"Humour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their voices in vain; and at length, lest their own institutions should be outshone and should disappear in the folly of the hour, they have been obliged, as far as they could with a good conscience, to humour a spirit which they could not withstand, and make temporising concessions at which they could ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... curious, sometimes days of the week or even dates. They told us that there was a child named after our Old Man, who had called off the Island the day after it was born, five years ago; a weird name for a lassie! In one way the Islanders had a want. They had no sense of humour. True, they laughed with us at some merry jest of our Irish cook, but it was the laugh of children, seeing their elders amused, and though they were ever cheery-faced and smiling, they were ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... I could see that he was beginning to be interested. I put back the wheel, gave it a light turn and screwed on the nut. He helped me with the other end of the axle with all good humour. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... to pacify him, but nothing would do but that she should get the mysterious paper. At last, to humour him, she dived under the bunk and found an iron camp-oven, and in it a single envelope. Just to see what was exciting him she opened the envelope, and found a crumpled piece of paper which she read over to ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... cloy'd with nauseous sweet, Or birth-day ode, that ran on ill-pair'd feet. Merit not always—Fortune feeds the bard, And as the whim inclines bestows reward: None without wit, nor with it numbers gain; To please is hard, but none shall please in vain: As a coy mistress is the humour'd town, Loth every lover with success to crown; He who would win must every effort try, Sail in the mode, and to the fashion fly; Must gay or grave to every humour dress, And watch the lucky Moment of Success; That caught, no more his eager hopes are crost; But vain are Wit and ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... pennies in, some person standing by with a sense of humour, who knew the letters that people write to the Times and the kind, serious, grave way English people read them. He put the pennies grimly in at one end, then he waited grimly for the letter in the Times to come ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... on foot during 1586, by way of Oxford and High Wycombe. {31a} Tradition points to that as Shakespeare's favoured route, rather than to the road by Banbury and Aylesbury. Aubrey asserts that at Grendon near Oxford, 'he happened to take the humour of the constable in "Midsummer Night's Dream"'—by which he meant, we may suppose, 'Much Ado about Nothing'—but there were watchmen of the Dogberry type all over England, and probably at Stratford itself. The Crown ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... afford. And for this one exception, to what did it amount? The nature of riches and influence forcibly confined the list of candidates to a few of the wealthiest; and it was much to be feared, that the ill-humour and contention generated by this triennial struggle, would counterbalance its advantages in impartial eyes. I can ill record the flow of language and graceful turns of expression, the wit and easy raillery that gave vigour and influence to his speech. His manner, timid at first, became ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... coat preaches to the natives. My costume, when I go ashore, is an old Crimean shirt, a very ancient wide-awake. Not a syllable has in all probability ever been written, except in our small note-books, of the language of the island. My attention is turned to keeping the crowd in good-humour by a few simple presents of fish-hooks, beads, &c. Only at Mota is there a resident Christian; and even there, people who don't know what Mota was, and what a Melanesian island, for the most part, alas! still is, would see nothing to indicate ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whereupon the Duke rose, and retired with the official into another chamber. Now the Duchess had sent to see what his Excellency was doing, and her page brought back this answer: "The Duke is talking and laughing with Benvenuto, and is in excellent good-humour." When the Duchess heard this, she came immediately to the wardrobe, and not finding the Duke there, took a seat beside us. After watching us at work a while, she turned to me with the utmost graciousness, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... disappointed in the "King of Sulaco." The local difficulties had fallen away, as the engineer-in-chief had foretold they would, before Charles Gould's mediation. Sir John had been extremely feted in Sulaco, next to the President-Dictator, a fact which might have accounted for the evident ill-humour General Montero displayed at lunch given on board the Juno just before she was to sail, taking away from Sulaco the President-Dictator and the distinguished ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... apologue on the benefits of keeping your word. Yet it is told with such humour and vigour, that the moral glides insensibly into ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... with grinding teeth, but impotent. However, from that moment a deeper mood of brooding malice occupied my spirit. Indeed the humour of us all was one of dangerous, even murderous, fierceness. In that pursuit of riches into that region of cold, we had become almost ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... recounting to him with this good humour the troubles of his life, Paul recalled the tirade of Felicia that day when Bohemians had been mentioned, and all that she had said to Jenkins of their lofty courage, avid of privations and trials. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... you're managing!" he added, lifting himself up, and speaking with a sort of tender humour as again he looked at the room. "I must learn to ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... you have put him in a good humour, he is pleased, though the poor little chaps are very far from being "beaux." They seem almost too stupefied to understand the sweets, but they know the way to put ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... sorry to cut the conversation short, but my days are mapped out with a certain regularity, and this is the hour for my nap." He rose as he spoke and held out his hand with a glint of melancholy humour in his small ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... essential if Jonson was to be kept in good humour. Many anecdotes testify to that fact. There is the story of his loss of patience with the country gentleman who was somewhat talkative about his lands, and his interruption, "What signifies to us your dirt and your clods? Where you have an acre of land, I have ten acres of wit." And Howell ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... humour, interest, passionate love, adventure, pathos—every page is woven with threads of human nature, life as we know it, as it is, and above it all a spirit of righteousness, true piety, and heroic patriotism. These inspire the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Evans walked home, cogitating on the interview which has just been described, the sly smile once more returned to his face; and on entering his own door, and being greeted with the savoury smell of something hot for supper, his good-humour was so far increased that he laughed aloud. Seated at table, he entertained his wife with an account of his ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... The Irish Times imparts a certain melancholy humour to it by inserting it in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... anchovy toasts, but to-night she was so anxious to keep Geoff in a good humour, that she would have eaten anything he chose to give her, and pretended to like it. So she accepted her share, and Geoff munched his ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... Farrington talked for over an hour. He wandered off into all kinds of subjects, made jokes at which the boys laughed, and told funny stories. He imagined he was putting his hearers in good humour, and he took their cheers and stamping as signs of approval. But he little knew what the serious-minded were thinking about. They were slow of speech, but they were keen observers, and they were mentally comparing the two candidates before ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... did he tell you what he talked about? The first thing he disclosed to me was that the engagement between him and Miss Bride was a mere pretence. Finding you wished them to marry, they took counsel together, and plotted to keep you in good humour by pretending to be engaged. This ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... with mild humour. "I really never asked them.—But this is just another example of his good fortune. When he has worn out every one else's patience, through his dishonest extravagance, he picks up a rich wife, who is not averse ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the habitues of Joe Brownlow's house were secure of finding her either in the drawing-room or conservatory; beautiful things, and new books and papers on the tables, good music on the piano, sometimes acted charades, or paper games, according to the humour or taste of the party. If she had been a beautiful duchess, Popinjay Parlour would have been a sort of salon bleu; but it was really a kind of paradise to a good many clever, hardworked men and women. Those of the upper world, such as Kenminster county folks, old acquaintances of her husband, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Israel tried to humour her, seeming not to see what he saw, and pretending not to hear what he heard. But every day his heart bled at sight of her, and one day he could bear up no longer, for his very soul had sickened, and he cried, "Have done, Ruth!—for mercy's ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... vehicles. The young farmers take the opportunity of playing a game at billiards, which they rarely do on other days. The news of the whole countryside is exchanged, and spreads from mouth to mouth, and is carried home and sent farther on its way. One great characteristic is the general good-humour that prevails. The laugh and the joke are frequently heard—it is a kind of moderate gala-day. The fishmonger's shop is emptied, and the contents carried home, this being the only day in the week when fish is bought by the majority of ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... I answered hotly, "a fitting subject for jokes. I am sorry that my sense of humour is not in touch with yours. You are a great traveller, and you have shaken death by the hand before. For me it is a new thing. The man's face haunts me! I cannot sleep or rest for thinking of it—as I have seen it dead, and ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Globe Theatre to see two Warwickshire brothers, Edmund and Will Shakspeare, who are on the boards there,—the latter taking the part of Old Knowell, in Ben Jonson's play of "Every Man in his Humour." His friends say that this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... "You should humour her a great deal, Harry. I am not so sure that you are not quite as much to blame for these differences and ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... were the steward, I would give us the worst seats on the ship, to teach us not to be proud; but he didn't do anything of the sort; he was as meek as a lamb, so I'm sure he can't have any sense of humour. He said Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox might count on him, and she and her party should have places on ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... twelve out, see they usually start, And the horn sounding right merrily; Good humour and glee do these gay lads impart, And their ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... presented to their gaze. Our eating, drinking, dress, skin, combing, boiling, our blankets, straps, horses, everything, in short, was new to them, and was earnestly discussed, particularly by one of the old men, who amused us with his drollery and good humour in trying to persuade each of us to give him something. They continually used the words "Perikot, Nokot, Mankiterre, Lumbo Lumbo, Nana Nana Nana," all of which we did not understand till after our arrival at Port Essington, where we learned that they meant ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... with vivid scarlet-tipped fins and tail, a perfectly defined circle of the same colour round the eyes, and protruding teeth of a dull red. These we especially detested for their villainous habit of calmly swimming up to a pendant line, and nipping it in twain, apparently out of sheer humour. Well have the Samoans named the leather-jacket Isu'umu ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... however, I should have enjoyed it more had not the publishers indulged in a wrapper-paragraph of such unbounded eulogy. If anybody is to call this novel "a work of great artistic achievement," and praise its "philosophy, psychology, delightful sense of humour, subtle analysis" and all the rest, I should prefer it to be someone less interested in the wares thus pushed. For my part I should be content to call The Silver Chain by no means an uninteresting story, the work ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... disgustingly healthy, the envy of all in Ruhleben camp, the suspected of every German guard in the place—for how could a fellow retain such proportions with such attenuated diet?—but, boasting of an excellent digestion, the fellow was seldom in an ill humour. Even when he grumbled and said scathing things of the Germans, he was half laughing, and it required a very great deal of annoyance indeed to rouse his passions. Yet the smallest hint of disloyalty to Great Britain, the smallest slur cast on his country's people, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... law by her (on her nephews' and nieces' behalf) for that debt, did it occur to him to escape from the clutches of the psuedo "Captain" Midford by pleading, as he now does in this Bill of 1722, that he "was tricked," and also "that gaming is illegal"? The latter plea has something of unconscious humour in the mouth of a gentleman who had lately lost L500 at faro. With this last echo of the coffee-house of St James's, and of the colonel's financial difficulties, that brave soldier, if somewhat reckless gambler, the Hon. Edmund Fielding vanishes ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... broad-brimmed hat. He might have sat to a painter for some Covenanter's portrait, except that there was nothing dour about him, or for an illustration to Burns's 'Cotter's Saturday Night.' The air of probity and canniness combined with a twinkle of dry humour was completely Scotch; and when he tapped his snuff-box, telling stories of old days, I could not refrain from asking him about his pedigree. It should be said that there is a considerable family of Campells or Campbells in the Graubuenden, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... manner was not allowed, by the twelve tables, to have the management of his own affairs; therefore the words are not, if he is mad (insanus), but, if he begins to be raving (furiosus). For they looked upon madness to be an unsettled humour, that proceeded from not being of sound mind; yet such a person might perform his ordinary duties, and discharge the usual and customary requirements of life: but they considered one that was raving ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... just conceivable, the Teuton braggart fails to convert the universe into a German empire, his downfall will be partly due to his lack of humour. Among the things that go to make this saving grace are an agile imagination and a nice sense of proportion, and it is when a man starts lying about himself that he shows most clearly whether or not he has it. Some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... if there is a brake of briars behind me, a strong wind down stream, for that trout, in that impregnable situation, I am impelled to fish. If I raise him I strike, miss him, catch up in his tree, swish the cast off into the briars, break my top, break my heart, but—that is the humour of it. The passion, or instinct, being in all senses blind, must no doubt be hereditary. It is full of sorrow and bitterness and hope deferred, and entails the mockery of friends, especially of the fair. But ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... to the English aristocratic government of the time through a failure to realize this fundamental difference, especially in the case of America. There is a wrong-headed humour about the English which appears especially in this, that while they often (as in the case of Ireland) make themselves out right where they were entirely wrong, they are easily persuaded (as in the case of America) to make themselves out entirely ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... though enjoying the subtlety of his own humour. Unlike his daughter, he spoke English with ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... However, perhaps it would be as well to keep in with Jenny and not to let her see that he is disappointed, so every time she says, "Isn't the sea lovely?" he echoes, "Lovely," and now and then he adds (just to humour her), "Is 'at the sea?" and then she has the chance to say again, "Yes, that's the sea, darling. Isn't it lovely?" It is obvious that she is proud of it. Apparently she put it there. Anyway, it seems to be ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... the primitive diction and imagery, and produced strains in which the unbroken energy of half-civilised ages, their stern and deep passions, their daring adventures and cruel tragedies, and even their rude wild humour are reflected with almost the brightness of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... que le vrai; le vrai seul est aimable, he quotes; he was a deliberate and diligent searcher after truth, always striving to attain the heart of things, to arrive at a knowledge of first principles. It is, too, not without a sort of grim humour that this psychological vivisectionist attempts to lay bare the skeleton of the human mind, to tear away all the charming little sentiments and hypocrisies which in the course of time become a part and parcel of human life. A man influenced by such motives, and possessing ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... foolish reply. He thought her humour forced and it annoyed him. Remember that he was exasperated. He had looked forward to meeting her, and now she was treating him with studied coldness over what still seemed to ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... (Goodchild), just as a braggart Burgundian was called by Tudor dramatists a burgullian. Bellinger is for Barringer, an Old French name of Teutonic origin. [Footnote: "When was Bobadil here, your captain? that rogue, that foist, that fencing burgullian" (Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, iv. 2).] Those people called Salisbury who do not hail from Salesbury in Lancashire must have had an ancestor de Sares-bury, for such was the earlier name of Salisbury (Sarum). A number of occupative names have lost the last syllable by dissimilation, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... pego, which had become considerably more developed when in a state of erection. As you may suppose, with such distracting thoughts, I did not get on with my lessons. Miss Evelyn, for some reason or other, was out of humour that morning, and more than once spoke crossly to me for my evident inattention. At length she called me to her, and finding that I had scarcely done ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... visits of Mr Marriot but a few weeks since Mr Harrel had prohibited, yet he now introduced him into his house with particular distinction; he came back too himself in admirable spirits, enlivened in his countenance, and restored to his good humour. A change so extraordinary both in conduct and disposition convinced her that some change no less extra-ordinary of circumstance must previously have happened: what that might be it was not possible for her to divine, but the lessons she had received from Mr Monckton ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... justice to the bravery, the generosity, the good-humour, the kind-heartedness of sailors; and, as a class, they deserve his encomiums. His songs abound with just and noble sentiments, and manly virtues were never more constantly and strikingly enunciated by any author. We dearly love Charles Dibdin for this; and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... hundreds of journeys. All is ready, board and lodging. Never was a better opportunity for allowing one's self a good time. There is nothing against it. The others, the workers, are imperturbable in their good-humour. Their outraged cells leave them profoundly indifferent. There are no brawls to fear, no protests. Now or never is the moment to tread ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... blind up, sat our friend, Dr. Polperro, with a lady facing him, young, graceful, and pretty. A bottle of champagne stood open before him. He was helping himself plentifully to hot-house grapes, and full of good humour. It was clear he and the lady were occupied in the intense enjoyment of some capital joke; for they looked queerly at one another, and burst now and again into ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... in the slightest disconcerted by this speech, only a gleam of humour was in his eye as he replied, 'That remains to be seen. Of course we think we are at present, but that is always the case. I think you will allow I am strong enough to protect her, and old enough to know my own mind. I doubt if I am good enough for her, but I am ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... opinions—confident in the propriety of his view of a case—apparently so, always, for he could assume a confidence though he had it not—and would persevere in his efforts to overcome the adverse humour of judges and juries, to an extent never exceeded; yet withal so blandly, so unassumingly, so mildly, that he never irritated or provoked any one. His temper and self-possession were unequalled, and approached, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... meantime, Schriften, without making any reference to the way in which they had so unceremoniously parted company, addressed Krantz with apparent good-humour, and some slight tinge of sarcasm. It was some time before Krantz could rid ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... room for more than half an hour; had long since dismissed his man; and had sat down, arrayed in brilliant pyjamas (quite a new line from Paris, recommended by Haredale, a sartorial expert with a keen sense of humour), for a cigarette and a mental ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... relish some sort of bird served with truffles, and ordered a matelote of eelpouts and a sterlet with its tail in its mouth. Frolov only drank vodka and ate nothing but bread. He rubbed his face with his open hands, scowled, and was evidently out of humour. Both were silent. There was a stillness. Two electric lights in opaque shades flickered and hissed as though they were angry. The gypsy girls ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... way with the sick when they're like that, and that's to humour them, you see. So she slept and I got a little nap for myself. I was glad the children were away by next morning, for she was worse, the cook lost her head, and managed to break the range so that the water-back ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... some fine touches of description, and is animated by a noble tone of classical enthusiasm. While in Germany he wrote his Dialogues on Medals, which, however, were not published till after his death. These have much liveliness of style and something of the gay humour which the author was afterwards to exhibit more strongly; but they show little either of antiquarian learning or of critical ingenuity. In tracing out parallels between passages of the Roman poets ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... bustle and many exclamations, she went through all the rooms, rustling her skirts and squeezing the sprayer with a hissing sound. And Orlov was still out of humour; he was obviously restraining himself not to vent his ill-temper aloud. He was sitting at the table and rapidly writing a letter. After writing a few lines he snorted angrily and tore it up, then ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... me, brother Peter, I find my Scholer to be so sutable to my own humour, which is to be free and pleasant, and civilly merry, that my resolution is to hide nothing from him. Believe me, Scholer, this is my resolution: and so here's to you a hearty draught, and to all that love us, and the honest ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... of mobile humour in his exposure of the unreality of all movement, Zeno might be taken so far only for a master, or a slave, of paradox; such paradox indeed as is from the very first inherent in every philosophy which (like that ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... the brasses, because he could see his face in them, and make eyes at himself as he went along; accordingly he turned three back-somersaults, a sign of high good-humour with him, and returned to his ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... was right. Yet the consciousness that she loved him flattered his vanity and made him more tolerant; he resolved to follow her lead or to improve upon it. Why shouldn't he? She had said "every girl expects to be kissed." And if she wanted to be kissed, it was the least he could do to humour her. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... I pray you bear with us, and we will satisfy you, for we are merry folk who would make all merry as ourselves. For, look you, there is humour in all things, and the truest philosophy is that which teaches us to find it and to make ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... this volume, as in all of Miss Sinclair's other productions, the same lively intellect, the same buoyant good humour, the same easy and vigorous style, the same happy talent for observation and description, the same warfare against the fashionable follies of the day, and the same assiduity in inculcating the lessons of morality and ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... nerve centres and nerve tracts, and is liable to become the seat of haemorrhage and thus to give rise to pressure symptoms resembling apoplexy. The glioma of the retina tends to grow into the vitreous humour and to perforate the globe. It is usually of the nature of a glio-sarcoma and ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... money-lenders in the town who would give him money on postobits in plenty? Castlewood knew as much to his cost: he had applied to them in his father's lifetime, and the cursed crew had eaten up two-thirds of his miserable income. He spoke with such desperate candour and ill-humour, that Madame Bernstein began to be alarmed for her favourite, and determined to caution him ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the most perfect humour and irony is generally quite unconscious. Examples of both are frequently given by men whom the world considers as deficient in humour; it is more probably true that these persons are unconscious of their own delightful ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... later it happened that Uncle Thomas, while paying us a flying visit, produced from his pocket a copy of the latest weekly, Psyche: a Journal of the Unseen; and proceeded laborously to rid himself of much incomprehensible humour, apparently at our expense. We bore it patiently, with the forced grin demanded by convention, anxious to get at the source of inspiration, which it presently appeared lay in a paragraph circumstantially describing our modest and humdrum habitation. "Case III.," ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... undeviating, but beautiful moralist, gathering from all lessons to present, in striking language, to the reason and the heart. Where his story leads him to some individual, or presents some incident which raises our smiles, it is recorded with a naive humour, the more effective from its simplicity; where he finds himself called on to tell some tale of misfortune or wo—and how often must he do so when the history of the gentle and peaceful natives of the Antilles is his subject—the reader is at a loss whether most ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... parties. The two were antipathetic. Their dispositions were as wide asunder as the poles. Brown was serious, bold, and masterful. Macdonald concealed unrivalled powers in statecraft and in the leadership of men behind a droll humour and convivial habits. From the first they had been political antagonists. But the differences were more than political. Neither liked nor trusted the other. Brown bore a grudge for past attacks reflecting upon his integrity, while Macdonald, ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... county, and almost done. You'll likely be here for the barn-raising. He's going to have a supper and a dance as soon as everybody's done threshing. Says it keeps the voters in good humour. I tell him that's all nonsense; but Olaf ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... Walsingham and Burghley, to obtain an enlargement of the pittance. "The storms are overblown," said Walsingham, "but I fear your Lordship shall receive very scarce measure from hence. You will not believe how the sparing humour doth increase upon us." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... hands with his fellow-townsman. He thought he had been needlessly savage to him on the last night when they had met. As for Huxter, perfectly at good-humour with himself, and the world, it never entered his mind that he could be disagreeable to anybody; and the little dispute, or "chaff," as he styled it, of Vauxhall, was a trifle which he did not ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... clothes, they were visited by twelve natives, some of whom were strangers: one of them, an elderly man, who had his son with him, a little boy of eight or nine years of age, appeared very morose and captious: everything was done by our people to amuse and keep them in good humour; but upon one of the sailors attempting to comb the head of the youngster, the old gentleman became so violently enraged that Mr. Bedwell found it necessary to send away the offender, in order to conciliate them, for ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... imprudent in her conduct of late. Every morning she woke up in a very bad humour and with the thought that she no longer cared for Ryabovsky, and that, thank God, it was all over now. But as she drank her coffee she reflected that Ryabovsky had robbed her of her husband, and that now she was left with neither her husband ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... woman, but not in very strong health. The family consisted of William, who was the eldest, a clever, steady boy, but, at the same time, full of mirth and humour; Thomas, who was six years old, a very thoughtless but good-tempered boy, full of mischief, and always in a scrape; Caroline, a little girl of seven years; and Albert, a fine strong little fellow, who was not one year old: he was under the charge of ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... french nation. The desire that I had to make me beloved, for the assurance of my life made me resolve to offer myselfe for to serve, and to take party with them. But I feared much least he should mistrust me touching his advis to my resolution. Neverthelesse I finding him once of a good humour and on the point of honnour encourages his son to break the kettle and take the hattchett and to be gon to the forraigne nations, and that was of courage and of great renowne to see the father of one parte and the ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... iron in a day of iron, for survive I did, to give the lie to Tostig's promise of dwarf-hood. I outgrew all beakers and tankards, and not for long could he half-drown me in his mead pot. This last was a favourite feat of his. It was his raw humour, a sally esteemed by him ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... a present was made to Mrs. Margery of a little dog, whom she called Jumper. He was always in a good humour, and playing and jumping about, and therefore he was called Jumper. The place assigned for Jumper was that of keeping the door, so that he might have been called the porter of a college, for ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... in her ineffectual attempts to wring her jointure from an exchequer which she had herself wantonly impoverished. Hence the tiresome and ridiculous wrangling in connection with her "conjunct feoffment," neither Margaret nor Henry being conscious, in the complete absence of all sense of humour on their part, that the situation was occasionally grotesque. Stolidly unmindful of the effect they produced on the minds of others in the pursuit of their own selfish ends, they pursued the tenor ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... airy, she's buxom and gay; Her breath is as sweet as the blossoms in May; A touch of her lips it ravishes quite: She's always good natur'd, good humour'd, and free; She dances, she glances, she smiles upon me; I never am happy ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... extremely prepossessing. In early life, she was handsome; and although latterly her figure had attained some degree of fulness, it had lost none of its ease and grace, whilst her pleasing features, marked by no lines of painful thought, were open and expressive, beaming with animation and good humour. She had not the slightest tinge of pedantry in her manner and deportment, which were natural and affable, so that a stranger never felt otherwise than at ease in her society. It was not her ambition to make a display ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... publication was adorned, had uncommon merit as original sketches; for Bewick did not confine his pencil to the mere delineation of animals. His vignettes have been said to partake of his determinate propensity to morality, tenderness, and humour; each telling articulately its own tale.[3] and bearing in every ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... so ludicrous, so utterly absurd, that his father should be standing, in his night-shirt, on this very cold morning, under the flaring gas. It occurred to Peter that as he wanted to laugh at this Mr. Zanti could not have been right about his lack of humour. Peter walked up to his father, and his father caught him by the throat. Mr. Westcott was still, in spite of ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... word in his ear, in obedience to which he bundled out his daughters, as they hung back politely, closed the door upon the last skirt, and reconducted the Countess to the head of the table, scratching his chin in some perplexity, but ready to humour her ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... I walk boldly up to a surly mastiff, and caress him, it is ten to one I soothe him to good temper; if I show fear of him, he flies on me and rends me. I will be thus far frank with thee.—It concerns me nearly that this man returns not to his headlong master in a resentful humour. I run my risk, therefore. I have never shunned to expose my life for the weal of my kingdom. ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... was all in the family, Mr. Galloway," cried Hamish, in his gay good humour. "It appears that he laid the charge of that little ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 'The Little White Girl' was exhibited about the same time, containing the germ of that paradoxical Whistlerian humour lately so fully exemplified in various places about London. It was called 'A Little White Girl' in the catalogue, and yet its colour generally ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... a god—at times in the humour to play, at others not. If he happened not to be in the humour, it required pressing and reiterated entreaties to get him to the instrument. Before he began in earnest, he used sportively to strike the keys with ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... be born and brought up to them to appreciate them," he replied, "but never mind, what does it matter, what is a feather bed in comparison with our love?" They laughed for pure joy and good humour as they walked along; ah how quickly time passes when one is so happy! The sunlight gilded the rocks before them, till they looked as if they contained streaks of gold ore. They crossed the little moor, and clambered over the rocks till ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... is that you're all wonderfully serious, wonderfully courteous, wonderfully kind"—he bowed to his hostess; "but, you'll excuse my saying so, I don't find enough wit or lightness for my temperament. For humour I have to ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... you do recall the features, and say that an eye is blue, a chin sharp, a nose short, or a cheek sunken, I fancy that you do not succeed well in giving the impression of the person,—not so well as when you interpret at once to the heart the essential moral qualities of the face—its humour, gravity, sadness, spirituality. If I should tell you in physical terms how a hand feels, you would be no wiser for my account than a blind man to whom you describe a face in detail. Remember that when a blind man recovers ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... After lunch, Braithwaite, Val, Wells, Deedes, Freddie and myself went off to Suvla aboard H.M.S. Scourge (Lieutenant-Commander Tupper). On landing, Braithwaite branched off to see the G.S. Byng has a keen sense of humour; is energetic and by his looks and manner attracts all ranks. No one could wish a better corps commander and I have never in all my experience known anyone take greater and more minute trouble with his field days and manoeuvres than he did in Egypt the year ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... he thought him of his child: So with its winsome ways to wile the time, He went unto the chamber where it lay, Watch'd o'er by Gelert, as his custom was: But there, alack! or that the child had crost The savage humour of the beast, or that Some sudden madness had embolden'd it, He saw the child lie bloody mid the sheets, Slain by the hound, as it would seem, for there Lay Gelert lapping from his chaps the blood, That hung in gouts from every ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... wonder the men were in a good humour now. For my part, I was horribly cast down. Should the scheme he had now sketched prove feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt it. He had still a foot in either camp, and there was no doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bare ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up, and by this time was surrounded by the people, when, holding out his hand, he said, "Look here," and then paused. Everyone expected some remark about the tiger, but, amidst general laughter—for the natives have a keen sense of humour—he continued, "There will be a bump on my head to-morrow as big as a cocoanut." And now, as we have heard so much of the courage of man, it is time that the dogs should have their turn, and I will conclude these reminiscences with an account of how a dog saved ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... present and heard this conversation, and it met her evident approval. She told the boys that the Englishman must not be teased on a Sunday, that he might wish to read his Bible, and that he must not be disturbed. The boys left the room in bad humour. ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... in her best dress. It was not at all a new dress, nor at all a grand one, but it was well chosen, well made and well fitted, and certainly very well put on; the gloves and hat, too, accorded with it, and she herself was in a humour of gaiety that bordered on brilliancy. Was she not going to have a holiday to-morrow, and was she not going to spend it in company with a man she liked, and in despite of Dutch propriety, which would certainly have been thoroughly and outrageously shocked thereby? Denah knew nothing ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the humour was lost upon me. And the jest fell uncommonly flat. Could the jokes I had written then be So fallen in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... rogue to my readers, I feel that I owe them, if not an apology, at least an explanation for this attempt at enlisting sympathy in favour of a man who has little to recommend him save his own unconscious humour. In very truth my good friend Ratichon is an unblushing liar, thief, a forger—anything you will; his vanity is past belief, his scruples are non-existent. How he escaped a convict settlement it is difficult to imagine, and hard to realize ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... no one could have guessed what absurdity went on behind the pale, impassive face, what secret and unsuspected amusement she enjoyed; a little comedy of her own! The unsuitability of Francis Sales for the part of hero supplied most of the humour and saved her from loss of dignity. The thing was obviously absurd; she had never cared for dolls, but in her young womanhood she was finding amusement in the manipulation of ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... speak with hushed voices. After all, when you came to examine it, the thing was his affair, and it was for him to dictate the lines on which it should be treated. If he elected to hide his pain under a bright smile and a laugh like that of a hyena with a more than usually keen sense of humour, our line was obviously to ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... he, "that there's another of those blessed things fallen there—number two. But one's enough, surely. This lot'll cost the insurance people a pretty penny before everything's settled." He laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The woods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to me. "They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick soil of pine needles and turf," he said, and then grew serious ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... may place the peculiar faculty of wit and humour, an altogether natural gift whose development appears to be parallel with that of the other exceptional faculties. Like them, it is almost unknown among savages, but appears more or less frequently as civilisation advances ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... with her. One hears of ruling by love and ruling by fear, but this man ruled by disgust. At home he lived much as we have seen him in the house of another, cared for nobody's comfort but his own, and was hard to keep in good humour—such good humour as was possible to him. He paid no attention to business or management: his estates had long been under trustees; lolled about in his room, diverting himself with a horrible monkey which he taught ugly tricks; drank almost constantly; and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... "The humour of Randolph Caldecott's drawings is simply irresistible, no healthy-minded man, woman, or child could look at ...
— The House That Jack Built - One of R. Caldecott's Picture Books • Randolph Caldecott
... two when the hounds were put into the gorse, and certainly no one was in a very good humour. A trot of five miles is disagreeable, and two o'clock in November is late for finding a first fox; and then poisoning is a vice that may grow into a habit! There was a general feeling that Goarly ought to be extinguished, but an idea that it might ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... chairs—seated with greenhide with the hair left on, and very comfortable—and smoke their pipes. This was the only time of the day when old Joe unbent. At first silent, he would presently shift his pipe to the corner of his mouth and spin them yarns of the early days, told with a queer, dry humour that kept his hearers in a simmer of laughter. It was always a matter of regret to poor "Captin" that he used to be the one to end the telling, since no story on earth could keep him, after a while, from nodding off to sleep. He would drag himself away to his ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... grizzled man, well past fifty, with keen, shrewd eyes that twinkled with humour, or sparkled with ferocity, or melted with sorrow as the mood seized him. As he answered Kingsnorth the ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... uphold the wisdom of the proceeding in the least, for when I grunted something about the world not containing such another pair of thorough-paced fools, he agreed with me promptly. In fact, he was in far too jovial a humour to argue about anything, and by degrees I began to fall in with his vein. "Let's split a bottle of vermouth," said he, "and drink confusion to every one except our two ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... charity; and if I hold the true anatomy of myself, I am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece of virtue. For I am of a constitution so general that it comports and sympathiseth with all things; I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in diet, humour, air, anything. I wonder not at the French for their dishes of frogs, snails, and toadstools; nor at the Jews for locusts and grasshoppers; but being amongst them, make them my common viands; and I find them agree with my stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... Brighton, a box containing presents, and a dutiful letter, from the Colonel her nephew. In the box were a pair of French epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a sword—relics from the field of battle: and the letter described with a good deal of humour how the latter belonged to a commanding officer of the Guard, who having sworn that "the Guard died, but never surrendered," was taken prisoner the next minute by a private soldier, who broke the Frenchman's sword with the butt of his ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 1860. MY DEAR BRO.,—Your last has just come to hand. It reminds me strongly of Tom Hood's letters to his family, (which I have been reading lately). But yours only remind me of his, for although there is a striking likeness, your humour is much finer than his, and far better expressed. Tom Hood's wit, (in his letters) has a savor of labor about it which is very disagreeable. Your letter is good. That portion of it wherein the old sow figures ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... easy to understand how put out I was to find Mass over on this first morning of my pilgrimage. And I went along the burning road in a very ill-humour till I saw upon my right, beyond a low wall and in a kind of park, a house that seemed built on some artificial raised ground surrounded by a wall, but this may have been an illusion, the house being really only very tall. At any rate I drew it, and in the village just beyond it I learnt something ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... followed, all out of proportion to the humour of the remark, revealed the tensity of the strain through which they ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... I saw that the man was in an aggressively disputatious humour, and I wanted to have no words with him. "Well, what happened after that? Go on with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... young lady with a meaning glance around. "I said he was from the asylum. He looked mad. We'd better humour him and ring up the asylum. Have another cake, darling boy," she said in a ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... pretentious and curious displays of coquetry are not uncommon in handsome slave-girls when newly bought; and it is a kind of pundonor to humour them. They may also refuse their favours and a master who took possession of their persons by brute force would be blamed by his friends, men and women. Even the most despotic of despots, Fath Ali Shah of Persia, put up with refusals ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... resolved upon this design, a gentleman had written predictions, and two or three other pieces in my name, which had rendered it famous through all parts of Europe; and by an inimitable spirit and humour, raised it to as high a pitch of reputation as it could possibly arrive at." The gentleman referred to is, of course, Swift, whose pamphlets on Partridge had been the talk of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... gave no other sign that he was hurt than a contemptuous smile, though blood must have been drawn by the lash. After a short dance, his opponent returned the compliment with equal force. Nothing could exceed the good-humour with which these proceedings were carried on. One of the men was scarcely able to walk, after the punishment; but, in general, after a few lashes they drank paiwari, and returned to the main body of dancers, from which fresh couples were continually ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... left a very greate inheritance to his heyres, consideringe the vast fortune he inherited by his wife (the sole daughter and Heyre of Francis Earle of Rutlande,) he owed no parte of it to his owne industry or sollicitation, but to the impatient humour of two kings his masters, who would make his fortune aequall to his titles, and the one above other men, as the other was, and he considered it no otherwise then as thers, and left it at his death ingaged for the crowne, almost to the valew of it, as is touched upon before. If he ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... o'clock I left. I met Miss P., all of whose rumours coincided with those I had gathered. She was in exceeding good humour and interested. Leaving her I met Cy——, and we turned together up to the Green. As we proceeded, the sound of firing grew more distinct, but when we reached the Green it died away again. We stood a little below ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... in due course, and every fresh dish seemed to increase the good-humour of the Baron: but all efforts, to get him to express his opinion as to Uggug's cleverness, were in vain, until that interesting youth had left the room, and was seen from the open window, prowling about the lawn with a little basket, which he ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... his people, like a father among his loving children. He was remarkably well received everywhere and it made him very happy. He is very familiar with his officers, and talks to his servants with kindness and good humour, frequently making them laugh and laughing in return. In short, I am much struck with the difference of forms in the constitutional and despotic country, and with the pomp of the former and familiarity and freedom of the latter. ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... the command of the Kinsolvings, she had yielded so far as to honour their house by her presence, for an evening and night. She had her revenge upon her hostess by relating, with grim enjoyment and sarcastic humour, her story of the vision carrying the hod. To that lady, in raptures at having penetrated thus far toward the coveted inner circle, the result came as a crushing disappointment. Everybody either sympathized or laughed, and there was little to choose between the two ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... Christ's head on the other side, and was hollow; so that the Gospel of St. John, written on fine paper, was placed in the concavity thereof;" and was a sovereign remedy against lightning, the effects of heat, drowning, &c. &c. In some of the above charms there is a little humour to be found; and as we have previously observed, such are the effects of faith, that like the amulets of the east (may not our own sprigs of witch-elm, &c. be so called?) they may have had in many cases the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... Hall, who was manifestly in an ill humour; "now, if I had been punished instead of you, the weather would have been a marvel of fineness, sunny all day and starry ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... you come to think of it,' said Tony. 'Welch lives on Bovril for, a month, and then, just as he thinks he's going to score, a burglar with a sense of humour strolls into the Pav., carefully selects the only two cups he had a chance of ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... than enough,' and they do not often indulge in a joke. In one of the few which occur, the book of the Laws, if left incomplete, is compared to a monster wandering about without a head. But we no longer breathe the atmosphere of humour which pervades the Symposium and the Euthydemus, in which we pass within a few sentences from the broadest Aristophanic joke to the subtlest refinement of wit and fancy; instead of this, in the Laws an impression of baldness and feebleness is often left upon our minds. Some of the most amusing descriptions, ...
— Laws • Plato
... streaming eyes cutting off his enemies' heads—and he had owned to over fifty—as he thought of destitute homes and weeping women and children, seemed decidedly tragi-comic; but the old man was earnest enough, and was quite unconscious of the grim humour of the situation. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... agitated, abrupt, and rude than at his first grand audience after his arrival from Milan, when this ceremony had been performed. I am not the only one who has made this remark; he did not disguise either his good or ill-humour; and it was only requisite to have eyes and ears to see and be disgusted at ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... first volume, has made other accounts of his youth mostly superfluous, even to a day which persists in knowing better about everything and everybody than it or they knew about themselves. No one ever recorded his genealogy more minutely, with greater pride, or with a more saving sense of humour than Sir Walter. He was connected, though remotely, with gentle families on both sides. That is to say, his great-grandfather was son of the Laird of Raeburn, who was grandson of Walter Scott of Harden and the 'Flower of Yarrow.' The great-grandson, 'Beardie,' acquired that cognomen ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... band was to play that afternoon on Southsea Common, and thither I accordingly decided to direct my steps. There were a good many people about the streets, and I had not gone very far before I made the discovery that everybody was in high good-humour about something or other. The people I met wore, almost without exception, genial smiling countenances, and many a peal of hearty laughter rang out from hilarious groups who had already passed me. I felt anxious to know what it was that thus set ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... calling, as it might be now, when she arrived, and Lady Garnett had promptly introduced him to her as her godson, because, as she remarked lightly, if he is not, he ought to have been. To which Philip had replied, in a like humour, that it was all the same: if they hadn't that relation, at any rate their behaviour ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... music. I cannot help thinking that Beethoven would perhaps have disliked Tristan, but would have loved Siegfried; for the latter is a perfect incarnation of the spirit of old Germany, virginal and gross, sincere and malicious, full of humour and sentiment, of deep feeling, of dreams of bloody and joyous battles, of the shade of great oak-trees and the song ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... this was that the longer a person has been dead the less repugnance do they evince in uttering his name. I therefore in the first instance endeavoured to ascertain only the oldest names on record; and on subsequent occasions, when I found a native alone and in a loquacious humour, I succeeded in filling up some of the blanks. Occasionally round their fires at night I managed to involve them in disputes regarding their ancestors, and on these occasions gleaned much of the information of which I was ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... the master laughed the harder. Then he tried to be more dignified, and the master laughed harder than before. In the end, the master laughed him out of his dignity. His jaws slightly parted, his lips lifted a little, and a quizzical expression that was more love than humour came into his eyes. ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... were added, obscene to the last excess, and worthy of the god who chose to be honoured in such a manner. The spectators gave into the prevailing humour, and were seized with the same frantic spirit. Nothing was seen but dancing, drunkenness, debauchery, and all that the most abandoned licentiousness can conceive of gross and abominable. And this an entire people, reputed the wisest of all Greece, not only suffered, but admired and practised. ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... as good as a wink to a blind horse," says the old saw, and a wink is no doubt as good as a smile to a purblind ass. But the wink is indeed one of the worst uses to which the human eye can he put. It signifies usually the vulgarisation of humour, and the degradation of mirth. It is the favourite eye-language of the cynical cad, the coarse jester, the crapulous clown, and—above all—the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... and the frown disappeared from Professor Keredec's brow like the vanishing of the shadow of a little cloud from the dome of some great benevolent and scientific institute. He dropped a weighty hand on his young friend's shoulder, and, in high good-humour, thundered: ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... gay good humour again, and she perched on the arm of her father's chair, as she proceeded to win ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... found the hall crowded with natives, who sat cross- legged around the walls, or stood in groups conversing in low tones, and to judge from the expression of their dark eyes and lowering brows, they were in extremely bad humour. They became silent and more respectful, however, in their demeanour when the young men entered the apartment and walked up to the fireplace, in which a small fire of wood burned on the hearth, more as a convenient means of rekindling the pipes of the Indians ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... her eyes and mind were busy trying to read the secret of Dick's manner. The girl had impressed him strongly, that was evident, but why should she have occasioned this gloom in Dick who so very rarely allowed anything or anybody to ruffle his cheery good humour? ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... vernacular. We have a friend here (we have made dozens) who has a cat she calls To-be—the godfather being 'To-be or not to be! 'All right' appears daily as a witticism; 'Oh, yes!' serves for the thousandth time as a touch of humour. The reason is obvious. French critics are wholly ignorant of our language. Very few of them have crossed the Channel, even to obtain a Leicester Square idea of our dear England. But they are not diffident on this account. They have never seen ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand perhaps the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never "o'ersteps the modesty of nature," nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... of "dry" Scotch humour. A neighbouring city had previously banned The Merchant of Venice from its schools on the ground that the character of Shylock was a libel on the Jewish race. If Jewish children no longer had to pay for school editions of The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various |
