"Ass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... already buzzing about him for the bold language of his Commentaries and Dialogues. He was called Erasmus for his errors—Arasmus because he would plough up sacred things—Erasinus because he had written himself an ass—Behemoth, Antichrist, and many other names of similar import. Luther was said to have bought the deadly seed in his barn. The egg had been laid by Erasmus, hatched by Luther. On the other hand, he was reviled for not taking side manfully with the reformer. The moderate man received much denunciation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... been a singularly innocent and lucky ass. It's merely chance that my papers have not been stolen, even before I ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... be thankful to myself for that. Any person I will take in hand I make a clean job of them the same as I would make of any other thing in my yard, coach, half coach, hackney-coach, ass car, common car, post-chaise, calash, chariot on two wheels, on four wheels. Each one has the shape Thomas Hearne put on it, and it in his hands; and what I can do with wood and iron, why would I not be able to do it with flesh and blood, and it in ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... in Minnesota Ass'n. v. Benn, 261 U.S. 140 (1923), that a similar Minnesota mail order insurance company could not be viewed as doing business in Montana where the claimant-plaintiff lived, and that the circumstances under which its Montana contracts, executed and to be performed in Minnesota, were consummated ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... In a voice that quavered a bit he asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" to him. I had not even laughed at him when—here he began to mumble—"that mistake, you know—made a confounded ass of myself." I broke in by saying rather warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He sat down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the last drop. "That does not ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... late in the day, and he had had no food for many hours. Was he to be neglected and starved? At last he heard steps approaching, and the door was opened by the man who had led the assault on him, who addressed him as 'Son of an old ass—dog of a slave,' bade him stand up and show his height, at the same time cutting the cords that bound him. It was an additional pang that it was to Yusuf that he was thus to exhibit himself, no doubt in order that the merchant should carry a description of him to some likely purchaser. ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his to choose his environment; it is his to modify his environment when he cannot leave it. To an extent which no other animal has ever approached, man is the arbiter of his own destiny. A hypothetical ass may stand helpless between two equidistant bales of hay, but no human being is ever so helpless a sport of his environment. As it is, he may drift or he may rove as he pleases. To one man the current ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... very much like my young cousin coming towards us," said Stanley, looking in the direction whence the laughter came. "What on earth has the little ass ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... power of suspending the deliberative process and determining the direction of the intellect. Otherwise the will is entirely dependent on the view of the mind, the last result of examination. The comparison of the will unable to act between two equally balanced motives to an ass dying of hunger between two equal and equidistant bundles of hay is not found in his works, and may have been invented by his opponents to ridicule his determinism. That he was not the originator of the theory known as "liberty of indifference" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... concentration and a seemingly deplorable indifference to everything but itself. Nothing can well figure as less "big," in an honest thesis, than a marked instance of somebody's willingness to pass mainly for an ass. Of these things I must, I say, have been in strictness aware; what I perhaps failed of was to note that if a certain romantic glamour (even that of mere eccentricity or of a fine perversity) may be flung ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... can tell. So, I say, we must pat our men on the back and tell zem what great, wise, strong fellows they are,—and how good and gallant too. Then they will fight for us like the lion, and zey—they will work for us like the ass and the oxen, because man he enjoys to be applauded greatly. A man likes to have his hair rubbed gently with the finger tips. He will smile and close his eyes and if he knew how he would purr like the cat. But, my dear, he do not like to have his hair pulled. Zat is something ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... counselor. asestar to aim. asfixiar to asphyxiate. asi thus, so; —— como as well as, —— que as soon as. asiento seat, chair. asimilable capable of assimilation. asir vr. to seize. asistente m. orderly. asistir to be present. asno ass. asolador-a destructive, racking. asomar to show; vr. to appear, begin to appear. asombrar to amaze. asombro amazement. asombroso astonishing. aspero rough. aspirar to aspire. astilla splinter. astro star, luminous body. asturiano of the ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... treatment of his cousin, volunteered to come and "tell the ass, Ogden, to mind what he was about," and Harold added, "If you would come, Lucy, you might help to make his ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this vice, its baneful effects and consequences, to which it were useless here to refer. Suffice it to say there is nothing that besots a man more completely and lowers him more ignobly to the level of the brute. He falls below, for the most stupid of brutes, the ass, knows when it has enough; and the drunkard does not. It requires small wit indeed to understand that there is no sin in the catalogue of crime that a person in this state is not capable of committing. He will do things ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... Reptiles, and so on. But when we proceed to smaller subdivisions, such as genera and species, it is usually impossible to say that the one type is more highly organized than another type. A horse, for instance, cannot be said to be more highly organized than a zebra or an ass; although the entire horse-genus is clearly a more highly organized type than any genus of animal which is not ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... he commit adultery with a woman of an equal or inferior cast, the magistrate shall confiscate all his possessions, cut off his genitals, and cause him to be carried round the city, mounted on a ass. If by fraud he commit adultery with a woman of an equal or inferior cast, the magistrate shall take his possessions, brand him in the forehead, and banish him the kingdom. Such are the laws of the Shaster, so far ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... solemn snobs," declared Herbert, "impress women by just keeping still. Griswold pretends the reason he doesn't speak to you is because he's too superior, but the real reason is that he knows whenever he opens his mouth he shows he is an ass." ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... say, I at length broke his leg with staff. The queen took much delight in these my mad tricks, and commanded the carcass of this sheep to be given me, and I never eat meat with more relish or better appetite. Three days afterwards I killed an ass that used to bring water to the palace, because he would not say these words and be a Mahometan. One day I handled a Jew so very roughly, that I had near killed him. On another occasion I threw many stones at a person who called me a Christian clog, but he threw them back at me with such vengeance, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... embroidered with the rubies and diamonds of his crown. The three dresses being made and presented to her, the princess is checkmated, and accordingly asks for something even more valuable in its way. The king has an ass that produces gold coins in profusion every day of his life. This ass the princess asked might be sacrificed, in order that she might have his skin. This desire even was granted. The princess, thus defeated altogether, puts on the ass's skin, rubs her face over with soot, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... she rides me, and I long for grass. 'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be But I should know her as well ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the purpose of insinuating the imbecility of slumber that the Romans decorated the heads of their beds with the head of an ass? We leave to the gentlemen who form the academy of inscriptions the elucidation ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... the poet nods and winks, imploring him to interpose a rescue. Cruel Fuscus sees it all, mischievously apologizes, will not help, and the shy, amiable poet walks on with his tormentor, "his ears dropped like those of an overladen ass." At last one of the bore's creditors comes up, collars him with threats, hales him to the law courts, while the relieved poet quotes in his joy from the rescue of Hector in the Iliad, "Thus Apollo bore me from the fray." In this Satire, which was ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... his first victory over the Philistines by means of the jawbone of the ass on which Abraham had made his way to Mount Moriah. It had been preserved miraculously. (118) After this victory a great wonder befell. Samson was at the point of perishing from thirst, when water began to flow from his own mouth as from a ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... prime minister do it, then,' answered Karataka; 'it is his business to overlook things, and subordinates shouldn't interfere in the department of their chief. You might get ass's thanks for it— ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Haouran people, with a Keffie, and a large sheep-skin over my shoulders: in my saddle bag I put one spare shirt, one pound of coffee beans, two pounds of tobacco, and a day's provender of barley for my horse. I then joined a few Felahs of Ezra, of one of whom I hired an ass, though I had nothing to load it with but my small saddle-bag; but I knew this to be the best method of recommending myself to the protection of my fellow travellers; as the owner of the ass necessarily becomes the companion and protector of him who hires ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... any answer, surveying the stable all round, at the same time, not without risk of setting the premises on fire, had not the quantity of wet litter and mud so greatly counterbalanced two or three bunches of straw and hay. At length my repeated cries of "Andrew Fairservice! Andrew! fool!—ass! where are you?" produced a doleful "Here," in a groaning tone, which might have been that of the Brownie itself. Guided by this sound, I advanced to the corner of a shed, where, ensconced in the angle of the wall, behind ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... ass, Maxwell, but that's no reason why I should keep on being one, is it? I've got to tell you something impo'tant, and I'm going to do it now. I can't write any more about literatuah of the past and lily-pads of the present, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... Human nature damn soon sees through you, if you're pretending what you don't command. But I'm playing straight across the board, Mark, as my custom is, and I know you are too sane and ambitious a lad to let false pride or self-assurance resent my calling you an ass over ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... others (social, political, city rivalry, class antagonisms). The "mass of fools" was a complete parody of the mass, with mock music and vestments and burlesque ceremony. In the "mass of innocents" children took the place of adults and carried out the ceremony as a parody. At the "feast of the ass" an ass was led into church and treated with mock respect. This last degenerated into obscenity, indecency, and disorder. Bulls and edicts against it were long vain. It was popular as a relief from restraint.[2087] It continued the function of the Saturnalia, which had been a grand frolic and relaxation. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... and the Cross' is a theological novel. It is, without any doubt, the most brilliant of Chesterton's novels; it is an argument between a Christian ass and a very decent atheist. Atheists, if they are sincere, are on the way to becoming good Christians; Christians, if they are insincere, are on the way ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... would keep his wife in order. And, strange to say, Yvonne was not far wide of the mark. She believed that Joseph was a sinner but not a willing one: and Jack Bendish, a little astray among these feminine subtleties, assented after his fashion—"Hyde's rather an ass in some ways," he said simply, "but ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... me on Knype platform, and to tell me I'm wise in going! He's the President of the local Law Society, you know! No end of a President! And hasn't even got gumption enough to keep his father's practice together! Stupid ass! Well, I let him have it, and straight! He's no worse than the rest. They've got no brains in this district. And they're so narrow—narrow isn't the word! Thick-headed's the word. Stupid! Mean!... Mean!... What ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... course she knows it; always has known it, ever since that first summer at Sacandaga. Not that I've been ass enough to say anything after the first time. I'm only an ordinary sort of chap when it comes to intuition, but somehow I've never plucked up the cheek to do any talking about my own miserable self; not since she let ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... of the same form as those upon a zebra; but far less distinct, and not extending to the body or limbs, as is the case with the true zebra. In general colour, and in some other respects, the animals reminded one of the ass; but their heads, necks, and the upper part of their bodies, were of darker hue, slightly tinged with reddish brown. In fact, the new-comers had points of resemblance to all four—horse, ass, gnoo, and zebra—and yet they were distinct from any. To the zebra they bore the greatest resemblance—for ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... commander. And he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and brother officer, I know Panke; you know Panke; we know Panke—good little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight, unless you who are a man ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... of serious difference which at last appeared, and culminated in their parting. He did not venture to approach her, but when she got into a cab, took a Hansom and followed her to the entrance of the square, where he got down, his heart beating with exultant hope that "the rascal ass of a ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... supernatural powers. To this extensive philosophical knowledge and immense erudition he united great polish of manner and remarkable beauty of person. He wrote much on philosophy; but his most important work is a romance known as "Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass," containing his philosophical and mystic doctrines. In this book, the object of which is to encourage the belief in mysticism, the writer describes the transformation of a young man into an ass, who is allowed to take his primitive human form only through a knowledge of the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... I left the room," said he; "the Mater was very near rolling on the oilcloth, and the Governor dancing and foaming from his mouth. What an awfully old ass you have been, JAB, to go and blurt out everything in print—about your breach of promise case, and getting to know us, and—worst of all—being merely a bogey prince. Naturally, we don't care about being made to look fools. The dear old Mater, you know, is one of those simple, trusting ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... the doctor quietly, "but that is rather running wild; a donkey and an ass are the same thing, Stevey, my lad. If the captain says a few things to cut your comb a little, they will do you good; and I am as certain as that I am sitting here that he will end by saying, 'There, my boy, then, that's an end ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... being an ass long enough to tell me what you mean, and where you've been, I'll thank you. If you can't, I wish you'd get out. Ugashe!" concluded Bob, with a lapse into Apache ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... only that small part which is shut up in their walls. And he felt most strongly at this time that hard fighting was needed. "It is a pity" he writes to Mr. Ludlow, "that telling people what's right, won't make them do it; but not a new fact, though that ass the world has quite forgotten it; and assures you that dear sweet 'incompris' mankind only wants to be told the way to the millennium to walk willingly into it—which is a lie. If you want to get ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... begone thou and thy honest Neighbours, Thou lookst like an Ass, why, whither would you ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... that Maidie liked Wally mighty well and would marry him were he only in the army. And Stuyvesant wondered how it was, in all the years he had known Farquhar and envied him his being a West Pointer and in the cavalry, he had never really discovered what a bore, what a wearisome ass, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... and basal part of each eye. This bird is commonly called the jackass penguin, from its habit, while on shore, of throwing its head backwards, and making a loud strange noise, very like the braying of an ass; but while at sea, and undisturbed, its note is very deep and solemn, and is often heard in the night-time. In diving, its little wings are used as fins; but on the land, as front legs. When crawling, it may be said on ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... from sea And not know my John? I might as well have asked some landsman Yonder down in the town. There's not an ass in all the parish But he knows my ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... don't know what a stew I've been in. I'll switch on the light. I've been thinking of you and nothing else for the last hour. I—I was ass enough to think ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... dissentiente[Lat]; without a dissentient voice; as one man, one and all, on all hands. Phr. avec plaisir[Fr]; chi tace accousente[It][obs3]; "the public mind is the creation of the Master-Writers" [Disraeli]; you bet your sweet ass it is; what are we waiting for? whenever you're ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... street. When will I acquire anything like habits of prudence? Boy," said he, fiercely, "you are a young vagabond, and deserve to starve. Your mother should be put in the pillory for ever marrying. That's what the world says,—and what I would think, if I wasn't a consummate ass. Were you ever blessed with a view of the most unmitigated simpleton the sun ever shone upon? Look at me! Look good: I am worthy of a close inspection. Now come along, and see to what extent my ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... worth more than my complexion?" A wattle-bark layman might have expressed himself in stronger language, none the less to the point. But my priest seemed unconscious of what was going on. Besides, the publican was a great and important pillar of the church. He couldn't, as an ignorant and conceited ass, lose such a good opportunity of asserting his faithfulness ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose." "He has exhorted us to lead all men, by patience and gentleness, from shame and the love of evil" (Ibid, chap. xvi.). "For the foal of an ass stood bound to a vine" (Ibid, chap. xxxii.). "The angel said to the Virgin, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins" (chap. xxxiii.). "They tormented him, and set him on the judgment seat, and said, Judge us" (chap. xxxv.). "Our Lord Jesus Christ ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... as the remains of a saint; they washed and perfumed it and buried it with great honor and loud lamentations. In revenge of his death they slew one of their principal Christian captives, and, having tied his body upon an ass, they drove the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... spend that kiss Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch, [To the asp, which she applies to her breast.] With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool, Be angry, and despatch. O, could'st thou speak, That I might hear thee call great Caesar, ass Unpolicied!" ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... entertained thoughts of resistance, he had none now, and the power to oppose was so completely lost for want of exercise that hardly did the wish remain; there was nothing left save dull acquiescence as of an ass crouched between two burdens. He may have had an ill-defined sense of ideals that were not his actuals; he might occasionally dream of himself as a soldier or a sailor far away in foreign lands, or even as a farmer's boy upon the wolds, but there was not enough ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... red-deer pie! One thing I will confess—if I must choose— Give me the Papists that can serve their God Not with your scraps, but solemn ceremonies, Organs, and singing men, and shaven crowns. Your protestant is a hypocritical ass!" ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... out. "I'm not such a fool as I evidently look. A nice ass I should be to play an idiot joke like that. I'm speaking the truth. Go if you ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... enough, found him amusing, and said of him: "He is the encyclopedia of Jules Verne, bound in ass's skin!" ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... they should be loving, for the sake of ideas that are always changing. You certainly are the stupid part of humanity!" she concluded. "And how you ever discovered the way to manage each other, I can't imagine. But it was the right one. 'A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back.'"—and so saying, she flounced out of the room, without, however, administering the parting slap of another kind ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... known before slightly. I used to see him at the club. In club surroundings he always struck me as an ineffable young ass, loud and talkative and perpetually breaking the silence rules. Yet I have to admit that in his summer flannels and with a straw hat on he can ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... want something want also to be fooled into getting it by special arguments, it would have seemed incredible that a man, who had recently boasted of statesmanship, should dare to make such a public ass of himself. Yet, for fifteen minutes he carried the whole meeting with him, and the warmth of his self-satisfied emotion ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... her acquainted with the real state of my mind, and{126} given her the reasons therefor, it might have been well for both of us. Her abuse of me fell upon me like the blows of the false prophet upon his ass; she did not know that an angel stood in the way; and—such is the relation of master and slave I could not tell her. Nature had made us friends; slavery made us enemies. My interests were in a direction opposite to hers, and we both had our ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... rode the spotted sickness from hut to hut of their workmen, and yet they would not cease." A nose-slitten, hide-worn Ass, lame, scissor-legged, and galled, limped forward. "I cast the death at them out of my nostrils, but ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... start on as a married man, enough to give you a decent outfit and your passage out here and have a honeymoon before we start work on our future home. Darling Vivie! Do think about it. You'd never regret it. I'm a very different Frank to the silly ass you knew in the old Haslemere days. Now here's a five pound note to cover the cost of a full cable to say "yes," and when you'll be ready to start. When I get your answer—somehow I feel it'll be "yes"—I'll ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Fawkes; John Wentworth Twain, alias Sixteen-String Jack; William Hogarth Twain, alias Jack Sheppard; Ananias Twain, alias Baron Munchausen; John George Twain, alias Captain Kydd; and then there are George Francis Twain, Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar, and Baalam's Ass—they all belong to our family, but to a branch of it somewhat distinctly removed from the honorable direct line—in fact, a collateral branch, whose members chiefly differ from the ancient stock in that, in order to acquire the notoriety we have ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the counter in a Liverpool or Blackburn shop would probably have been frightened to death and afraid to open his mouth in self-revelation, whereas Temple Barholm was so entirely a bounder that he did not know he was one, and was ready to make an ass of himself to any extent. The frankest statement of the situation, if any one had so chosen to put it, would have been that he was regarded as a sort of court ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "No more an ass than I, sir," returned the captain. "I never heard of a crew that meant to mutiny but what showed signs before, for any man that had an eye in his head to see the mischief and take steps according. But this crew," ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that it was easy to be honest? Do you find that in your Bible? Easy! It is easy to be an ass and follow the multitude like a blind, besotted bull in a stampede; and that, I am well aware, is what you and Mrs. Grundy mean by being honest. But it will not bear the stress of time nor the scrutiny of conscience. Even before the lowest of all tribunals,—before ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The Wolf and the Crane The Serpent and the File The Man and the Serpent The Man and the Wood The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse The Dog and the Wolf The Fox and the Crow The Belly and the Members The Sick Lion The Hart in the Ox-Stall The Ass and the Lapdog The Fox and the Grapes The Lion and the Mouse The Horse, Hunter, and Stag The Swallow and the Other Birds The Peacock and Juno The Frogs Desiring a King The Fox and the Lion The Mountains in Labour The Lion and the Statue The Hares and ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... what is a man to do when he falleth into the ditch o' this manner?" said he, with a comical look. "Mrs Rose, I am an ass by nature, and shall find little hardship in braying. I do beseech you of pardon, for that I meant not to offend you; and in very deed, I scarce ever do remember that you are not my countrywoman. You are good enough for an English ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... runs in the family, like wooden legs. I immediately sought the boss gymnaster and related the manner in which I had been introduced to his elevating establishment. I told him I had come there neither to be made a horse of by one nor an ass of by another. He pledged his word that the like should not occur again, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... said Washburn. "How does it run? 'That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, of devil's habit, is angel yet in this, that to the use of actions fair and good he gives a frock that aptly is put on.' So was the lion's skin by the ass, but it showed him only the more an ass. Here asses go about as asses, but there are lions also. I had a woman under my hands only a little while ago. I could have cured her easily. Why she got worse every day instead ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... saw that important business men were social butterflies, at times. Surely, they must see something in it. And if these clever and able men saw something in it, then he, Skinner, must have been something of an ass to deny ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... you know? If I could look after you a bit you'd do the same by me. I'm thinking of that, too. Look here," he pursued, confidentially, but coloring; "I'll tell you something, if you won't think me an ass. I could have married two or three girls—oh, more than that!—if I'd wanted to. But I could see what they were after. It wasn't me—not by a long shot. It was the place—Foljambe—it's really quite a decent place, you know—right in the shires—and the hunting. They'd have ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... often tells me about water-horses and such-like odd denizens of that far island; and I find her soft Highland speech, with its "ass" for "as" and "ch" for "j," very diverting; but this time I ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... and the lion, the Assyrians are known to have hunted the following animals: the onager or wild ass, the stag, the ibex or wild goat, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... impression of all that has been suggested. But the imagination cannot sufficiently qualify the actual impressions of the senses. Any offence given to the eye is not to be got rid of by explanation. Thus Bottom's head in the play is a fantastic illusion, produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass's head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Africa—have the inconvenient habit of attacking and breaking through the caravans when they discover their neighbourhood by means of the wind. This happened almost daily during the whole of our journey, though only once a serious result followed, when a driver was badly wounded and an ass was tossed and gored. But the inconvenience caused by these attacks was always considerable, and we thought it better to shoot the mischievous uncouth fellows rather than allow them an opportunity of running down a man ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... tranquillity, without giving up the ghost on a pile of fagots, but on a feather bed, for she had made a hatful of money, although the physicians tormented her by declaring that she sold poisons, which was certainly true, as will be shown in the sequel. The servant and La Fallotte came on the same ass, making such haste that they arrived at the castle before the day had ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... there is that he wrote the works ascribed to him. But the freedom of will maintained by Leibnitz was not indeterminism. It was not the indifference of the tongue of the balance between equal weights, or that of the ass between equal bundles of hay. Such an equilibrium he declares impossible. "Cet equilibre en tout sens est impossible." Buridan's imaginary case of the ass is a fiction "qui ne sauroit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... to talk of a man in this way, he is an ass who does not win her; and, for my part, I used to follow her about, and put myself in an attitude opposite her, 'and fascinate her with my glance,' as she said, most assiduously. Lord George Poynings, her former ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sake don't let her make me out a goody-goody. I haven't got this far into life without making moral mistakes, some of them huge. But in this thing—I say it only to you—I'm making none. I'm neither a marrying man, a villain, nor an ass." ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... I've got you. The Lord has delivered you into my hands, dear friend—on your own initiative. I hold my cheque, endorsed by you, and cashed at my banker's, as a hostage, so to speak, for your future good behaviour. If ever you recognise me, and betray me to that solemn old ass, your employer, remember, I expose it, and you with it to him. So now we understand each other. I had not thought of this little dodge; it was you who suggested it. However, I jumped at it. Was it not well worth my while paying you that slight commission in return for a guarantee of your future ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... An ass will with his long ears fray The flies that tickle him away; But man delights to have his ears Blown maggots in ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... the journey across London by himself, I met him at Liverpool Street. He came up in a crate; the world must have seemed very small to him on the way. "Hallo, old ass," I said to him through the bars, and in the little space they gave him he wriggled his body with delight. "Thank Heaven there's one of 'em ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... suppose," he said at last, "I must have looked a pretty sort of an ass coming through ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... folks say Maevius is no ass! But Maevius makes it clear, That he's a monster of an ass, An ass without ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... been! What a fatuous, blundering ass! What had he done? Why had he done it? Was he in love, with Lucy Woodrow? This latter question recurred again and again through the night, and the answer came vehemently—no, no, and no again! He had nothing in common with the girl. He recited a score of her simple, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... fallen sword in hand. At the first rumor of Conde's death, the Duke of Montpensier's secretary, Coustureau, had been despatched from headquarters with Baron de Magnac to learn the truth of the matter. 'We found him there,' he relates, 'laid upon an ass; the said sir baron took him by the hair of the head for to lift up his face, which he had turned towards the ground, and asked me if I recognized him. But as he had lost an eye from his head, he was mightily disfigured; and I could say no more than it was ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and take my pleasure of the new-comer to the best of my power." "And so do I," said another, "because I know that, whether I suspect her or no, my wife tries her fortune, and so 'tis do as you are done by; the ass and the wall are quits." A third added his testimony to the same effect; and in short all seemed to concur in the opinion that the ladies they had left behind them were not likely to neglect their opportunities, when one, a Genoese, Bernabo Lomellin by name, dissociated ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of our Americans who marched through London streets on that day when the eyes of London looked for the first time upon the Yankees at last arrived to bear a hand to England and her Allies. From the mob came a certain taunt: "You silly ass." ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... of a fir-wood, and then, whether out of mischief or dread of the darkness, he halted instantaneously, his fore-feet so close together that you might have put them into a bucket. Owing to the depression of his shoulders—for he had no more withers than an ass—the way that he jerked down his head, and the suddenness of the stop, a monkey, although he had been holding on with his teeth, must have been unseated. For me, I was pitched a long way over his head, but alighted upon a spot so soft ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... relation to God: "If I," says He, "am a father, where is my fear? if I am a master, where is my honor?" "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me: the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... with her for good, I tell you! I'm not your kind: I don't let a girl like that upset me till I can't think of anything else, and go making such an ass of myself that the whole town gabbles about it. Cora Madison's seen the last of me, I'll thank you to notice. She's never been half-decent to me; cut dances with me all last winter; kept me hanging round the outskirts of every crowd she was in; stuck me with Laura and her mother every time she ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... seek," said the Paymaster, feeling himself getting the worst of the encounter; "my own notion is that she's on the road to Edinburgh. They say she had aye a crave for the place; perhaps there was a pair of breeches there behind her. Anyway, she's making an ass of somebody!" ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... inactivity of Stephen, who was trying to find his document by pure reason (mere looking for it would not occur to his Napoleonic brain), confirmed the opinion I had earlier formed of that solemn ass. However, his invisible foe does contrive to get his message through to the lovers and smash up Stephen and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... invented a new spring for a toupee, or a new dye for the hair, and thereby really done mankind a service, could no more get into the first circles with us than he could go to heaven, like Mahomet, on the back of an ass. Shoemakers' wives and bakers' daughters are people of whose acquaintance nobody ever speaks boastingly. I once knew the nephew of a barber who always blushed when his uncle was named in his hearing. But an attorney's lady, or a banker's daughter, are often paraded in an ostentatious manner before ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... you'll take it for a courtesy to be rid of an ass, I care not if I marry him: the old fool, your father, would be so importunate to match you with a young fool, that, partly for quietness sake, I ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... say what are and what are not articulate expressions of love. We all know that among the lower animals, with whom you may possibly be called upon to classify the defendant, there are certain signals more or less harmonious, as the case may be. The ass brays, the horse neighs, the sheep bleats—the feathered denizens of the grove call to their mates in more musical roundelays. These are recognized facts, gentlemen, which you yourselves, as dwellers among nature in this beautiful land, are all cognizant of. ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... they now call the wild-ass, is in the following form. Two axletrees of oak or box are cut out and slightly curved, so as to project in small humps, and they are fastened together like a sawing machine, being perforated with large holes on each side; and between them, through the holes, strong ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... said in my soul, as the men redistributed themselves, "she is married,—married while you were pottering with books and the turn of phrases and immortality and such trifles—oh, you ass! And to a man named Barry-Smith—damn him, I wonder whether he is the hungry scut that hasn't had his hair cut this fall, or the blancmange-bellied one with the mashed-strawberry nose? Yes, I know everybody else. And Jimmy Travis is telling a funny story, so laugh! People will think ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... her back by the string; "gin ye had but the tongue o' the prophet's ass, ye wad sune pint out the rascals that misguided and misgrugled ye that gait. But here's the just judge that'll gie ye yer richts, and that wi'oot fee or reward.—Mr Malison, she was ane o' the bonniest bicks ye cud set yer ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Alborak standing by him; which, they say, is the beast on which the prophets used to ride, when they were carried from one place to another, upon the execution of any divine command. Mahomet describes it to be a beast as white as milk, and of a mixed nature, between an ass and a mule, and also of a size between both; but of such extraordinary swiftness as ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... 'You ass,' hissed Mr Villiers, between his closed teeth; 'you know as well as I do that my infernal ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... perfectly well what this observation would do to the austere, exact, dominating daughter of a precise man, the Resident, muttered to himself: "Colossal ass! an impressionable cuss should have a purdah hung over his ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... multiplicity of action. There was never so much talk in any other novels, and there was never so much action. Even the talk is of actions more than of ideas. Dostoevsky's characters describe the execution of a criminal, the whipping of an ass, the torture of a child. He sows violent deeds, not with the hand, but with the sack. Even Prince Myshkin, the Christ-like sufferer in The Idiot, narrates atrocities, though he perpetrates none. Here, for example, is a characteristic ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... succeeded in a coup d'etat." "That is true, they were not particularly vigorous," answered Morny. He added, "And yet they were clever men,—Louis Philippe, Guizot, Thiers—" Louis Bonaparte, taking his cigarette from his lips, interrupted, "If such are clever men, I would rather be an ass—" ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... He told his story plainly and simply. Under cross-examination admitted that he was fond of detective stories and had tried to write one himself; that he had said at the store that he would like to see that "conceited ass" swing, referring to the prisoner; that he had sent flowers to Jennie Brice at the theater, and had made a few ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... He whispered, "I think it may turn out to be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... don't stand there like an ass, man. Get to the turret! Verify ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... a chance to really ask; and I thought you didn't care. But somehow I have wondered—perhaps because you never got married—if you didn't quite mean it, if you didn't quite know your own mind. You'll think I'm a conceited ass, but I'm not a bad sort, Eudora. I would be as good to you as I know how, and—we could bring him up together." He pointed to the carriage. "I have plenty of money. We could do anything we wanted to ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... It formed No. 345 of the Catalogue; where it is described as being "a magnificent proof upon India paper, with a margin of 15 lines all round it. It was with the bur, and before the cross-hatchings upon the mane of the Ass." The finest copy of this subject, sold in this country, was that formerly in the collection of M. Bernard; and recently purchased by T. Wilson, Esq. Will the reader object to disporting himself with some REMBRANDTIANA, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... search revealed nothing of an incriminating character. At length Godfrey was left alone in the cell, which contained only a single chair and a rough pallet. "I have put my foot in it somehow," he said to himself, "and I can't make head nor tail of it beyond the fact that I have made an ass of myself. Was the whole story a lie? Was the fellow's name Presnovich? if not, who was he? By the rage of the general, who, I suppose, is the chief of the police, it was evident he was frightfully disappointed that I wasn't the man he was looking for. Was this Presnovich somebody ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... which it was planted,[3] he had experienced a momentary pleasure.[4] His arrival was noised abroad. The Galileans who had come to the feast were highly elated, and prepared a little triumph for him. An ass was brought to him, followed, according to custom, by its colt. The Galileans spread their finest garments upon the back of this humble animal as saddle-cloths, and seated him thereon. Others, however, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... was that he had felt timid about meeting Janet. Could he meet her without revealing by his mere guilty glance that his aunt had half convinced him that he had only to ask nicely in order to receive? Could he meet her without giving her the impression that he was a conceited ass? He had met her. She was waiting for him in the garden, and by dint of starting the conversation in loud tones from a distance, and fumbling a few moments with the tennis balls before approaching her, he had come through the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Aristophanes. Paris, teeming, beneath a very courtly exterior, with mordent words, in unabashed criticism of all real or suspected evil, provoked his utmost powers of scorn for the "triumphant beast," the "constellation of the Ass," shining even there, amid the university folk, those intellectual bankrupts of the Latin Quarter, who had so long passed between them gravely a worthless "parchment and paper" currency. In truth, Aristotle, as the supplanter of Plato, was still in ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... into, and seems to be of the same nature as the water mentioned by Quintus Curtius, which says the historian, could be contained in nothing but in the hoof, or (as the Oxford Manuscript has it) the skull of an ass. The thermometer is marked according to the following figure, which I set down at length, not only to give my reader a clear idea of it, but also ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the sem, and I will get it ready for you as soon ass I hear from Mrs. Lee. You will not be afraid, all alone by ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... doth a man take an ass which belongeth to his neighbor, and keep him? I say unto you, Nay; he will not even suffer that he shall feed among his flocks, but will drive him away, and cast him out. I say unto you, that even so shall it be among you if ye know not the name ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... Oh, she'll be all right. (There's never been any trouble over the birth of an heir at Pardons.) Now where the dooce is it?" She felt largely in her leather-boundskirt and drew out a small silver mug. "I sent a note to your wife about it, but my silly ass of a groom forgot to take this. You can save me a tramp. Give her my love." She marched off amid ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... because he forgot to give an account who it was that stole Sancho's Dapple, for that particular is not mentioned there, only we find, by the story, that it was stolen; and yet, by and by, we find him riding the same ass again, without any previous light given us into the matter. Then they say that the author forgot to tell the reader what Sancho did with the hundred pieces of gold he found in the portmanteau in ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... said Gaultier, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "that your view is the right one, Mr. Brett. There is much more in this business than meets the eye, and any man who believes that Jack Talbot would mix himself up in it must be a most determined ass. Of course, such people do exist, but they shouldn't be in the police force. You are going on to Paris, ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... it may soon be my pleasure to meet you again. You've been a real privilege to know; I've henjoyed yer comp'ny somethin' immense. Don't know as I ever met such a rippin', Ay Number One, all-round, entertynin' ass, afore!" ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... "'Idiot and Ass, gentlemen,' I remonstrated, looking around me, 'are strong expressions to apply to a young man of good appearance and address.' My generosity was roused; ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "it was a trap! Slocum would have taken it! If I had been ass enough to make any such offer, he would have jumped at it. What do you and Slocum take me for? You're a pair ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Milestone. Here is a rugged mountainous road, leading through impervious shades: the ass and the four goats characterise a wild uncultured scene. Here, as you perceive, it is totally changed into a beautiful gravel-road, gracefully curving through a belt of limes: and there is Lord Littlebrain ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... help it. What, do you think I'll be such an ass as to have Brains in a country where Brains are a crime? Doctor, I'm ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... would be found willing to give anything like an equivalent for what, if not disposed of within the prescribed term, the proprietors must relinquish at any rate. So deplorable, indeed, was the sacrifice of property, that a chronicler of the day mentions, that he had seen a house exchanged for an ass, and a vineyard for a suit of clothes! In Aragon, matters were still worse. The government there discovered, that the Jews were largely indebted to individuals and to certain corporations. It accordingly caused their property to be sequestrated for the benefit of their creditors, until their ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... Christian name, and the first and last letters of his surname, you have A. P. E." Pope catalogues, at the end of the Dunciad, with a rueful precision, other pretty names, besides Ape, which Dennis called him. That great critic pronounced Mr. Pope was a little ass, a fool, a coward, a Papist, and therefore a hater of Scripture, and so forth. It must be remembered that the pillory was a flourishing and popular institution in those days. Authors stood in it in the body sometimes: and dragged their enemies thither morally, hooted ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... oftener than with Morson, or a dozen others, but he had a pleasant feeling that even when she shook her head and said, "I cannot," her soft eyes added for her, "though I really wish to." There was something almost pitiable, he told himself in the complacency with which that self-satisfied ass Morson would come and take her from him. As if he hadn't sense enough to discover that it was merely because she was his hostess that she went with him at all. But some men would never understand women, though they lived to be a thousand, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... and leapt upon two horses, and the one said to the other: Go we seek that we shall not find. And him thought that a man beat Sir Launcelot, and despoiled him, and clothed him in another array, the which was all full of knots, and set him upon an ass, and so he rode till he came to the fairest well that ever he saw; and Sir Launcelot alit and would have drunk of that well. And when he stooped to drink of the water the water sank from him. And when Sir Launcelot saw that, he turned and went ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... ass," Peter said wearily. "And you know very little of Miss Ross if you haven't seen by this time ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... careless! What right had you to expose us to this danger? Ass that I was ass, ass that I was! I wanted to speak of it, and my cursed delicacy prevented me. What right had you ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... ass, celebrated on January 14 every year at Beauvais, was an excellent example of this sort of ceremony. This was a representation of the flight into Egypt. A beautiful young woman, carrying in her arms an infant gorgeously ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... hundreds of years ago. They first place the round, green olives in sacks that are then set in a large stone bowl into which a flat cover lifts. An old time screw with beam attachment presses on the stone cover, and as an ass, hitched to the end of the beam, tramps wearily round and round the screw presses the stone tight on the olives, squeezing the oil into cemented grooves at the bottom of the bowl through which it flows into casks. The refuse, or ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Lewdness b. Story of the Journeyman and the Girl c. Story of the Weaver Who Became a Physician by His Wife's Commandment d. Story of the Two Sharpers Who Cheated Each His Fellow e. Story of the Sharpers with the Money-Changer and the Ass f. Story of the Sharper and the Merchants i. Story of the Hawk and the Locust g. Story Op the King and His Chamberlain Wife h. Story of the Old Woman and the Draper's Wife i. Story of the Foul-favoured Man and His Fair Wife j. Story of the King Who Lost Kingdom and Wife and Wealth and God Restored ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... es wohnet eins mals ein br[uo]der der dritten regel der got fast dienet, bei eins knigs hof, den versach der knig alle tag z[uo] auff enthalt seines lebens ein kuchen speiss und ein fleschlein mit honig. diser ass alle tag die speiss von der kuchen und den honig behielt er in ein irden fleschlein das hieng ob seiner petstat so lang biss es voll ward. Nun kam bald eine grosse ter in den honig und eins morgens fre lag er in seinem pett und sach das honig in dem fleschlein ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... mud, flounders on, wipes his mouth to try to get the bad taste of his acted lie out of it, and then goes on his way saying, "I have done no wickedness." A self-murdering fool! Killing his conscience to save his face, like Balaam beating the ass who sought to save his master's life. Being a Chocolate Soldier nearly ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... "My poor ass," said Anthony, edging nearer the better to peer into my face, "I have been endeavouring to give you a brief description of Raydon Manor—the house peeping amid the ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... cold. It seems that so much of my purpose has come off, and Cedercrantz and Pilsach are sacked. The rest of it has all gone to water. The triple-headed ass at home, in his plenitude of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I suppose it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Preserving The Heart Preserving The Heart Rubric Beating Back The Crocodile Beating Back The Crocodile Repulsing Serpents Against Snakes Against Serpents Driving Away Apshait Driving Back The Merti Living By Air Living By Air Driving Back Rerek Repulsing The Eater Of The Ass Abolishing The Slaughterings Abolishing The Slaughterings Air And Water Dominion Over Elements Dominion Over Elements Dominion Over Elements Preservation Of The Soul Of Drinking Water Of Drinking Water Preservation From Scalding On Coming Forth By Day Chapter Of Knowledge Of Gaining Mastery ...
— Egyptian Literature
... you gave me got smashed when those drawers fell out in the last gale. I had been getting some dry things to change, when I heard the cry: 'All hands on deck!' and made one jump of it, without even pushing them in properly. Ass! When I came back and saw the broken glass and the mess, ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... "Don't try to be funny. And all I have to say, Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an egregious ass of yourself." ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... right, your risk, your agony, your glory, your triumph. You make my father here your mere convenience, as you call it, for that. He has to dig for you, sweat for you, plod for you, like the ox who helps him to tear up the ground or the ass who carries his burdens for him. No woman shall make me live my father's life. I will hunt: I will fight and strive to the very bursting of my sinews. When I have slain the boar at the risk of my life, I will throw it to my woman to cook, and give her a morsel of it for her pains. She shall have ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... "Ye muckle ass!" cried Stewart, "it's James they want; James has got to hang—Alan too, if they could catch him—but James whatever! Go near the Advocate with any such business, and you'll see! he'll find a way ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... case are uncertain, and to be recited at the pleasure of the witch or cozener. But at the conclusion of this, cut off the head of a horse or an ass (before they be dead, otherwise the virtue or strength thereof will be the less effectual), and make an earthen vessel of fit capacity to contain the same, and let it be filled with the oil and fat thereof, cover it close, and daub it over with loam; let it boil over ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all, they were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals; and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad, genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... forced open, but he never winked an eyelid or moved a hair of his whiskers. He was thrown about from side to side, remaining perfectly motionless till, at a sign from his master, he jumped up as well as ever, shouldered his gun, and mounted his ass to take his departure. He was promptly ordered to dismount and ask for backshish, which he did, cap in hand. Some of the crowd round about not contributing to his master's satisfaction, the ape took a nasty venomous-looking little snake out ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... have no connection in them; her concords disagree; her interjections are purely English "Ah!" and "Oh!" with a yawn and a gape in the same tongue; and she herself is a lazy, block-headly supine. As I say to her, ass in praesenti rarely makes a wise ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... claim that the incident of the ass in a late Jewish story of Jacob and the mandrakes (op. cit., p. 20) "helps us to understand the function of the dog," is quite unsupported. The learned guardian of the Golden Bough does not explain how it helps us ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... giver-away should be required at all. According to the ceremony as there printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but I don't choose him. Somebody GIVES me to him, like a she-ass or she-goat, or any other domestic animal. Bless your exalted views of woman, O churchman! But I forget: I am no ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... prose or rhyme; Some sneerin say 'at tha'lot my brother, Maks me choose thee for mine; Well, let 'em sneer owd Neddy lad, Or laff at my selection, Who fail to see ther type i' thee Are void o' mich perception.— Ther's things more stupid nor an ass, An things more badly treated, Tho' we ait beef, an' tha aits grass, May be we're just related. Throo toil an' trouble on tha jogs, An' then like ony sinner, Tha dees, an' finds a meal for th' dogs;— We furnish ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... these conditions is that of the series of extinct animals which culminates in the horses, by which term I mean to denote not merely the domestic animals with which we are all so well acquainted, but their allies, the ass, zebra, quagga, and the like. In short, I use "horses" as the equivalent of the technical name Equidae, which is applied to the whole group ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley |
