"Diddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up your men, diddle, diddle! Set them to work; Some to the plough, diddle, diddle! ...
— The Baby's Opera • Walter Crane
... and maybe she'll jump over the moon," suggested Sue, who remembered the nursery rhyme of "Hey-diddle-diddle." ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope
... diddle-diddle, I shall be queen," Brilliana laughed at him, making a reverence. He joined Halfman at the door and Master Peter ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he bowt him a pair o' new shooin, Ooin, ooin, ry diddle dooin! Young Jockey he bowt him a pair o' new shooin, For he'd made up his mind he'd be wed varry sooin; An he went to ax Jenny his wife for to be, But shoo sed, "Nay, aw'll ne'er wed a hawbuck like thee, Thi legs luk too lanky, Thi heead is too cranky, Its better bi th' hawf an old maid ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... cried softly; "hither struts chanticleer!" "Cock-a-diddle-doo!" crowed the wire. "Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!" and down bustled a hen from an egg like cinnamon. A cat with kittens mewed along the ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... a good place, I can tell you—travelling tutor to the hopeful young lord that is to be—Devereux's cousin. By all the Graces, Ma'am, 'tis the blind leading the blind. I don't know which of the two is craziest. Hey, diddle-diddle—by Jupiter, such a pair—the dish ran away with the spoon; but Dan's a good creature, and we'll—we'll miss him. I like Dan, and he loves the rector—I like him for that; where there's gratitude and fidelity, Miss Mag, there's no lack ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... into the mercantile mind; and he's not proud, he'll concoct it for us gratis. Damn it! with a bowl of punch and a few cakes we'll get it out of him; for, Popinot, no nonsense! I am to travel on your commission without pay: your competitors shall pay; I'll diddle it out of them. Let us understand each other clearly. As for me, this triumph is an affair of honor. My reward is to be best man at your wedding! I shall go to Italy, Germany, England! I shall carry with me placards in all languages, paste them everywhere, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... don't pull such a face! No one's going to hurt you. Only don't think that you can corner me. Better men than you have tried and have broken their backs in the process. And, upon my word, you don't cut much of a figure when you're doing your best to diddle ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... Hey diddle diddlety, Cat and the fiddlety, Maidens of England, take caution by she! Let love and suicide Never tempt you aside, And always remember to ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... informed against as having been a friend of Sejanus, and therefore an enemy of their dear Princeps; who was away at Capri attending to his duty; and whose ears, now Sejanus was gone, they might hope to reach with flatteries. You supped with your friend overnight; did your best to diddle him into saying something over the wine-cups;—then rose betimes in the morning to accuse him of saying it: only too often to find that he, (traitorly wretch!) had risen half an hour earlier and accused you; so you missed your breakfast ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Lull-a-baby. The Welsh are celebrated for their Lullaby songs, and a good Welsh nurse, with a pleasing voice, has been sometimes found more soporific in the nursery, than the midwife's anodyne. The contrary effects of Swift's song, "Here we go up, up, up," and the smile-provoking melody of "Hey diddle, diddle," cum multis aliis, are too well known to be enumerated or disputed. "The Good Nurse" give us a chapter on the advantage of employing music in certain stages ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... of one (at least) of the great companies that are supposed to occupy the area. The lines made (economically often) by the great companies themselves are not primarily designed for the accommodation of the public, but for the private purposes of the great company; sometimes they are made merely to diddle ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... to each other when their foe was gone, and laughed when they heard the cause of it. "Ha, ha, Wilson's the boy to diddle him!" And yet they looked queer when told that the famous stick had snapped in his grasp like a worm-eaten larch-twig. "Lord!" cried the baker in admiring awe, "did he break it with the ae chirt! It's been tried by scores of fellows ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... exquisitely ridiculous appearance of poor Titmouse. Mr. Quirk, dressed in black, with knee breeches and silk stockings, immediately bustled up to him, shook him cordially by the hand, and led him up to the assembled guests. "My daughter—Miss Quirk; Mrs. Alderman Addlehead; Mrs. Deputy Diddle-daddle; Mrs. Alias, my sister;—Mr. Alderman Addlehead; Mr. Deputy Diddle-daddle; Mr. Bluster; Mr. Slang; Mr. Hug; Mr. Flaw; Mr. Viper; Mr. Ghastly; Mr. Gammon you know." Miss Quirk was about four or five and twenty—a fat young lady, with flaxen hair curled formally all over her head ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... other exploded, "nothing's more valuable to a Chinese than his belly. They'll give eighteen hundred dollars a pecul for birds' nests any day. As for your insinuation that we used to diddle them—I never ran opium up from India to rot their souls. And when the Chinese Government tried to stop it there's the British commercial interests forcing it on ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... band Wer a-come vor to gi'e us a hop, An' he pull'd Grammer out by the hand All down drough the dance vrom the top; An' Grammer did hobble an' squall, Wi' Gammon a-leaeden the ball; While Gammon did sheaeke up his knee An' his voot, an' zing "Diddle-ee-dee!" An' we laugh'd ourzelves all out o' breath At the me'th o' ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Hark, hark! [Burden: Bow, wow, dispersedly.] The watch dogs bark: [Burden: Bow, wow, dispersedly.] Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting Chanticleer [Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.] ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed to see such sport, And the dish ran ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... into our mouths," said Fulkerson. "The wedding will be this day week. No cards! Teedle-lumpty-diddle! Teedle- lumpty-dee! What do you suppose he means by it, March ?" he asked, bringing himself soberly up, of a sudden. "What is his little game? Or is he crazy? It don't seem like the Dryfoos ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Cole was a jolly old soul, And a jolly old soul was he; He called for his ale, and he called for his beer, And he called for his fiddle-diddle-dee. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed to see such sport, And the dish ran away with ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... king, diddle, diddle, you shall be queen," Alfred used to sing to Beth; "and Dicksie ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Australian shearers are about the most independent and intelligent class of men in the world. We've got more genius in one of our little fingers than there is in the whole of that wagonette-load of diddle-daddle and fiddle-faddle and giggles. Their intellects are on a level with the rotten dramas they travel with, and their lives about as false. They are slaves to the public, and their home is the pub-parlour, ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... in Devonsheer, My vather he lived vor many a yeer; And I his son with him did dwell, To tend his sheep: 'twas doleful well. Diddle-diddle!" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... impudence, for some time baffled the authorities. He invited his friends to attend the theatre, at noon, and "drink a dish of chocolate with him." He promised that he would "endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible;" and notified that "Sir Dilbury Diddle would be there, and Lady Betty Frisk had absolutely promised." Tickets, without which no person would be admitted, were to be obtained at George's Coffee House, Temple Bar. Some simple visitors, no doubt, expected that chocolate would be really served to them. But the majority were content with ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran away with ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... the square and a corking fine business proposition. He's the grandest thing yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You'll need to rise precious early you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He's got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his back pocket. Just you ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... bad in tone. Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good judges; but there's a man there—no, not him with the bundle under his arm—the grave man in black,—'sdeath! not the man with the sword on. Sir, I had rather play a capriccio ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... dumpling, my son John Went to bed with his breeches on, One stocking off, and one stocking on, Diddle ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis
... you were here, Amy, my own dearest! I love nobody like you—I love nobody but you. If I did wrong in telling you a few diddle-daddies, it was because I loved you so I could not do without you. And what comforts me for any wrong I have done is that I have you. That would make up to a man for anything short of being hanged! You little witch, how did you contrive to make a fool of a man like me! I should have been in none ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... commerce flat on its back. I'll go, however; lest thou shouldst say, thy interests were neglected. Thy Master Tiller is an indiscreet agent; he gave me a fright to-day that exceeds any alarm I have felt since the failure of Van Halt, Balance, and Diddle." ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Fiddle-diddle-dee!" sang something, or somebody, behind the oak. Davie looked a little frightened, for that was just what he was about to sing in his song. But he jumped up and ran around to the other side of the tree. And ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... a ballad—oh! my dear lad, there is no use fiddling while Rome is burning. I have nothing to sing about those glorious fellows, except 'God save the Queen and them.' I tell you the whole thing stuns me, so I cannot sit down to make fiddle rhyme with diddle about it—or blundered with hundred like Alfred Tennyson. He is no Tyrtaeus, though he has a glimpse of what Tyrtaeus ought to be. But I have not even that; and am going rabbit shooting to-morrow instead. But every man has his calling, and my novel is mine, because I am fit for nothing better. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of The Blues, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all the dramatis personae. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are, obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see Lectures on the English Poets, 1818, p. 304, and Don Juan, Canto 1. stanza ii. line 7, note to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... minstrelsy from the pages of the English Illustrated. Many of the drawings for these, though of necessity reduced for publication in book form, are in his most delightful and winning manner,—notably perhaps (if one must choose!) the martial ballad of that "Captain of Militia, Sir Bilberry Diddle," who ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... consequences were that having received from my father fifty pounds, my mother first locked that up, and then "unlocked her jaw." Disputes were now hourly occurring; and it was "now you're vexed," and "hey diddle diddle," ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... familiar with Hayden's dinner-party, and the Comptroller of Stamps, and Charles Lamb's 'Diddle diddle dumpling,' and 'Allow me to look at the gentleman's phrenological development.' I am always reminded by it of a circumstance which occurred between the Rocky and Alleghany mountains. A certain witty professor of a certain Western college, had been invited ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... consideration I show that poor old man, Grizel, while I know all the time that he is plotting to diddle me! You should see me when it is he who is fidgeting to know why the piano has stopped. He stretches his head to listen, and does something to his ear that sends it another inch nearer the door; he chuckles and groans on the sly; and I—I notice nothing. Oh, he is becoming quite fond of me; he thinks ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... knight, in a summer's night, Was riding o'er the lee, (diddle) An' there he saw a bonny birdy, Was singing ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... or eagles' beaks, with gold tassels; carry attar of rose bottles in their gloved hands, and squirt rosewater on their handkerchiefs. They ogle the ladies through their quizzing glasses, wear high-heeled slippers, and diddle along on their toes like a French dancing-master teaching his pupils the minuet. The ladies simper and giggle and wink at the gentlemen from behind their fans, and leave you to imagine something ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... confirmed whatever he said, and observed, "The last affair happened that very day on which I received a love-letter from Squire Gobble, and don't you remember, my dear, I was prodigiously sick that very night with eating ortolans, when my Lord Diddle took notice of my complexion's being altered, and my lady was so alarmed that she had well nigh fainted?" "Yes, my dear," replied the captain, "you know my lord said to me, with a sneer, 'Billy, Mrs. Weazel is certainly ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... HI-DIDDLE-DIDDLE Mother duck's in the middle, Her baby-ducks swimming around; With bills like a ladle, And feet like a paddle, No danger that they will ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... diddle! the cat and the fiddle; The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed to see such craft, And the dish ran away ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... through the whirl, And with his elbow punched a girl, Heigh diddle, diddle! The buxom wench she turned round quick, "Now that I call a scurvy trick!" Huzza! huzza! Huzza! ha, ha, ha! Tweedle-dee, ...
— Faust • Goethe
... spin! when they truly begin; Each dancer as airy and bright as a doll; While the music complete, keeps time to their feet, With its fiddle-dee-diddle and tol-de-rol-ol! ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... not get up without assistance, stayed musing in his chair. He had diddled 'em for the moment into giving him another month, and when that month was up-he would diddle 'em again! A month ought to make the Pillin business safe, with all that hung on it. That poor funkey chap Joe Pillin! A gurgling chuckle escaped his red lips. What a shadow the fellow had looked, trotting in that evening just a month ago, behind his valet's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Longfellow's a bum poet?" growled Carl. "Bone Stillman says Longfellow's the grind-organ of poetry. Like this: 'Life is re-al, life is ear-nest, tum te diddle ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis |
