, and whimsically too, year after year; but as of something great and noble wholly lost and separated from the ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... runs between past and present is false—whimsically false. At one time we hear it uttered as an impeachment against our age, that every thing is done by committees and companies, shares and joint effort, and that no one man, or hero, can any longer move the world as in the blessed days ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the shadowy hope for April lent a new tone even to their gayety, and deepened the exquisite happiness of the dark, snowbound day. The tiny house was full of laughter, for Bert had given his wife all the little things she had from time to time whimsically desired. The fancy cheeses, and the perfumes and soaps, made her laugh and laugh as she unwrapped them. There were fuzzy wash-cloths—a particular fancy of hers—and new library paste and new hair-pins, and a can-opener that made her exclaim: "Bert, that was cute of you!" ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again. A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... world-renowned professor and is engaged in a great experiment, namely, in the production of a chemical man. By the aid of Mephisto's magic the experiment is quickly brought to a successful issue, and Homunculus—one of Goethe's whimsically delightful creations—emerges into being as an incorporeal radiant man in a glass bottle. The wonderful little fellow at once comprehends Faust's malady and prescribes that he be taken to the land of his dreams. So away they go, the three of them, to the Classical Walpurgis Night, which ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Betty whimsically, just as Mollie and Amy ran down the stairs and into the room, "that we're fast becoming what you said you were the other day, Gracie—a regular flock ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... at any rate," she said, whimsically smiling, "that the moral of my little exhibition has not been ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... brilliant sunshine, which found its way through a gap in the drawn curtains, showed that it was long past the usual hour for rising. She smiled whimsically and closed her eyes once more. She remembered now that she was not in her own little room in the other wing of the house. The curtains proved that. How often in the ten years she had been with Miss Wickham had she begged that the staring white window blind, which ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... with us at breakfast and dinner. Papa doesn't approve, doesn't believe in young men keeping a stable as Caspar does. Mamma doesn't know what she believes. I am arbitrator—it's terrible, the new generation," she broke off whimsically. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... was reading and giving no heed. He wondered why he should be so completely thrown out of his usual self-possession by this girl, so that when he talked to her, and was most anxious to appear at his best, he was most surely at his worst. There came whimsically into his head a thought of the wisdom of training the clergy to the social gifts and graces, and he remembered the flippant speech of Mrs. Wilson about the need of their ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... he wrinkled his brows and glanced half whimsically down the page. "I never can get used to a woman reading that stuff—and in French, at that. If you took it up to perfect your German there would be some ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... a slender seed pearl rope at her throat. "Mother told me it was far too beautiful and I must send it back. But I was most undutiful. I said I wouldn't—just wouldn't. I know you picked it out for me yourself—now, didn't you?" He nodded somewhat whimsically. "There! I told mother so; and it would be rude, most rude, not to ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... to social or moral influences, and losing the power of repeating certain sounds, was prominently observable amongst the Normans. No modern French gazette-writer could disfigure English names more whimsically than the Domesday Commissioners. To the last, the Normans never could learn to say 'Lincoln,'—they never could get nearer than 'Nincol,' or 'Nicole.'" The "chivalry" of Virginia and the Carolinas—our Southern Northmen—might ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... over the air with which his friend held forth thus—an air so whimsically open and argumentative as almost to deprive what he said of the appearance of evasion—when a shuffling was heard at the outer door, and then an undecided knock, as though some hand were groping for the knocker. 'The ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... nodded the doctor, imperturbably. "But I'm giving orders now. I'll take the risk." Then he added whimsically: "You don't know, of course; but that little girl is better than a six-quart bottle of tonic any day. If anything or anybody can take the grouch out of Pendleton this afternoon, she can. That's ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... better myself," replied Jim whimsically, "but I would have been tempted to give them a jolt just to make them sit up ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... mouth as if to say something and Cuthbert expected that he meant to include Owen in his invitation, but he simply nodded his head, smiled whimsically, and bent over to look ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... to pull trigger on the old fellow. He preferred to look upon him as a friend whom he had met once in worthy combat, but with whom he was now at peace. When the bull charged him he dodged him easily among the bushes and called out whimsically: ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to know it, they'd think it was so funny, but—" She paused uncertainly, and looked questioningly into his face. "Maybe you won't understand what I mean, but sometimes I'd like to be good myself. Awfully good, I mean." She smiled whimsically. "Wouldn't Connie scream if she could hear that? Now you won't give me away, will you? But I mean it. I don't think of it very often, but sometimes, why, Professor, honestly, I wouldn't care if I were as good as Prudence!" She paused ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... but now so bare, fairly sagged and steamed with offerings of Thanksgiving. Somehow the steam got into Eph's eyes and made them wet, till all he could do was to say whimsically: ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... whimsically plaintive, but secretly he was delighted with her confession of loneliness. It was almost worth the loss of the mare to get that out of her. At any rate, he meant something to her. He was not ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... say?" was the thought that flashed whimsically through his mind as he withdrew his hand. He glanced almost jealously at the faces of Von Schroeder and Jones, and wondered if they had not divined the remarkableness and deliciousness of this woman who sat ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... dimly. She stood a little remote, quiet, sweet, and holy, and his spirit chastened itself before her. Dear were his friends to him; his heart lodged them in spacious chambers and lapped them with observance; now he thought whimsically and lightly of his guests as though their lodgings were far removed from that misty central hall where he himself abode. Loyal with the fantastic loyalty of an earlier time, practiser of chivalry and ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... clothes, shiny and grown tight for him. Above his winged collar his sensitive face showed pale and thin in the early morning light. His eyes, brown, soft, were like Suzanna's—they had vision. He smiled now, half whimsically and wholly ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... cheeks, but gay, sprightly, jaunty, in a superb travelling-dress of green velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and looped up on either side to allow a glimpse of satin petticoat. Her blond hair escaped in thick ringlets from beneath a broad black felt hat, decorated with white feathers whimsically twisted into various shapes. In one hand she held a little riding-whip terminated by a golden whistle. She tapped me lightly with it, and exclaimed: 'Well, my fine sleeper, is this the way you make your preparations? I thought I would find you ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... and turned it over, gazing at the two little round holes curiously. "Pete, old scout," he said, smiling whimsically, "here's hopin' they never come closer to gettin' you than they did to gettin' me. Keep a-ridin'—for you sure got to be that 'Ridin' Kid from Powder ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... there was anything crooked about their playing; at least he could detect no sign of it, though he kept a sharp lookout as he always did when sitting in with strangers. But he was rather uncomfortably in a hole and was just beginning to realize rather whimsically that for a while at least he had only a cow-man's pay to depend on for spending-money, when the door was suddenly jerked open and a tall, broad-shouldered figure loomed ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... faint idea," Luck drawled whimsically. "Look over there, Andy over toward Albuquerque. Is that a mirage again, or do ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... pillars, quaint window models, and other architectural devices, are heaped upon each other in curious profusion, and it is difficult to get at their real meaning. They relieve the walls a little, but they do the work whimsically, and you can neither get a smile nor a tear from them. The chancel arch is strong and ornamental; within it there is another arch, the intervening roof being neatly groined and coloured; and beyond there is the chancel—a small, somewhat cimmerian, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... highly pathetic, they had walked some way along the street in silence, which the good man was not likely first to break, when Johnson suddenly stopped, and turning round to him, exclaimed, "Sir! don't you think that 'Me miserable' is miserable stuff?" On another occasion he thus whimsically described the different manner in which he felt himself disposed towards a Whig and a Tory. "If," said he, "I saw a Whig and a Tory drowning, I would first save the Tory; and when I saw that he was safe, not till then, I would go and help ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... together," he said, in his whimsically grave way, "at the humiliating spectacle of an old man's folly. I feel, at this moment, Arnold, as if I would give every thing that I possess in the world to have passed over next week, and to be landed safely in the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... crashing rattlety-bang Agnes sprang to her feet with a nervous shriek. Ethelwynne dived for her skates and felt them carefully. "I tried to pick out the softest spot on the rug," she complained whimsically, "but there wasn't any other way to wake her up. And I simply had to have ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... him start, and realized the full extent of the loss. To her surprise his furrowed brows relaxed and he smiled whimsically. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... close to him as he commenced to puff at his pipe, using a match for the first time in many moons and smiling whimsically when he struck the same, as memory ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy |
