"Humorously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dibdin passes on thus to matters of more immediate importance: "Nor is the hospitality of the owner of these treasures of a less quality and calibre than his taste; for Hortensius regaleth liberally—and as the 'night and day champagnes' (so he is pleased humorously to call them) sparkle upon his Gottingen-manufactured table-cloth, 'the master of the revels,' or (to borrow the phraseology of Pynson) of the 'feste royalle,' discourseth lustily and loudly upon the charms—not of a full-curled or full-bottomed 'King's Bench' periwig—but of a full-margined Bartholomaeus ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... not gayly, but humorously, and then went on, speaking always with a feverish eagerness which I find it hard to give you a sense of, for the women here have an intensity quite beyond our experience of the sex ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... Department."' During Lord Glenelg's tenure of office (1835-1839), and for many years before and after, 'he literally ruled the Colonial empire.'[33] This involved unremitting labour. Taylor observes that Stephen 'had an enormous appetite for work,' and 'rather preferred not to be helped. I,' he adds, humorously, 'could make him perfectly welcome to any amount of it.' For years he never left London for a month, and, though in the last five years preceding his retirement in 1847, he was absent for rather longer periods, he took ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... humorously enough, called his beds of justice;—for from the two different counsels taken in these two different humours, a middle one was generally found out which touched the point of wisdom as well, as if he had got drunk and sober a ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... not been among Lady Henry's habitues. In her eyes, they were the dull sons of an agreeable father. They were humorously aware of it, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whom he was living over the delights of the book-hunter's chase. It was his ardent wish that this work, for the fulfilment of which he had been so long preparing, should be, as he playfully expressed it, a monument of apologetic compensation to a class of people he had so humorously maligned, and those who knew him intimately will recognize in the shortcomings of the bibliomaniac the humble ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... had the tact to hide them beneath agreeable information. It is not too much to assert that archaeology in all its branches may be made pleasurable, abounding as it does in curious and amusing details, sometimes humorously contrasting with ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... of aristocracy—it must be observed, lest it should have been insufficiently implied—was almost humorously dissociated in the minds of the young Mesuriers from any recorded family distinctions. In so far as it was conscious, it was defiantly independent of genealogy. Had the Mesuriers possessed a coat-of-arms, James Mesurier would probably ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... a wagon wheel, the wood rotted away, and there in the tangle an ancient cistern mouth of brick, the cistern filled to the brim with alluring rubbish. My sister sprang with a gurgle of delight to catch a garter snake, which eluded her; and a last year's brier, tough and humorously inclined, seized upon Mary by the skirts and legs, so that it was a matter of five minutes and piercing screams of merriment to cast her loose again. But soon we drew out of the hot sunshine into the old orchard with its paltry display ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... The point of the jaw had been his favorite spot, but the point of this fellow's jaw would be as difficult to reach as Mars. However, he approached warily, taking a close look at the ground to make sure there were no hindrances to footwork, and rather humorously whispering: "Brent, if I didn't actually know better, I'd take you for as big an idiot as this boob who'll probably crack your nut." He had as whimsical a way of going into dangers as of going into pleasures, and now there was ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic story of ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... at him quickly, in birdlike, pleading glances, as though praying him to be kind. He took no notice after that, so the act seemed less like a caress than a matter of course. He began to talk, half-humorously, and little by little, as he went on, she forgot her fears, even her feeling of strangeness, and fell completely under the spell ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... caissons were sending up buckets full of silt-like gruel. The lawyer watched operations for a few minutes, then he asked for the owners' boring plan. When he had examined this he grunted twice, twitched his lower lip humorously, and said: 'I'll put you out of this. If the owners wanted a deep-water lighthouse they should have specified ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... possibilities, but really this thing strikes me favorably. Slow time and not very expensive equipment, but think what a convenience! It will also give you and me an excuse to come down here summers, eh?" he added, humorously. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... but not very quickly. The barber's shop was somewhat removed from the more populous parts of the town. But when the customers did come, Jasmin treated them playfully and humorously. He was as lively as any Figaro; and he became such a favourite, that when his customers were shaved or had their hair dressed, they invariably returned, as well as recommended others to patronize ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... judging such a popular seventeenth-century poem as Wigglesworth's "Day of Doom" one must strip oneself quite free from the twentieth century, and pretend to be sitting in the chimney-corner of a Puritan kitchen, reading aloud by that firelight which, as Lowell once humorously suggested, may have added a "livelier relish" to the poet's "premonitions of eternal combustion." Lowell could afford to laugh about it, having crossed that particular black brook. But for several generations the boys and girls of New England had read the "Day of Doom" as ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... a leaping-pole to get down the steps; and hobbled away briskly along the pavement. Naturally the Fynes were too far off to make out the expression of his face. But it would not have helped them very much to a guess at the conditions inside the house. The expression was humorously ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... exempts him from the inflicted sourness of the morbid or cynical mind, how, in his most prepossessing aspects, must he appear to a benevolent one? When at ease with respect to exterior things, Captain Delano's nature was not only benign, but familiarly and humorously so. At home, he had often taken rare satisfaction in sitting in his door, watching some free man of color at his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced to have a black sailor, invariably he was on chatty and ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... motto of the Company, was perhaps humorously understood as conveying loosely the notion of an exchange of peltries; for certainly the vindictive principle, "a skin for a skin," did not mark their dealings with the Indian tribes. From the first they were fortunate in encountering ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... wider, then drooped humorously. "Oh, all right," he murmured, as though thoroughly enlightened rather than being rather more in the dark than before. In the name of Irish he found it expedient to take another modest drink, and then excused himself with a "See yuh later, boys," and went out and ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... somewhat hoggish. But he has no suspicion of this himself, and honestly regards his commercial prosperity as the inevitable and socially wholesome triumph of the ability, industry, shrewdness and experience in business of a man who in private is easygoing, affectionate and humorously convivial to a fault. Corporeally, he is a podgy man, with a square, clean shaven face and a square beard under his chin; dust colored, with a patch of grey in the centre, and small watery blue eyes with a plaintively ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... Assuredly, to a very marked degree. Wildness? That was it!—a wildness, subtly blended with refinement, that found expression in every quick look; as if someone had put a fawn there from the forest and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently, to keep itself from running away in fright. It was this glory of wildness that she typified which made my cheeks grow hot ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... brutal criminal causes aside, and one finds that usually they begin in trivial things,—an irritating habit or an offensive opinion persisted in on the one side and not endured philosophically on the other; a petty selfishness indulged on the one side and not accepted humorously on the other,—that is, the marriage is made or unmade by ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... from Williams College says: "Flunk is the common word when some unfortunate man makes an utter failure in recitation. He fizzles when he stumbles through at last." Another from Union writes: "If you have been lazy, you will probably fizzle." A writer in the Yale Literary Magazine thus humorously defines this word: "Fizzle. To rise with modest reluctance, to hesitate often, to decline finally; generally, to misunderstand ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... county, Ohio, and more recently connected with the Northern Pacific Railway Company. On Sunday, our party, including Mr. Adams, dined with General Sprague. We had not as yet been able to see Mount Tacoma in its glory, as it was constantly shrouded by clouds. In the course of the dinner, Mr. Adams said humorously to Mrs. Sprague that he had some doubts whether there was a Mount Tacoma, that he had come there to see it and looked in the right direction, but could not find it. I saw that this nettled Mrs. Sprague, but she said nothing. In a few moments she left the table and soon ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... instrument years before Bell invented the telephone; but they regarded it as a mere musical toy. It was "not in any sense a speaking telephone," said Lord Kelvin. And Edison, when trying to put the Reis machine in the most favorable light, admitted humorously that when he used a Reis transmitter he generally "knew what was coming; and knowing what was coming, even a Reis transmitter, pure and simple, reproduces sounds which seem almost like that which was being transmitted; but when ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... heavy brows lifted into a straight line over his high nose. A grimly ironical smile drew up the corners of his mouth. He made a gesture of resignation. His humorously twinkling eyes met the consternation in Miss Beaver's but he appeared pleased and unmoved at the prospect of the dog's remaining with the boy. He rose from his comfortable chair, drew a deep breath, again touched ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... if he were dissecting the last and newest abstraction which sprung from some metaphysician's brain, and muttering to himself, in half uttered words, 'This is indeed a crisis!'" The best word-portrait, however, was that of Senator Buchanan, whose manner and voice were humorously imitated while he was described as presenting his Democratic associates to the President. Mr. Buchanan pleasantly retorted, describing in turn a caucus of disappointed Whig Congressmen, who discussed whether it would be best to make open ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... he asked, as he took a cigar from the case. He asked the question humorously, but the ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... happy; she stood there in the September sunshine leaning on her hoe and gazing half shyly, half humorously down the river where a string of American mules ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... was often contested by Mr. John B. West—a conservative barrister of no ordinary talents, whose early end caused much regret. That gentleman was very heavy and clumsy in appearance, and moved very awkwardly. Lord Plunket humorously called him Sow-West, a name that adhered to him most tenaciously. O'Connell was opposed to West on three or four different occasions. It is remarkable that the opening scenes at the Dublin elections ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... and now so loftily ignored. "See, even in his epistles of condolence," they cry, "the omnipresent moi of Hugo must appear, to overshadow everything else!" One indignant writer declares the poet to be a mere walking personal pronoun. Another humorously pities those still extant contemporaries of 1830 who, after having for forty years dedicated their songs and romances and dramas to Hugo, now learn from the selfsame maw which has greedily gulped their praises that they themselves do not exist, never did exist. One man of genius ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... innovations, for better or worse, which the vestry and churchwardens thought it right to make at frequent intervals. Some of them occur in the history of this very transept. For instance, the original gable was removed early in the eighteenth century, and a covering substituted, of a kind which Mr. Dollman humorously describes as "the pleasing novelty of a hipped roof." Again, in 1679 a sundial was placed over the central window, to give way in 1735 to an ingenious combination of sundial and clock, for which a triangular arrangement, presenting a clock of two faces, was substituted ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... not hurt at all, thanks to your careful driving," answered the doctor, putting his hands in his pockets and eying the discomfited coachman humorously. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Maranham; for that he had made her husband Marques, and had conferred on him the highest degree of the order of the Cruceiro. I am sometimes absent; and now, when I ought to have been most attentive, I felt myself in the situation Sancho Panca so humorously describes, of sending my wits wool-gathering, and coming home shorn myself: for I was so intent on the honour conferred on my friend and countryman; so charmed, that for once his services had been appreciated,—that when I found the Emperor in the middle of the room, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... of high-seasoned, laughing personalities invaded my privacy. Diaz, smiling humorously, was followed by a man ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... Henry Allen humorously referred to another sunlit morning over a year ago when Jane had corralled him for a private talk that had been in the nature of a burst of passionate protest against ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... apparent to everybody. It explains the still lingering popular suspicion of the "academic" type of man. But we are likely to forget that back of all that easy versatility and reckless variety of effort there was some sound and patient and constructive thinking. Lincoln used to describe himself humorously, slightingly, as a "mast-fed" lawyer, one who had picked up in the woods the scattered acorns of legal lore. It was a true enough description, but after all, there were very few college-bred lawyers in the Eighth Illinois Circuit or anywhere else who could hold their own, even in a purely professional ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... last words all the severity slipped away out of her voice, and as she smiled again and moved her head, emphasizing humorously her own reproach to herself, she looked almost ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... he was giving Hugo the last ministrations for the night, Simon looked at his lord as a cat looks at the mouse it is playing with—humorously, viciously, sarcastically. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... kind—"mental" work if you like to call it so—work that benefits themselves and harms other people. Employers—or rather Exploiters of Labour; Thieves, Swindlers, Pickpockets; profit seeking share-holders; burglars; Bishops; Financiers; Capitalists, and those persons humorously called "Ministers" of religion. If you remember that the word "minister" means "servant" you will be able to ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... articles, their composers would usually assume or personate their own individual characteristics; thus, Artemus Ward's conversation and gestures were exceedingly ludicrous. He was the very personification of mirth, occasionally going to the wall and humorously "chalking out" his designs. Archbishop Hughes expressed himself in a quiet, earnest, and eloquent manner. Lady Blessington was full of vivacity, and Margaret Fuller was our Presiding Angel; while Booth would become vehement to an intense degree, and at times would mount ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... of Dromore, humorously observed, that Levett used to breakfast on the crust of a roll, which Johnson, after tearing out the crumb for himself, threw to his humble friend. BOSWELL. Perhaps the word threw is here too strong. Dr. Johnson never treated Levett with contempt. MALONE. Hawkins (Life, p. 398) says ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... that queer mixture of nineteenth-century worldliness and almost austere Puritanism which is yet characteristic of many New England families. The Sabbath was a veritable day of judgment, and in later years he spoke humorously of the terrors of those all-day sessions in church and Sunday-school, though he never failed to acknowledge the benefits he had derived from an enforced study of the Bible. "If I could be grateful to New England for nothing else," he would say, "I should bless her forevermore ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... makeshifts; but he did love it, and he was jealous for it; no one should lay a hand on it to rearrange what he had once arranged. His sisters knew this; the middle-aged servant knew it; even his father, with a curt laugh, would humorously acquiesce in the theory of the sacredness of Edwin's bedroom. As for Edwin, he saw nothing extraordinary in his attitude concerning his bedroom; and he could not understand, and he somewhat resented, that the household should perceive anything comic in it. He never ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... parting, her note for a thousand dollars, on which was written, in trembling lines, "In just consideration of the tender sacrifice made to nurse me in severe illness." At last all the Revolution debt was paid, except that due to her generous sister, Mary Anthony, who used often humorously to assure her she was a fit ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... grass, which in places was lying long, dry and withered under the sun, weeds creeping up in damp places, and the gravel of the pathway scattered upon the verges. This neglected condition of the garden was, I afterwards found, humorously charged upon Mr. Watts's "reluctance to interfere with nature in her clever scheme of the survival of the fittest," but I suspect it was due at least equally to the owner's personal indifference to ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... man, his face roughened, and tanned, to almost the colour of mahogany, yet somehow retaining a youthful look. He was not unprepossessing in a bold, daring way; a fellow who would seek adventure, and meet danger with a laugh. He turned as she looked at him, and grinned back at her, pointing humorously to a badly ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... only. Then the Scots came on too thick and fast to waste time.' His dark eyes blinked and his broad lips moved humorously with his beard. 'I swore to do service to any lady; pray you ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... long visits—for she was surrounded by followers. She sat nightly before a little table covered with green baize and on this green baize she scribbled constantly with a piece of white chalk. She would scribble symbols, sometimes humorously applied, and sometimes unintelligible figures, but the chalk was intended to mark down her score when she played patience. One saw in the next room a large table where every night her followers and guests, often a great number, sat ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... shed full of tools and lumber at the end of the garden, and half-way between an empty fowl-house and a disused stable (each an Eden in itself) I found a small toy-wheelbarrow—quite the most extraordinary, the most unheard of and undreamed of, humorously, daintily, exquisitely fascinating object I had ever come across in ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... but what people saw was that the first fruits of the victory were a coalition with the whigs, who by voting with Villiers had from the first shown their predetermination against ministers. As Northcote humorously said, Mary Stuart could never get over the presumption which her marriage with Bothwell immediately raised as to the nature of her previous connection with him. It is hard to deny that, as the world goes, the Oxford tories clerical and lay might ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a humorously malicious smile hovering near his eyes, but his face grew serious as he glanced up at Hamil's window. He had not seen Hamil during his illness or his convalescence—had made no attempt to, evading lightly the casual suggestions of Portlaw that he and ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... These notes, humorously and perhaps sarcastically ascribed to Lallemand, Sanctae Theologiae Doctor, "are six in number (all on various forms of vice); and show great knowledge, classical and sociological, of unsavory subjects. Now that the book is too rare to do ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... are!" The Irishman's long upper lip twitched humorously. "Well, treat her gintly then, me bhoy! You're wise to be smoking. Less chance of infection. I'll keep you company." He produced a couple of thin black cigars, and handed one ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... Europe, fearing their companion might think her unduly anxious to boast. One of the things against which Julia Crosby, her old time Oakdale friend, and a senior in Smith College, had cautioned her, was boasting. "Avoid all appearance of being your own press agent," Julia had humorously advised. "If you don't you'll be a marked girl for the whole four years of your college career. The meek and modest violet is a glowing example ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... well-known fact, the celebrated Voltaire, in one of the articles in his Philosophical Dictionary, has very humorously ascribed half the evils of Europe to the intestinal irritations of the public ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... had moulded his hat into the form of the Mansion-House; some guineas which he had, looked like the 'Change; but it would be tedious to relate every particular; however, I must not let his conversation be forgot, though it was much of a piece with that you so humorously relate: he swore to me he never saw a rag fit for a gentleman to wear, but in Rag-fair; he said there was no scolding but at Billingsgate; and he avowed there were no bad poets but in Grub-street; I could not stand that, I bid him call to remembrance ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... getting a new suit. Nat Hicks was there, and he was not so deferential as he had been. With unnecessary jauntiness he chuckled, "Some nice flannels, them samples, heh?" Needlessly he touched her arm to call attention to the fashion-plates, and humorously he glanced from her to Erik. At home she wondered if the little beast might not be suggesting himself as a rival to Erik, but that abysmal bedragglement she ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... editor of the Letters of Gassiodorus, with his Treatise on the Soul (1538); and his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus (1533) contains five books more than any former one. The affected use of antiquated terms, introduced by some of the Latin writers of that age, is humorously ridiculed by him, in a dialogue in which an Oscan, a Volscian and a Roman are introduced as interlocutors (1531). Accorso was accused of plagiarism in his notes on Ausonius, a charge which he most solemnly and energetically ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... cartoon showing the lions of the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square guarded by policemen and protected by a placard announcing that "these lions are not to be shot." The Secretary, in seconding the resolution, humorously alluded to the doctor's gown, hood, and cap, in which Mr. Roosevelt received his degree, as a possible example of what America sometimes regards as the gilded trappings of a ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... addressed some students at one of our universities. He protested humorously that he was not a 'pro-German,' and then spoke up for a fair view of the enemy. When he was being carried into hospital, he noticed an anti-aircraft gun just outside the hospital. This struck him as, to say the least, unwise. He expected the hospital to be shelled, and this occurred. He did not ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... safe from becoming the great American humorist at any given moment. The danger is not apparent in Mr. James's case, and I confess that I read him with a relief in the comparative immunity that he affords from the national facetiousness. Many of his people are humorously imagined, or rather humorously SEEN, like Daisy Miller's mother, but these do not give a dominant color; the business in hand is commonly serious, and the droll people are subordinated. They abound, nevertheless, and many of them are perfectly new finds, like Mr. Tristram in "The American," ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Stanley. "We went right into his den, and gave him a good baiting, while we smoked his new Abdullah cigarettes," and she smiled gleefully at the remembrance of the stern soldier, in an astonishingly sociable mood for him, humorously parrying her chaff. "You know," she ran on, "he simply hated our coming. I almost wonder he didn't dig impassable trenches across the road, or fortify himself in the Acropolis Hill. Anyone might have thought we were the ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... manner to us. "Very nice man," comments our hasty note. "One of our young gentlemen here, black eyes, black hair."—describes with surprising memory of exact observation a fellow-serf—"was to get a book for me a couple of months ago." Bought the Muther monograph on Goya. Referred humorously to his new book—one on music. Said, "Many people won't believe that one can be equally good, or perhaps bad, at many things." Spoke of Arnold Bennett; said he was "a hard-working journalist as well as a novel writer." Seemed to possess the greater respect, great esteem, for the character ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... slightly and smiled; and her engaging glance returned to him at intervals, reassuring, humorously disdainful; and her serenely amused smile seemed ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... that it was difficult to communicate with him. The natives employed in clearing and planting knew only Samoan, and Mrs. Stevenson often found it necessary to instruct them by doing the work with her own hands. Writing humorously of her troubles to Sir Sidney Colvin, her husband says: "Fanny was to have rested; blessed Paul began making a duck house; she let him be; the duck house fell down, and she had to set her hand to it. He was then to make a drinking place for the pigs; she let be again, and he ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... play. Having, however, heard so much of his playing from her brothers, she was, in order to satisfy her curiosity, even ready to commit the bassesse of presenting herself as the soeur de Messieurs Paul et Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. As she humorously wrote a few days later: "The bassesse towards Chopin has been committed and has completely failed. Dirichlet went to him, and said that a soeur, &c.—only a mazurka—impossible, mal aux nerfs, mauvais piano—et comment se porte cette chere Madame Hensel, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... and which, even at this long distance of time, raises a smile. When I had come to town, having taken a house, etc., with a young and pretty wife, Dickens looked on encouragingly; but at times shaking his head humorously, as the too sanguine plans were broached: "Ah, the little victims play," he would quote. Early in the venture he good-naturedly came to dine en famille with his amiable and interesting sister-in-law. He was ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... What American holidays would you add if you were writing this essay? How could you make them fit in humorously? ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... finest. So naturally the common run of people don't live up to it. If you—not the thinking you, nor even the conscience you, but the way-down-deep-in-your-heart you that you can't fool nor trick nor lie to—if that you is satisfied, it's all right." He turned and grinned humorously at his small companion. "I've nothing but a little income and an old horse and two dogs and a few friends, Bobby; I've lived thirty years in that little place there; and a great many excellent people ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... of stimulants, poor Clay's senses came back to him, He was lividly pale with pain and the shock, but he was game to the backbone, and made no especial complaint. Indeed, he was rather disposed to treat the whole thing humorously. ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... is quite perfection," he remarked admiringly. "And I'm sorry that I was not asked to subscribe. However," and Pendleton glanced humorously at his friend, "I don't suppose its beauty is what attracts you to-day. It is because certain pages are spread with the records of crime. I notice that this volume holds both 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... ashes from his pipe he prepares to turn in, murmuring to himself, half sadly, half humorously, "I have been young, and now I am old; yet have I never seen the true woodsman forsaken, or his seed begging bread—or anything else, so to speak—unless it might be a little tobacco or a nip of whisky." And he creeps into his blanket-bag, backs ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... insufficiently drab, on the one hand, and insufficiently picturesque on the other are reflected in this new romantic treatment. Sarah Addington's "Another Cactus Blooms" prophesies colour in that hard and prickly plant the provincial teacher at Columbia for a term of graduate work. Humorously and sardonically the college professor is served up in "The Better Recipe," by George Boas (Atlantic Monthly, March); the doctorate degree method is satirized so bitterly, by Sinclair Lewis, in "The Post Mortem Murder" ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... a gentle way of enjoying these triumphs over me. He would cast the blue beam of his eye humorously over me, and then kiss me as if I ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... The regent, at first disquieted by the petitioners, was reassured by one of her advisers, who exclaimed, "What, Madam, is your Highness afraid of these beggars (ces gueux)?" Henceforth the chief opponents of Philip's policies in the Netherlands humorously labeled themselves "Beggars" and assumed the emblems of common begging, the wallet and the bowl. The fashion spread quickly, and the "Beggars'" insignia were everywhere to be seen, worn as trinkets, especially in the large towns. In accordance with the "Beggars'" petition, an embassy ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... case. "Aw right," he said, blinking, and tossed upon the counter a package of Orduma cigarettes. "Old Atwater'd have convulsions, I reckon," he remarked, "if he had to lay awake and listen to all that noise. Price ain't changed," he added, referring humorously to the purchase he mistakenly supposed Noble wished to make. "F'teen cents, same as ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... connected with the same press. A piece entitled The Remorse of Conscience, by William Lichfield, parson of All Hallows, Thames Street, who died in 1447, leaving a larger number of MSS. behind him than Lamb once humorously made Coleridge do, long enjoyed the reputation of being a solitary survivor; but at present the world holds four, two recovered from bindings, and a third titleless, and all, in fact, more or less dilapidated by unappreciative or over-appreciative ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... rarest of the books. It was a very thick door, with a projecting frame, and it had been the fancy of some ancestor to cross it with shallow shelves, filled with book-backs only. The harmless trick may be excused by the fact that the titles on the sham backs were either humorously original, or those of books lost beyond hope of recovery. I had a great ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... wrangle humorously over their agricultural deficiencies, and drifted off into open-eyed dreaming. Into his picture he began to fit these two speculatively, with a purely tentative adjustment of their personalities to his requirements. They were arguing about which of the two was the ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... the press, I came upon some notes made by Mr. Dakyns on the margin of his Xenophon. These were evidently for his own private use, and are full of scholarly colloquialisms, impromptu words humorously invented for the need of the moment, and individual turns of phrase, such as the references to himself under his initials in small letters, "hgd." Though plainly not intended for publication, the notes are so vivid and illuminating as they stand that ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... of a keen newspaper editor, involving the town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the bohemian set, and many others. All humorously related and sure ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... in ignorance of the fact that the little arrangement at the Credit Lyonnais had been discovered. He surveyed—and his eyes twinkled humorously—a small photograph which was ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... who was regarded in her set as a wit, a reputation acquired by reason of the fact that she possessed a certain knack for adapting slang humorously (for there was no originality to her alleged wit), now bent her head and looked at her brother incredulously. "My ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... a part of the makeup. You'll have to wash the makeup off your face. I don't expect you to return the powder to us," grinned the assistant humorously. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... fondness for Italian names shown by vocalists and pianists humorously parodied in such self-evident forms as Jacksonini, Signora Marra Boni, and Billsmethi. Banjo Bones is a self-evident nom d'occasion, and the high-sounding name of Rinaldo di Velasco ill befits the giant Pickleson (Dr. M.), who had ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Savannah, Marylyn Wade, and Joe Ewing were lolling and laughing in the doorway. Nancy caught Jim's eye and winked at him humorously. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... lady from choice—various uncharitable persons hinted humorously of pursued eligibles—found Rosalind gazing ecstatically out of the berth window when she stirred and awoke shortly after nine. Agatha climbed out of her berth and sat on its ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Simonov was the newly appointed agency head was to push Moskvich sales among the Czechs. He thought, half humorously, half sourly, to himself, even under the Party we have competition and pressure for higher sales. What was it that some American economist had called them? a ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... a little, and we saw Dante smile a little, and he answered the bookseller, humorously: "My purse is as lean as Pharaoh's kine, but the story opens bravely, and a good tale is better than shekels or bezants. What do you buy with your money that is worth what ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... turned the corner, the face vanished; and perhaps that particular visage disappeared forever. A gray wig came off, the little gray side-whiskers, the bushy grey eyebrows, revealing a clever face, not more than thirty, cunning, but humorously cunning and anything but scoundrelly. The painted scar aslant the nose was also obliterated. With haste the man thrust the evidences of disguise into a traveling-bag, ran here and there through the rooms, all bare and unfurnished save the one with the bars and the kitchen, ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... NORA {Half-humorously.} He was always queer, stranger, and I suppose them that's queer and they living men will be ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge
... I went down to the bank and asked him how he did. He straightened himself, grimacing humorously at the stiffness of his back, ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... to force the clothing upon him, rent the air with horrible shrieks heard by many others of the party, and by exertion of the unnatural strength which insanity confers, broke from his captor and escaped. Mr. K—— humorously comments on the difficulty of holding a nude antagonist. If we were inclined to be facetious on the subject we might suggest that mens sana in corpore sano is not an infallible rule. Late in the evening the maniac horresco referrens made a furious attack on the residence of Mr. G—— who ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... is beginning and my stock is looking up. I am getting the bulliest offers for books and almanacs; am flooded with lecture invitations, and one periodical offers me $6,000 cash for 12 articles, of any length and on any subject, treated humorously ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... enmity that wrong on one side and meek unreproach on the other breeds. The rancor that manifested itself in Boone's treatment of the Misses Perley was not imitated by them. They never alluded to their affluent neighbor, never suffered gossip concerning the Boones in what Olympia humorously called the "Orphic adytum," the "tabby-shop," as Wesley named the Perley parlors. Young Dick, however, had none of the scruples that kept his aunts silent. One dreadful day, when he had been nagged to fisticuffs with Wesley, whose ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... himself at this humorously grave homage offered up so untiringly, so zealously to the appetite, as he made his way between the long line of tables at the restaurant where he had appointed to meet Blake. Like all else that appertains to the Frenchman, its very ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... teachings of holiness, the generality of religious-minded Quakers were not likely to be satisfied with what Warburton rightly called not so much a religion as 'a divine philosophy, not fit for such a creature as man,'[485] nor with a religious vocabulary summed up, as a writer in the 'Tatler' humorously said, in the three words, 'Light,' 'Friend,' and 'Babylon.'[486] There was no reason why the worship of the individual should not be very free from the prevalent errors of the sect, and be in a high sense pure and Christian. For the truths which at one time made ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... evening was enlivened by song-singing; and the landlord, who was present, sung the old song, beginning, "There grows a bonny brier-bush," which he did with effect. On their way home together, Marshall remarked that the words of the landlord's song were vastly inferior to the tune, and humorously suggested the following burlesque parody of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... he hailed her harshly and asked if the master was on board. Schultz, smart and neat in a spotless white suit, leaned over the taffrail, finding the question somewhat amusing. He looked humorously down into Heemskirk's boat, and answered, in the most amiable modulations of his beautiful voice: "Captain Allen is up at the house, sir." But his expression changed suddenly at the savage growl: "What the devil are you grinning at?" which ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... natural linguist of the first order. He knew and spoke over a hundred languages, and affirmed that he often dreamed in foreign tongues. His friend Tom Hood humorously referred to his gifts in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... adventure tape," she said humorously, "the loudspeaker would now announce that the ship had established itself in an orbit around the strange, uncharted planet first sighted three days ago, and that volunteers were ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... been passing in review the curious little interruptions which had attended his walk, and had wondered humorously what would happen next. Two women, meeting him, and seeing a smile on his lips, had said to each other, "There goes a happy man." If they had encountered him now, they might have reversed their opinion. They would have seen a man thinking of something once dear to ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... child, sleeping, or not sleeping, next to me, with a pasteboard partition between, who killed my sleep. My bedfellows are Cough and Cramp: we sleep three in a bed. Don't come yet to this house of pest and age." This is in 1833. At the end of that year (in December) he writes (once more humorously) to Rogers, expressing, amongst other things, his love for that fine artist, Stothard: "I met the dear old man, and it was sublime to see him sit, deaf, and enjoy all that was going on mirthful with the company. He reposed upon the many graceful ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... of predicaments loosed on my trail. It was with an effort that I kept my countenance, and the cold sweat started on my forehead. How much had Henry told of his business? Had he touched on it lightly, humorously, or had he given a full account of his adventures to the wife of the man with whose secrets he was concerned, and whose evil plans had brought him to his death? The questions flashed through my mind in the instant that followed ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... she was giving him his breakfast, intending afterwards to have her own meal in the kitchen, but he used language of such strangely attractive ferocity, and glared at her with such a humorously-mad eye that she was compelled to breakfast ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... prospect,' he wrote, 'not only of one but two royal visits, for I must arrange that Queen Adelaide should meet the Queen each with her several suites. If you have any device for making stone walls elastic,' he adds humorously, 'pray give it to me. Did Lord H. new furnish the rooms allotted to H.M.? How many apartments did H.M. require? Did he observe anything especially agreeable to the Queen's wishes, and did Lord H. attempt to keep any order among his mounted ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... made, and the Secretary noted down conclusions. Howard was struck, as he often had been before, to see how the larger questions of principle passed almost unnoticed, while the smaller points, such as the wording of a notice, were eagerly and humorously debated by men of acute minds and easy speech. It was over in half an hour. Howard strolled off with one of the members, and then, returning to his rooms, wrote some letters, and looked up a lecture for the next day, till the bell ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... It was enough. She had laughed; she was a lady humorously inclined, not to say mischievous. A comic-opera star would have sent her press agent round to see what advertising could be got out of the incident; a prima donna would have appealed to her primo tenore, for the same purpose. A gentlewoman, surely; moreover, she lived within the radius, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... us every minute of every day. The question, to my mind, is whether we do not do ourselves harm in the long-run by losing ourselves in frantic admiration for any human performance. The Psalmist expressed this feeling very cogently and humorously when he said that the Creator did not delight in any man's legs. The question is not whether it is not a natural temptation to limit our dreams of ultimate possibilities by the standard of human effort, but whether we ought to try and resist that temptation. When I was at a private ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that the revolution which ended in placing William of Orange on his father-in-law's throne owed its bloodless character not a little to the influence of snuff. We read of difficulties in its course, which, fifty years previously, would inevitably have led to bloodshed, being easily, almost humorously surmounted. The plagued nation effected a revolution over its snuff-boxes in ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... disapprovingly hinted, the affection given appeared to trench on exaggeration, the affection returned was of kindred quality, fervid, self-realized, absorbing, and absorbed. Comparing it with his own humorously tolerant filial attitude, Tom felt at once contrite and injured. The contrast was glaring. But then, as he hastened to add—though whether in extenuation of his own, or of his father's, shortcomings remained ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... take a look at our rivals," suggested Jerry humorously. "I suppose they will all be dressed to kill. Too bad they can't appear in full evening dress. That would ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... slow to believe that such pranks of the elements had any moral significance in them, or that moral causes had anything to do with them, and held that the explanation of them was to be sought for in the simple working of natural laws and forces. Shakespeare deals humorously with these views in All's Well that Ends Well, II, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... then added humorously: "That letter you wrote her—I'm not sure that my cable wouldn't have far more effect than ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Garrick, evidently meaning to embellish a little, said one day in my hearing, 'we rode and tied.' And the Bishop of Killaloe informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were dining together in a pretty large company, Johnson humorously ascertaining the chronology of something, expressed himself thus: 'that was the year when I came to London with two-pence half-penny in my pocket.' Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, 'eh? what do you say? with two-pence half-penny in your pocket?'— JOHNSON, 'Why yes; when I came with ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Longfellow's notes he alludes humorously to the autograph nuisance:—"Do you know how to apply properly for autographs? Here is a formula I have just received, on a ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... son has chronicled, "a perfect dinner was a beef-steak, a potato, a cut of cheese, a pint of port, and afterwards a pipe (never a cigar). When joked with by his friends about his liking for cold salt beef and new potatoes, he would answer humorously, 'All fine-natured men know what is good to eat.' Very genial evenings they were, with ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... He was humorously drawling his confession. He stopped talking and lighted a cigarette. Impatience that was agony urged Vaniman, but he controlled himself. Wagg did not venture to say anything. His thoughts were keeping him busy; he was mentally galloping, ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... of the story which bear upon the Dodson family are in their way not unworthy of Balzac; only that, while our author has treated its peculiarities humorously, Balzac would have treated them seriously, almost solemnly. We are reminded of him by the attempt to classify the Dodsons socially in a scientific manner, and to accumulate small examples of their idiosyncrasies. I do not mean to say that the resemblance is very deep. The chief ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... lull while Anisty was ordering the luncheon: something he did elaborately and with success, telling himself humorously: "Hang the expense! Maitland pays." Of which fact the weight in his ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... quickening pace, while Juliana followed slowly. Juliana looked severe and formidable. Never had her nose looked more the Whipple nose then when she observed Dave Cowan and his son at the stile. Yet she smiled humorously when she recognized the boy, and allowed the humour to reach his father when she glanced at him. Dave and Miss Juliana had never been formally presented. Dave had seen Juliana, but Juliana had had until this ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... to call his senses to order. Hadn't he known her ever since she was a babe a span long? Wasn't she, according to all reason, a babe still, in as far as any decently minded male being of his mature age could be concerned? He told himself, at once humorously and sternly, he ought to feel so, think so—whether he did or not. And ought, in his case, was a word not to be played fast and loose with. Once uttered ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... other uses. The earliest surviving jeux are of Arras, the work of ADAM DE LA HALLE. In the Jeu d'Adam or de la Feuillee (c. 1262) satirical studies of real life mingle strangely with fairy fantasy; the poet himself, lamenting his griefs of wedlock, his father, his friends are humorously introduced; the fool and the physician play their laughable parts; and the three fay ladies, for whom the citizens have prepared a banquet under la feuillee, grant or refuse the wishes of the mortal folk in the traditional manner of enchantresses ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... commercial figure, and say that he would do anything for money, we use quite an inaccurate expression, and we slander him very much. He would not do anything for money. He would do some things for money; he would sell his soul for money, for instance; and, as Mirabeau humorously said, he would be quite wise "to take money for muck." He would oppress humanity for money; but then it happens that humanity and the soul are not things that he believes in; they are not his ideals. But he has his own dim and delicate ideals; ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... vigilantly every thought you express, and assure yourself that it is yours, not another's; you may share it with another, but you must not adopt it from him for the nonce. Of course, if you are writing humorously or dramatically, you will not be expected to write your own serious opinions. Humour may take its utmost licence, yet be sincere. The dramatic genius may incarnate itself in a hundred shapes, yet in each it will speak what ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... but in its broader and customary use it takes up the idea of dabbling; and, as a class-name, stands for 'dabbling-chick,' meaning a bird of small size, that neither wades, nor dives, nor runs, nor swims, nor flies, in a consistent manner; but humorously dabbles, or dips, or flutters, or trips, or plashes, or paddles, and is always doing all manner of odd and delightful things: being also very good-humored, and in consequence, though graceful, inclined to plumpness;[20] and though ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... manly self-possession we shall not go far wrong in connecting what seems another very distinctly marked feature of Chaucer's inner nature. He seems to have arrived at a clear recognition of the truth with which Goethe humorously comforted Eckermann in the shape of the proverbial saying, "Care has been taken that the trees shall not grow into the sky." Chaucer's, there is every reason to believe, was a contented faith, as far removed from self-torturing unrest as from ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... his party Lincoln entered with hearty concurrence. A week after the House met he closed a letter to his partner with the remark: "As you are all so anxious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do so before long," and what he said humorously he probably meant seriously. Accordingly he soon afterward[58] introduced a series of resolutions, which, under the nickname of "The Spot Resolutions," attracted some attention. Quoting in his preamble sundry paragraphs of the President's message of May 11, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... outlook for me!" grumbled Jean humorously. "Another cup of the tea, Mary Terhune, and make it stronger. I begin to feel the bitter in ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... discover their meaning. Dickens humorously suggests "Perhaps John Thomas," "Perhaps Joe Tyler," and under hilarious circumstances, "Pretty Jolly too," and "Possibly jabbered thus!" They are understood to be the initials of the treasurer of the Inn at the date above-mentioned. ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... bondage furthest from their thoughts. They seemed aware of no one but themselves in their ecstasy at being reunited. Racing had been restarted; up and down the gutters newsboys ran shouting the winners. London was a Tommy on leave, insubordinately, humorously, contagiously happy. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... him, but his blanket was not so fine as Tayoga's, although he found it soft and warm enough. Willet sat on a log higher up, his rifle across his knees and gazed humorously at them. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... and turned into the lee of the Isle of May. 'It was proposed that the whole party should meet in her and pass the night; but she rolled from side to side in so extraordinary a manner, that even the most seahardy fled. It was humorously observed of this vessel that she was in danger of making a round turn and appearing with her keel uppermost; and that she would even turn a half-penny if laid upon deck.' By two o'clock on the morning ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... churches. In the cathedral we had the honour of seeing at High Mass his most Christian Majesty, Monsieur and the Comte de Blacas, Vicomte de Chateaubriand and others, composing the Court of notre Pere de Gand, as Louis XVIII is humorously termed by the French, from his having fixed his head-quarters here. A great many French officers who have followed his fortunes are also here, but they seem principally to belong to the Gardes du Corps. A number of ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... made to feel that after all she had accepted him merely on probation; still, her treatment of him was so different from what it had been, that he took the courage to build up a hope that he might at last subdue her. To what was passing the Major was humorously alive, and, too keenly tickled to sit still, he walked up and down the room, slyly shaking himself. Mrs. Cranceford asked Gid if he had read the book which she had loaned him, the "Prince of the House of David," and he answered that when at last he had fallen ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... Sophy dear," said the girl, placing her hand half affectionately, half humorously on the old woman's shoulder; "mebbe I won't always be a discredit and a bother to you. Jest you hold your hosses, and wait until uncle Harry 'holds up' the next Pioneer Coach,"—the dancing devil in her eyes ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... well, very well, sir. No, not exactly; but he was a son of her late ladyship's coachman. Mr. Copperas has had two other servants of the name of Bob before, but this is the biggest of all, so he humorously calls him 'Triple Bob Major!' You observe that road to the right, sir: it leads to the mansion of an old customer of mine, General Cornelius St. Leger; many a good bargain have I sold to his sister. Heaven rest ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tribute to her attractions. It never wavered even while Jennie shook down her long curls ostensibly to let the sun dry a single lock that in some unaccountable way had felt the touch of a wave. Beamingly Dorothea heard Amiel humorously contrast this brown glory with her own short crop. Beamingly she fell into the plans for the crabbing party that afternoon. However, it was this lightsome expedition that laid the last straw upon the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... servants, all of whom were serfs, lounged about the new and stately palace, and found exhilarating amusement in setting their ferocious dogs upon the unoffending farmers who happened to pass that way. The greater the fear evinced by the victims, the greater was the delight of the humorously inclined menials, and if perchance a dog succeeded in fixing his fangs in the garments or calf of a pedestrian their mirth found vent in ecstatic shouts of laughter. Basilivitch had on more than one occasion been upon such errands ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... the cook, who at first seemed strangely and humorously there as cook until one found that he had an injured leg and could not climb mast nor manage sail. "'If' is a seaman without a ship!—He's ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... solid part of the evening began. This consisted in the reading aloud by Katharine from some prose work or other, while her mother knitted scarves intermittently on a little circular frame, and her father read the newspaper, not so attentively but that he could comment humorously now and again upon the fortunes of the hero and the heroine. The Hilberys subscribed to a library, which delivered books on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Katharine did her best to interest her parents in the works of living and highly respectable authors; but Mrs. Hilbery was perturbed ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... responded, humorously. "And I am glad you mentioned that. It is one of our mysteries that you will learn later. You have helped me greatly by such a candid unburdening of your mind. For you must know that you and I are to be more ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... of the stage of the Swan Theatre in Zur Kenntniss der altenglischen Buhne von Karl Theodor Gaedertz. Mit der ersten authentischen innern Ansicht der Schwans Theater in London, Bremen, 1888). Sir Philip Sidney humorously described the spectator's difficulties in an Elizabethan playhouse, where, owing to the absence of stage scenery, he had to imagine the bare boards to present in rapid succession a garden, a rocky coast, a cave, and a battlefield (Apologie for Poetrie, p. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... with all speed)—Ver. 809. Donatus remarks, that Parmeno is drawn as being of a lazy and inquisitive character; and that Terence, therefore, humorously contrives to keep him always on the move, and in total ignorance of ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... shrug the manager rose and went out, and Helen, turning an amused face to Douglass, asked, humorously: "Isn't he the typical manager?—in the clouds to-day, stuck in the mud to-morrow. Sometimes he is excruciatingly funny, and then he disgusts me. They're almost all alike. If business should be unexpectedly good to-night he would be a man transformed. ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... of the Count de Maistre," Madame Swetchine writes to her dearest female friend, "conceals a soul of profound sensibility. Without praising me, he often says pleasing things to me." At another time, she humorously writes to the same friend: "The Princess Alexis and I have been to spend an evening at the house of the Count de Maistre. From deference to the duties of hospitality, he would not suffer himself a single moment of sleep. He rose with ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... Sullivan answered humorously. "Just that, my darling. It's John Sullivan come back from Sweden. And, as I've told him, I'm not sure that all at Morristown will be as glad to see him as I am." At which Uncle Ulick went off into a ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... know," he returned abstractedly, and she observed humorously after a minute that he was not thinking of her because he was thinking so profoundly about her clothes. It was his way, she had discovered, to concentrate his mind intensely upon the object before him, no matter how trivial or insignificant ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow |
