"Amuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of New College, Oxford (1380). The founder gives his permission to the scholars, for their recreation on festival days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs and other entertainments of decent sort, and could recite poems, chronicles of kingdoms, the wonders of the world, and such like compositions, provided they befitted the clerical character. At Winchester College—where minstrels were often employed—and ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... who, it is said, used to amuse himself by making a private treasury. When he lost at play, he used always to pay out of the ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... The Tempest, he wrought with a peculiar consciousness of this power, smiling as the word of inimitable felicity, the phrase of incomparable cadence, was whispered to him by the Ariel that was his genius. He seems to sport with language, to amuse himself with new discovery of its resources. From king to beggar, men of every rank and every order of mind have spoken with his lips; he has uttered the lore of fairyland; now it pleases him to create a being neither man nor fairy, a something ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... like these put us en route with Pascal. Toutes les bonnes maximes sont dans le monde: on ne manque que de les appliquer. The great ascetic was always hard on amusements, on mere pastimes: Le divertissement nous amuse, one and all of us, et nous fait arriver insensiblement a la mort. Nous perdons encore la vie avec joie, pourvu qu'on en parle. On ne peut faire une bonne physionomie (in a portrait) qu'en accordant toutes nos contrarietes. L'homme n'est ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... and to the habit of defending themselves from it. They begin by throwing reeds at each other, and are soon very expert. They also, from the time when they can run, until prompted by manhood to realize their sports, amuse themselves with stealing the females, and treat them at this time very little worse than ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... in a solitary village, am I set by myself, to amuse my brooding fancy as I may.—Solitary confinement, you know, is Howard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners; so let me consider by what fatality it happens that I have so long been so exceeding sinful as to neglect the correspondence of the most valued friend I have on earth. To tell you that ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sought elsewhere than in nature, who disclaims all such. Hence the witty and intellectual ladies of our comedies and novels are all in the fashion of some particular time; they are like some old portraits which can still amuse and please by the beauty of the workmanship, in spite of the graceless costume or grotesque accompaniments, but from which we turn to worship with ever new delight the Floras and goddesses of Titian—the saints and the virgins ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... marriage, a prosperous future would be assured to him. Old M. de Balzac did not specify the nature of the service which was to meet with so rich a reward; and as he was a gentleman with a distinct liking for talking of his own doings, we may amuse ourselves by supposing that it had to do with those Red Republican days which he was not ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... experiences," answered the fairy. "I'm tired of being a humdrum fairy year in and year out. Of course, I do not wish to become a mortal for all time, for that would get monotonous, too; but to live a short while as the earth people do would amuse me ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... mountebanks—histriones—are in straits because their clown—for whom they sent to Leipzig, has not arrived. You are to take off the honorable Prussian uniform and to join this group of mountebanks, sent there by me, as a warning to every one. You are to become an actor, a clown of clowns-and henceforth amuse the German nation with your foolish and criminal jokes and quips. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... jot the better for all my bathings and pumpings, though I have been here already full half my time; I consequently go very little into company, being very little fit for any. I hope you keep company enough for us both; you will get more by that, than I shall by all my reading. I read simply to amuse myself and fill up my time, of which I have too much; but you have two much better reasons for going into company, pleasure and profit. May you find a great deal of both in a great ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... we are already better off," said the wife. "Before we had the doll we had nothing to talk about except ourselves. Now we have the doll to talk about and to amuse us." ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... now, peace reigns in our house! Ah, the dreariness. If only there were children! That's the saddest thing! I have no children; I should sit with them and amuse them all day. I love talking to little children—they are angels, really. (Silence.) If I had died when I was little, it would have been better. I should have looked down on to the earth from Heaven and been delighted with everything. I should have flown unseen wherever I liked. I would have ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... position appearing intoxicated will always make a disagreeable impression on us; but a drunken driver, sailor, or carter will only be a risible object. Jests that would be insufferable in a man of education amuse us in the mouth of the people. Of this kind are many of the scenes of Aristophanes, who unhappily sometimes exceeds this limit, and becomes absolutely condemnable. This is, moreover, the source of the pleasure we take in parodies, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Father and Son, one of the most faithful pictures of life ever written. The first instance shall be an extract from the diary of the mother, obviously a woman of great power and gifts if she had been given an opportunity of displaying them. "When I was a very little child," she writes, "I used to amuse myself and my brothers with inventing stories such as I had read. Having, as I suppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this soon became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately my brothers were always fond of encouraging this propensity, ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... fare thee well," he added, pressing Roger's hand. "If this proposed expedition to sea be carried out, you will witness strange sights and things of which you little dream at present, and you will come back, I hope, well able to amuse us two old men in our solitude with ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... proceedings commence. My case is sure to be pretty far down on the list—the secretary takes, I believe, a malicious pleasure in watching my impatience—and before it is called the justices have to retire at least once for refreshments and cigarettes. I have to amuse myself by listening to the other cases, and some of them, I can assure you, are amusing enough. The walls of that room must be by this time pretty well saturated with perjury, and many of the witnesses catch at once the infection. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... illumined by a brilliant sun, in which he strove himself to perceive and to make others recognize his star, did not amuse him. To the sullen silence of inanimate Moscow was superadded that of the surrounding deserts, and the still more menacing silence of Alexander. It was not the faint sound of the footsteps of our soldiers ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... restored, if not to his bright original sphere, at least to a higher grade than that to which Philip was himself condemned. But poor Sidney could not bear to be thus left alone—to lose sight of his brother from daybreak till bed-time—to have no one to amuse him; he fretted and pined away: all the little inconsiderate selfishness, uneradicated from his breast by his sufferings, broke out the more, the more he felt that he was the first object on earth ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... harmless stories that have tickled the imagination of Japanese children during untold generations, may amuse the big and little folks of America, the writer invites his readers, in the language of the native host as he points to the chopsticks and spread table, O agari nasai W.E.G. SCHENECTADY, N.Y., ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... stands to reason that the farmers like to amuse themselves through the silent and white winters. And they prefer above all things to talk or to listen, as has been the fashion of their race for a thousand years. Among all the story-tellers there is none like Urda, for she is the ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... himself, "if Fin's baby is so big, what must Fin himself be!"—and became so frightened that he turned and hurried back home, much quicker than he came. It is a foolish little tradition, but I have related it as a specimen of the stories which are told to amuse the ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... If Madame Laurin were to see it, she'd likely want it. She makes a hobby of collecting dolls all over the world, but I doubt if she has in her collection a doll that served to amuse a little girl four thousand years ago in the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... built a wall about the city, and erected the permanent buildings on the great forum. These works involved vast labor and expense, and must have been very burdensome to the people. Like other oppressive monarchs, Tarquinius planned games and festivities to amuse them. He enlarged the Circus Maximus, and imported boxers and horses from his native country to perform at games there, which were afterwards celebrated annually. Besides these victories of peace, this king conquered the people about him, and greatly added to the number ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... observation, commanding as it did a wide view of lawns and terraces. "As for you, Mr. Beverley," continued the Duchess, with her most imperious air, "you may bring a seat—here, beside me,—and help the Captain to amuse me." ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... addresses are delivered, seems to me to be a terrible room to speak in, and I mean to nurse my energies all Monday. I sent you a cutting from one of the papers containing an account of me that will amuse you. The writer is evidently disappointed that I am ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... reputation to his pretensions, Zoroaster first retired to a cave, and there lived a long time as a recluse, pretending to be abstracted from all earthly considerations, and to be given wholly to prayer and divine meditations; and the more to amuse the people who there resorted to him, he dressed up his cave with several mystical figures, representing Mithra, and other mysteries of their religion. In this cave he wrote his book, called Zendavesta, or Zend, meaning "fire-kindler," or "tinder-box." This book contains much borrowed ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... the book contain! How terribly unequal does it appear to me! From time to time the author plainly reels to and fro like a drunken man. And, when I had done all, what had I done? Written a book to amuse boys and girls in their vacant hours, a story to be hastily gobbled up by them, swallowed in a pusillanimous and unanimated mood, without chewing and digestion. I was in this respect greatly impressed with the confession of one of the most accomplished ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... habits in which he had been trained, in consequence of the necessity of stillness during Sir Edmund's long illness. It was more natural to him to shut the door quietly than to bang it, to speak than to shout, and to amuse himself tranquilly in the house than to make a great uproar. He was courteous, too, and obliging; and though Lionel and Johnny were in consequence inclined to regard him as a "carpet knight so trim," the ladies ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... girl, with your external things! You want to know what is going on around me, and where and when and how I live and amuse myself? Just look around you, on the chair beside you, in your arms, close to your heart—that is where I am. Does not a ray of longing strike you, creep up with sweet warmth to your heart, until it reaches your mouth, where it would ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... demeanour of her spouse, because she was a virgin in mind, and in marriage she saw only that which is visible to the eyes of young girls—namely dresses, banquets, horses, to be a lady and mistress, to have a country seat, to amuse oneself and give orders; so, like the child that she was, she played with the gold tassels on the bed, and marvelled at the richness of the shrine in which her innocence should be interred. Feeling, a little later in the day, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... contemplate at the same time the many circumstances that might either allure or deter him from the prosecution of his idea. Consider him as a private gentleman, possessed of ease and independence, accustomed to employ and amuse his mind in retired study and philosophical speculation; arrived at that period of life, when the springs of activity and enterprize in the human frame have begun to lose their force! consider that his health, ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... "cannot you let that child alone? I told you to amuse him; and instead of doing so, you seem to delight in teazing him ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... place Polexander was a romance, but it was not like the romances in this book, for it was dreadfully long, and mainly about the sorrows of lovers who cannot get married. That could not amuse a small boy. In the second place, every boy should stop reading a book as soon as he finds that he does not like it, just as you are not expected to eat more mutton than you want to eat. Lesson books are another ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... school for two winters. Up there in the mountains there was no school in the summer-time; for then the teacher had his field to cultivate, and his hay and wood to cut, like everybody else, and nobody had time to think of going to school. This was not a great sorrow for Rico,—he knew how to amuse himself. When he had once taken his place in the morning on the threshold, he would stand there for hours without moving, gazing into the far distance with dreamy eyes, if the door of the house over the way did not open, and a little girl make her appearance and look ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... describes them,) there is not any particular rite belonging to that art more fully attested by histories of all ages than this is. Besides, who doth not know that it is the devil's fashion (we shall meet with it afterwards again) to amuse his servants and vassals with many rites and ceremonies, which have certainly no ground in nature, no relation or sympathy to the thing, as for other reasons, so to make them believe, they have a great hand in the production of such and such ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... strolled, and by and by started to amuse themselves with pot-shot drives from the old tee. The Major whacked his ball across to a neat lie time after time. Farrell muffed and foozled, wasting his substance in riotous slogging. The height of the cliff, maybe, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... receives the num'rous shoals Of such as pay to be reputed fools; Globes stand by globes, volumes on volumes lie, And planetary schemes amuse the eye. The sage in velvet chair here lolls at ease, To promise future health for present fees; Then, as from tripod, solemn shams reveals, And what the stars know nothing of foretells. Our manufactures now they merely sell, And their true value treacherously ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... They amuse all their leisure hours, including the greater portion of their lives, with the repetition of songs which are, for the most part, proverbs illustrated, or figures of speech applied to the occurrences of life. Some that they rehearse, in ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... ever went wrong about our place to home to Slickville, she'd always say, 'Well, Sam, it might have been worse;' or, 'Sam, the darkest hour is always just afore day,' and so on. But Minister used to amuse me beyond anything, poor old soul. Once the congregation met and raised his wages from three to four hundred dollars a-year. Well, it nearly set him crazy; it bothered him so he could hardly sleep. So after church ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... principal agents should not be called by their regular names.' This last remark, indeed, is obvious. To return to the Norse riddle of the Dark One that swallows wood and water. It would never do in a riddle to call the Dark One by his ordinary name, 'Mist.' You would not amuse a rural audience by asking 'What is the mist that swallows wood and water?' That would be even easier than Mr. Burnand's ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... commands to dine with the illustrious company below stairs. And when Sir Huddleston had, with great pomp and ceremony, handed Miss Crawley in to dinner, and was preparing to take his place by her side, the old lady cried out, in a shrill voice, "Becky Sharp! Miss Sharp! Come you and sit by me and amuse me; and let Sir Huddleston ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was anything for him to learn with regard to a cause, he not only sought for it with pains but with a manifest pleasure similar to that delight in judicial work which caused the French Advocate, Cottu, to say of Mr. Justice Bayley: "Il s'amuse a juger:" but notwithstanding these good qualities, he was often culpably deficient in respect for the opinions of his subordinate coadjutors. At times a vain desire to impress on the minds of spectators that his intellect was the paramount power ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... in years. I addressed him, saying, 'O ancient sir, whose may be this garden?' and he replied, 'It belongs to the King's daughter, the Lady Dunya. We are now beneath her palace and, when she is minded to amuse herself, she openeth the private wicket and walketh in the garden and smelleth the fragrance of the flowers.' So I said to him, 'Favour me by allowing me to sit in this garden till she come; haply I may enjoy a sight of her as she passeth.' The Shaykh answered, 'There can be no ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... do it to win the game, Miss van Huysman," he replied with a gentle smile; "I only desired to amuse you and the other guests of Professor Marmion. Now, it may be that some excellent but ignorant people here may think that that ball is bewitched, as they would call it, so if you will give it to me, I will ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... she thinks I'll amuse her some more!" he thought, savagely, as they galloped away through ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... hold out no inducement, you offer no relief from listlessness, you provide nothing to amuse his mind, you afford him no means of exercising his body. Unwashed and unshaven, he saunters moodily about, weary and dejected. In lieu of the wholesome stimulus he might derive from nature, you drive him to the pernicious excitement to be gained from ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... write the record of my life, it is not because it deserves attention, but in order to amuse myself by my recollections. My story is just the opposite of the ordinary romance, wherein a girl brought up as a peasant becomes an illustrious princess; for I was treated in childhood as a person of distinction, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... much of a crowd along," he said. "If anything comes of it you can visit the place later. At present you had better try to amuse yourselves around the town. And do try to keep out of trouble," he ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... was speaking so quickly that he stammered, and was utterly unable to articulate the word "suffering." In the end he pronounced it "thuffering." She wanted to laugh, and was immediately ashamed that anything could amuse her at such a moment. And for the first time, for an instant, she felt for him, put herself in his place, and was sorry for him. But what could she say or do? Her head sank, and she sat silent. He too was silent for some time, and then began speaking in a frigid, less ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... entreaties, however urgent, on the part of his subjects, could induce the Elector to risk the remainder of his army to the chances of a battle. Shut up in Ratisbon, he awaited the reinforcements which Wallenstein was bringing from Bohemia; and endeavoured, in the mean time, to amuse his enemy and keep him inactive, by reviving the negociation for a neutrality. But the King's distrust, too often and too justly excited by his previous conduct, frustrated this design; and the intentional delay of Wallenstein ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... tickle Timmy's toes Or roughly smite his baby cheek— And now she 'd rudely tweak his nose And other petty vengeance wreak; And then, with hobnails in her shoes And her two horrid eyes aflame, The mare proceeded to amuse Herself by prancing o'er his frame—- First to his throbbing brow, and then Back to his little ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... to manhood. Let every man who tries to answer it seriously, ask himself whether he can be satisfied with the Baal of authority, and with all the good things his worshippers are promised in this world and the next. If he can, let him, if he be so inclined, amuse himself with such scientific implements as authority tells him are safe and will not cut his fingers; but let him not imagine he is, or can be, both a true son of the Church and a loyal soldier ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... in that language: "What I have, Senor, I owe entirely to Carlos here. He may perhaps have told you that we two used to amuse ourselves by teaching each other our respective tongues. But I am afraid I was rather a dull scholar; and if my Spanish is only half as good as Carlos's English I shall ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... safely landed, left Nicholas and the boys standing with the luggage in the road, to amuse themselves by looking at the coach as it changed horses, while he ran into the tavern and went through the leg-stretching process at the bar. After some minutes, he returned, with his legs thoroughly stretched, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Marescotti, gradually waking up to some social energy, "I have been talking only of myself! Talking of myself in your presence, ladies!—What can we do to amuse your niece, marchesa? Lucca is horribly dull. If she is to go neither to festivals nor to balls, it will not be possible for her to ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... deep study of that. I am much too old for such a thing, and it is only in self- defence that I still work sometimes at the piano in view of the incessant botherations and indiscretions of a heap of people who imagine that nothing would be more flattering to me than to amuse them!— ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... herself, What am I doing in this matter? How do I keep the Sabbath myself? God asks for the whole day; do I give it to Him, or do I spend the best of its hours in bed? Am I careful not to please myself on the Lord's Day, or do I think it no shame to amuse myself on that day as I choose, by travelling, by light reading, or by any other means that I have within my disposal? Am I anxious to dedicate the day wholly and entirely to God, setting it apart entirely for His service, and looking upon it as ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... age are received, whose parents both go daily to work, and who would be left to wander about the streets unless this place of refuge were opened to them. The creche, or day home, seeks only to watch over the infants who are put in its care, or to amuse them and keep them contented; the waiting-school goes further, and tries to give the little ones some ideas of discipline and the elementary beginnings of instruction. Fliedner, who was a lover of children, took great interest ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... professors; so his father sent him with a lamp of gold and a large sum of money which he was to offer to the Madonna. As he was on his way he felt tired [it must be remembered that the railway was not opened till 1886], so he sat down under a tree and began to amuse himself by counting the treasure. Hardly had he begun to count when he was attacked by four desperate assassins, who with pistols and poignards did their very utmost to despoil him, but it was not the smallest use. One of the assassins ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... nothing of the kind, and who take no real interest in anything except spending money and gossiping, are to be really pitied, is true. Some of them once had minds—and these are the most pitiful or pitiable of all. It is to be regretted that novels are, with rare exceptions, written to amuse this class, and limit themselves strictly to "life," never describing with real skill, so as to interest anything which would make life worth living for—except love—which is good to a certain extent, ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... after another, and other ladies, till about thirty people were assembled. Mr Palliser came up and spoke another word to Alice in a kind voice,—meant to express some sense of connection if not cousinship. "My wife has been thinking so much of your coming. I hope we shall be able to amuse you." Alice, who had already begun to feel desolate, was grateful, and made up her mind that she would try to ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... and the next he would be visited with a violent flow of spirits, to which he could only give vent by incessant laughing, whistling, and telling stories. When other resources failed, we used to amuse ourselves by tormenting him; a fair compensation for the trouble he cost us. Tete Rouge rather enjoyed being laughed at, for he was an odd compound of weakness, eccentricity, and good-nature. He made a figure worthy of a painter as he paced along before ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... itself by flying backwards and forwards, taking a shell alternately from each side, and carrying it through the archway in its mouth." These curious structures, formed solely as halls of assemblage, where both sexes amuse themselves and pay their court, must cost the birds much labour. The bower, for instance, of the Fawn-breasted species, is nearly four feet in length, eighteen inches in height, and is raised on ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... a hair of your head," Thorn ran on, following a vein which seemed to amuse him, for he smiled, a horrible, face-drawing contortion of a smile, "for if you and me ever had a fallin' out over money I might git so hard up I couldn't travel, and one of them sheriff fellers might ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... one of which, the Armor and the Skeleton, I see is printed in the February Number. I have just sent them a long Tale, called the Onyx Ring, which cost me a good deal of trouble; and the extravagance of which, I think, would amuse you; but its length may prevent its appearance in Blackwood. If so, I think I should make a volume of it. I have also written some poems, and shall probably publish the ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... they put the dishes on a carpet of Turkey leather, and sit round it on the floor, eating, with wooden spoons, meat and rice stewed together, called pilau. They are not allowed to drink wine, or eat pork. A favourite diversion with them is playing on a kind of lute, and sometimes they amuse themselves with chess, draughts, and other games; but their principal amusement, like some of my little friends, is to sit and listen to stories, told by men who earn their livelihood by relating ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... finally, pausing before me, his hat on. "Would you like to relax your mind by a little excursion among the curio shops of the city? I know something about Japanese curios—more, perhaps, than I do of Mexican. It may amuse us, even if it doesn't help in solving the mystery. Meanwhile, I shall make arrangements for shadowing Bernardo. I want to know just how he acts after he ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Sponge, turning again to Leather; 'just go upstairs and help me to pack up my things; and,' addressing himself to our visitor, he said, 'perhaps you'll amuse yourself with the paper—the Post—or I'll lend you my Mogg,' continued he, offering the little gilt-lettered, purple-backed volume as ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... other forces at work, and these serious natives tell you that nothing can now stop the progress of the task they are engaged in and that the days of the sultan are numbered. We believed in their sincerity and determination, and wished them every success. As a wind-up it will perhaps amuse the reader to note the high-sounding list of titles that the sultan—this "cutpurse and king of shreds and patches"—has given to himself. Here they are, all fresh roasted, with a few added words to fill in the ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... had said to amuse him; but he evaded the question, as Janet was evidently listening. Later on, when the former was at the piano, and he pretending to turn over, he whispered,—"I wonder under whose window I was making such a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... said my sculler; "you will drop into my place, and if you find it too much, there is George Brightling on the look out for a stroke of work, and he lives close handy to you. But see, here is a stranger who is willing to amuse me to-day by taking me as his guide about our country-side, and you may imagine I don't want to lose the opportunity; so you had better take to the boat at once. But in any case I shouldn't have kept you out of it for long, since I am due ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... literary facts or incidents with which one individual, in a somewhat extended reading, has been struck; some of the passages which he has admired; some of the anecdotes and jests that have amused him and may amuse others; some of the reminiscences that it has most pleased him to dwell upon. For no very great portion of the contents of this volume, is the claim to originality of subject-matter advanced. The collection, however, is submitted with some confidence that it may be found as interesting, ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... hieroglyphic state-machine, Contrived to punish fancy in! Men that are men in thee can feel no pain, And all thy insignificants disdain. Contempt, that false new word for shame, Is, without crime, an empty name, A shadow to amuse mankind, But never frights the wise or well-fixed mind: Virtue despises human scorn, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... quiet periods the members of the American escadrille were sometimes hard pushed for ways in which to pass the time away, and amuse themselves. Inaction fretted most of them, since they were endowed with that restless spirit which seems to be the ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... through the streets, and the crackers and flags amused me like a child. Still it is very foolish to be merry on a fixed date, by a Government decree. The populace is an imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious revolt. Say to it: "Amuse yourself," and it amuses itself. Say to it: "Go and fight with your neighbor," and it goes and fights. Say to it: "Vote for the Emperor," and it votes for the Emperor, and then say to it: "Vote for the Republic," and it votes for ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... dearie, good-bye till next I see you, and don't be doleful in that big house by yourself. Your uncle will soon be well, and nurse will be better able to see after you. I don't know what all those servants are after that they can't amuse you a bit." ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... things never mend! Are the good old times, and the good old international hatreds, gone by for ever? Shall we never again have a thorough, seasonable, wholesome, continental war? This place (Vienna) would be worth fighting for, if one had the chance. I sometimes amuse myself by planning a siege, when I ride round the fortifications, as is ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... Warren, coming again to the window and laughing at my crimson face and embarrassment, "you must face that truth—there's no escaping it. Forgive me, Mr. Yocomb, for laughing over so serious a subject, but Reuben and Mr. Morton amuse me greatly. Mr. Morton already says that any tramp from New York would have done the same. By easy transition he will soon begin to insist that it was some other ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... don't stick to my friends and bore them with my affairs like that egotistical hussy, Jane Bazalgette. I amuse myself, and leave them to amuse themselves; that is my notion of politeness. I am going to see my pigs fed, then into the village. I am building a new blacksmith's shop there (you must come and look at it the first thing ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... long voyage, took with him a Monkey to amuse him while on shipboard. As he sailed off the coast of Greece, a violent tempest arose in which the ship was wrecked and he, his Monkey, and all the crew were obliged to swim for their lives. A Dolphin saw the ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... things terminate as they may, either I will keep my word, or never again will cross the threshold of your palace. I have discovered some traces of the miscreant, and I trust that I shall amuse you to-morrow, at this time and in this place, with the representation of a comedy; but should it prove a tragedy instead, ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... Woods! That—that was queer, wasn't it?" she asked, with a listless little shiver. "Yes, it was very queer. You didn't think of me in quite that way, did you? No, you—you thought I was well enough to amuse you for a while. I was well enough for a summer flirtation, wasn't I, Billy? But marriage—ah, no, you never thought of marriage then. You ran away when Uncle Fred suggested that. You refused point-blank—refused in this very room—didn't ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... influence that Cosimo was placed at the head of the Florentine Republic with the title of Duke. Cosimo was but a boy, and much addicted to field sports. Guicciardini therefore reckoned that, with an assured income of 12,000 ducats, the youth would be contented to amuse himself, while he left the government of Florence in the hands of his Vizier.[9] But here the wily politician overreached himself. Cosimo wore an old head on his young shoulders. With decent modesty and a becoming show of deference, he used Guicciardini ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... assign to every man a satisfactory function in life. The vivid realisation of history goes naturally with a love—excessive or reasonable—of the old order; and Scott, though writing carelessly to amuse idle readers, was stimulating the historical conceptions, which, for whatever reason, were most uncongenial to the Utilitarian as ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... trifles, because you say that they amuse you,—and yet I wonder how they should. I remember, in our stolen voyages to the world of fiction, you always admired the grand and the romantic—tales of knights, dwarfs, giants, and distressed damsels, soothsayers, visions, beckoning ghosts, and ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... right, I came to cliffs. The nearer I drew to them, the farther up I could see, but I could never see to the top. It used to amuse me to move this area of consciousness about to see what I could find. Actual physical suffering was beginning to dull, and my head seemed ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... that in England," I said. "There the real people—the people who have the right to make social laws, you know—are delighted with anyone who can amuse them. Of course, deep down in our hearts, we may be proud if we have old names, which have been famous for hundreds of years in one way or another; but we are so used, after all those centuries, to being sure of ourselves, that we just take our position for granted, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... already at the Nile-side, preparing to return to Memphis. To Rachel it seemed as if she had been set free for a moment, that her efforts to escape and her inevitable capture might amuse her tormentor. And after the manner of the miserable captive so beset, she seized upon the momentary release and sought to fly. The three little Hebrews clung to her—the one that had answered Har-hat weeping bitterly ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... man, and disbelieve in everything (8) which is not practical; theories (a) which amuse philosophers and pedants have no attractions for ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... at all and sundry who would make war upon the passengers, or attempt running the conveyance off the road; and, finally, as my friend Mr. Joss takes the "Principia" to his coach-top, I take pockets full of fossils to the top of mine, and amuse myself in fine days by working out, as I best can, the problems which they furnish. Yes, I rather think I am a coach-guard." And so, taking my seat beside my red-coated brother, who had guessed the true nature of my occupation so much more shrewdly than myself, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... stairs with her apples. To bestow them safely in her closet was her first care; the rest of the morning was spent in increasing weariness and listlessness. She had brought down her little hymn-book, thinking to amuse herself with learning a hymn, but it would not do; eyes and head both refused their part of the work; and when at last Mr. Van Brunt came in to a late dinner, he found Ellen seated flat on the hearth before the fire, her right arm curled round the hard wooden ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Walter Hale and George H. Mair, the last representing the British Foreign Office. As they approached the lines one shell from a four-inch gun burst within twenty-five yards of them, while others exploded only thirty or forty yards away. This incident seemed greatly to amuse the soldiers in the trenches, who laughed heartily at the embarrassment of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... son will go to sea—allowed him to have his own way, and for years he invariably accompanied the engine, now upon the machine, now under the horses' legs, and always, when going up-hill, running in advance, and announcing the welcome advent of the extinguisher by his bark. At the fire he used to amuse himself with pulling burning logs of wood out of the flames with his mouth. Although he had his legs broken half a dozen times, he remained faithful to his pursuit; till at last, having received a severer hurt than usual, he was being nursed by the firemen beside the hearth, ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... creeds and customs may amuse himself, however, with reminiscences like the preceding only in a sense of that proud historic retrospect which concerns past radiant records of "the street." He may, if so minded, con other pages of its noble archives, and dazzle his young brain with admiration for the shining exploits of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... in South Africa, and who has had natives working for and with him, tells me of this confusion of ideas among some of the more vulgar stamp of white colonists, who, my friend observes, amuse themselves by assuming a familiarity in intercourse with the natives, which works badly. It does not at all increase their respect for the white man, but quite the contrary, while it is as little calculated to produce ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... that I had a baby sister who could just toddle about on two legs, having previously gone on all-fours. One midsummer day she was taken up and put on a rug in the shade of a tree, twenty-five yards from the sitting-room door, and left alone there to amuse herself with her dolls and toys. After half an hour or so she appeared at the door of the sitting-room where her mother was at work, and standing there with wide-open astonished eyes and moving her hand and arm as if to point to the place she ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... she pressed him and her niece to make her an early visit. 'Change of place will amuse you,' said she, 'and it is wrong to give way to grief.' St. Aubert acknowledged the truth of these words of course; but, at the same time, felt more reluctant than ever to quit the spot which his past happiness had consecrated. The presence of his wife had sanctified every surrounding ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... parted accordingly; and while the Earl betook him to his pleasure voyage, Julian, as his friend had prophesied, assumed the dress of one who means to amuse himself with angling. The hat and feather were exchanged for a cap of grey cloth; the deeply-laced cloak and doublet for a simple jacket of the same colour, with hose conforming; and finally, with rod in hand, and pannier ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... and took her into their cave and hid her. Presently the mother bear came back and suckled her cubs, and when they had finished they asked their mother to leave them some of her hair that they might amuse themselves by plaiting it while she was away. She did so and directly she had gone off to look for food, the cubs gave the girl the hair and sent her home rejoicing. The sisters-in-law were only made more angry by her success and plotted how to kill her, so they ordered her to bring them some tiger's ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... Mythica, recalls at once Alice in Wonderland, but the lovers of Alice, who being attracted by this title may purchase this book under the impression that "it is the same concern," will soon find out their mistake, though it may perhaps amuse a very much younger generation who know not Alice, if such a generation exist, which muchly we beg to doubt. BARON DE BOOK-WORMS ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... sufficient number of victims to furnish forth pies for the supply of the whole mess during the ensuing fortnight. At length, however, all was said that could be said, even upon this interesting subject, and the narrator, casting his eyes around in search of wherewithal to amuse himself, chanced to espy my new writing-desk, a parting gift from my little sister Fanny, who, with the self-denial of true affection, had saved up her pocket-money during many previous months in order to provide funds for this ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... particularly well-informed in history and biography. Notwithstanding his remarkable frankness and all his oddities, his manners were engaging and polished: his conversation was original, energetic, and lively; he would often indulge in sallies of pleasantry to amuse the Empress, and as he was an excellent mimic, he would take off the uncouth manners and accents of some of the soldiers to the life. He had a dislike to writing, always asserting that a pen was an ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... waste the fire which remains in the breast. They, at least, who by their stations have a share in the government of their country, might believe themselves capable of business; and, while the state had its armies and councils, might find objects enough to amuse, without throwing a personal fortune into hazard, merely to cure the yawnings of a listless and insignificant life. It is impossible for ever to maintain the tone of speculation; it is impossible not sometimes to feel that we live ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... occasion to Taylor's Hotel was Miss Helen Josephine Mansfield. 'I went to Jersey,' testified this fair creature some weeks ago, in the suit which has just come to so tragical a termination, 'with the officers of the Erie Company, and the railroad paid all the expense.' Mr. Fisk could afford to amuse himself. He had made fifty or sixty thousand dollars by his day's work in Broad street, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had not only beaten Vanderbilt and Barnard, but outwitted even his particular friend and patron, Mr. Drew. He had now practically ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... time of love, When women like slaves were spurned, A maid gave her heart, as she would her glove, To be teased by a fop, and returned! But women grow wiser as men improve. And, tho' beaux, like monkeys, amuse us, Oh! think not we'd give such a delicate gem As the heart to be played with or sullied by them; No, dearest ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... passengers he performed all kinds of tricks; he balanced knives on his nose; he built up a pyramid of glasses and bottles with wonderful ingenuity; he sang new songs; he imitated the cries of various animals. In fact, Croustillac knew so well how to amuse the captain of the Unicorn, who was not very hard to please, that when supper was concluded the latter clapped the Gascon on the ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... "I amuse you, don't I? Well, I'm not always so all-fired funny," drawled the creature, lowering her head ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... his children were quite unhurt; these were Barbara (and she found quite enough occupation in waiting on her twin sister) and little Hugh, who sometimes wandered about after his father almost as disconsolate as himself, and sometimes helped to amuse Bertram, showing him pictures, while Miss Christie told him tales. Master Bertram Mortimer, having reached the ripe age of nine years, had come to the conclusion that it was muffish—like a cad, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... dreary surroundings filled my mind for a long time after we drove away, and it was only when we halted and a soldier got down to kill a great rattlesnake near the ambulance, that my thoughts were diverted. The man brought the rattles to us and the new toy served to amuse ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... the editors was "the mind t'improve and yet amuse;" and the fair sex, who are supposed to have received the proposals for the work with "extraordinary marks of applause," are assured that "the greatest deference shall be paid to their literary communications," and they are promised month by ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... again. I write now merely to ask, if you have Naravelia (666/1. Ranunculaceae.) (the Clematis-like plant told me by Oliver), to try and propagate me a plant at once. Have you Clematis cirrhosa? It will amuse me to tell you why Clematis interests me, and why I should so very much like to have Naravelia. The leaves of Clematis have no spontaneous movement, nor have the internodes; but when by growth the peduncles of leaves are brought into contact ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... she was covered with so thick a coating of dirt that it could be taken off in scales, I obtained her assent to wash her face and hands a little before noon. The man and his daughter now came to my table to look at some things I had laid out to amuse them; and, after a few minutes, Shega lifted up the curtain to look at her mother, when she again let it fall, and tremblingly told us ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, that he did the whole business of the republic and yet had time left to go to assemblies in the evening and sup in company. Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did, he answered there was nothing so easy, for that it was only doing one thing at a time, and never putting off anything till to-morrow that could be done to-day. This steady and undissipated attention ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... John Richardson to the Arctic shores, which suggests the above Query, also gives rise to another. Did any of your readers ever amuse themselves, as children, by performing the dance known as kutchin kutchu-ing; which consists in jumping about with the legs bent in a sitting posture? If so, have they not been struck with a philological mania, on seeing ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... Wentzel who is an excellent musician and assisted us (con amore) in our attempts to amuse the men we were enabled to gratify the whole establishment with an occasional dance. Of this amusement the voyagers were very fond and not the less so as it was now and then accompanied by a dram as long as ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... behind that warty skin, but I was not sure I wanted to hear it. For the next round of drinks would be on me, and shchikh was a hundred and fifty credits a shot. Still, a man on a Moon assignment has to amuse himself somehow. ...
— Show Business • William C. Boyd
... sisters grew peevish, cross, and miserable. They would not work, and as they had nothing else to amuse them, the days dragged along, and seemed as if they would never end. They did nothing but regret the past and bewail the present. As they had no one to admire them, they did not care how they looked, and were as dirty and neglected in appearance as Beauty ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... to receive appointments to public office, and thus rapidly increased his influence and power. Public officers and candidates for office were accustomed in those days to expend great sums of money in shows and spectacles to amuse the people. Caesar went beyond all limits in these expenditures. He brought gladiators from distant provinces, and trained them at great expense, to fight in the enormous amphitheaters of the city, in the midst of vast assemblies of men. Wild beasts were procured also ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... desires were excited, and but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about in consecrated and unconsecrated places, and the consequences were ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... at Duluth was protracted many days. One finds himself at home in this new Western city, and there are a thousand ways in which to amuse yourself. If you are disposed for a walk, there are any number of delightful woodpaths leading to famous bits of beach where you may sit and dream the livelong day without fear of interruption or notice. If you would try camping-out, there are guides and canoes right at your ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... before mentioned, may be farther illustrated by the following fact, which occurred a few years ago, near Great Egg Harbour, New Jersey. A woman, who happened to be weeding in the garden, had set her child down near, to amuse itself while she was at work; when a sudden and extraordinary rushing sound, and a scream from her child, alarmed her, and starting up, she beheld the infant thrown down, and dragged some few feet, and a large bald eagle bearing off a fragment of its frock, which being the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... more useful and pleasant amusement than that of "Carpentering." Every boy should be able to do little jobs with the plane and chisel; for whether he may turn out a gentleman or a poor man, it will be of great use to him. If a gentleman, he can amuse himself with it, and if a poor man, it will be of essential service to be able to put up a row of palings in his garden, to make a gate, to build a pig-stye, to make and fix up shelves, build out-houses, and perform sundry odd jobs ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... passing it to the best advantage. Perhaps in rational philosophy none could be better chosen than this scheme of migration, which would draw us from the immediate scene of our woe, and, leading us through pleasant and picturesque countries, amuse for a time our despair. The idea once broached, all were impatient to put it ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... could go on much longer, but I don't choose. I write to amuse myself, and also to instruct, and when I am tired, I stop. I see no reason why I should exhaust the subject. I should only be giving my ideas to people who have none, who make a reputation out of other folks' brains, who pounce on anything that they find ready to their ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... work here don't suit you," I began; but he snaps in, "It ain't a question o' work. If you amuse her you're worth more to me'n any other ten men; but I have some rights. I want to ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... some means of escaping from my tower, and was not long in devising the means for the execution of my project: I begged the fairies to bring me a netting-needle, a mesh, and some cord, saying I wished to make some nets to amuse myself with catching birds at my window. This they readily complied with, and in a short time I completed a ladder long enough to reach to the ground. I now sent my parrot to the prince, to beg he would come to the usual place, as I wished to speak with him. He did not fail; and ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... at all to our taste." Theodore Tilton in the Congregationalist paper, The Independent, commented in his usual facetious style, which pinned him down neither to praise nor unfriendliness, but Susan was grateful to read, "The Revolution from the start will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex, and non-plus its friends. But it will command attention: it will conquer a hearing." Newspapers were generally friendly. "Miss Anthony's woman's rights paper," declared the Troy (New York) Times, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... why he is coming. It's too cold to meander around outdoors these nights, and so we shall have to amuse ourselves inside as best ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... woman gave him further to understand that though it was absolutely the same to her whom he married, yet she had decided to prevent this marriage—for no particular reason, but that she chose to do so, and because she wished to amuse herself at his expense for that it was "quite her turn to laugh a ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to amuse myself," he said, pouring out a glass for himself and emptying it. "Drink," he said, pushing a ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... herself. Vernon exerted himself to amuse her. But he was surprised to find that he was not so happy as he had expected to be. It was good that Betty had permitted him to dine with her alone, but it was flat. After dinner he took her to the Odeon, and she said good-night to him with a lighter heart than she ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Chrysagere. Its back was covered with a shell of gold set with very small blue, pink, and yellow topazes. Oh, how beautiful it was, and how droll! It used to wander round my flat, accompanied by a smaller tortoise named Zerbinette, which was its servant, and I used to amuse myself for hours watching Chrysagere, flashing with a hundred lights under the rays of the sun or the moon. Both my ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... favourite was a daughter, Margaret, born in Rouen, who acted as his amanuensis. At last, through the intercession of his brother-in-law, Scroope, he was permitted to return to England. This was on the 13th of January 1652. During all his residence on the Continent, he had continued to amuse himself with poetry, "in which," says Johnson, "he sometimes speaks of the rebels and their usurpation, in the natural language of an honest man." If this mean that Waller, when he uttered such sentiments, was, for the nonce, sincere, it is quite true; but if the Doctor means that ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... no perception of the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with phantoms ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... poor little soul was quite good, but its parents thought it would be nice to preserve its howls; so they pinched it and made it cry. Mean, I call it! Imagine her feelings when she is grown up, and this wretched thing is wound up to amuse strangers. So degrading! Parents ought to consider their children's feelings. I read an awful story once of a girl who was looking over old magazines with some friends, and she came upon a photograph of herself as an advertisement of Infants' Food! If that had happened ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... unpleasant was said of me except that I was a coward. Aiken, of course, kindly retold these stories to me, either with the preface that he thought I ought to know what was being said of me, or that he thought the stories would amuse me. I thanked him and pretended to laugh, but I felt more like punching his head. People who say that women are gossips, and that they delight in tearing each other to pieces, ought to hear the talk of big, broad- shouldered men around camp-fires. If you believe what they say, you would think ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... a piece of news of the greatest importance. Prince Jerome Radziwill, the standard bearer of Lithuania, is preparing a grand hunt to amuse the king and the prince royal. He is expending the most enormous sums to surpass everything of the kind hitherto seen. He has filled his park with all kinds of game, brought expressly from the forests of Lithuania. The hunt ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... friendships with children began in a railway carriage, for he always took about with him a stock of puzzles when he travelled, to amuse any little companions whom chance might send him. Once he was in a carriage with a lady and her little daughter, both complete strangers to him. The child was reading "Alice in Wonderland," and when she put her book down, he began talking to her about it. The mother ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... the course of my peregrinations about the great city, it is hard, if I have not picked up matter, which may serve to amuse thee, as it has done me, a winter evening long. When next we meet, I purpose opening ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... his headquarters at Boetzenburg, on the northern bank of the Elbe. In order to amuse himself he sent for Dr. Gall, who was at Hamburg, where he delivered lectures on his system of phrenology, which was rejected in the beginning by false science and prejudice, and afterwards adopted in consequence of arguments, in my opinion, unanswerable. I had the pleasure of living some ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... at least which might favor his projects, and which, at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of life: whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with him might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... perhaps the reader answers, "it is vain to hope that this could ever be. The perfect beauty of the ideal must always be fictitious. It is rational to amuse ourselves with the fair imagination; but it would be madness to endeavor to put it into practice, in the face of the ordinances of Nature. Real shepherdesses must always be rude, and real peasants miserable; suffer us to turn away our gentle eyes from their coarseness and their pain, and to seek ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... every one takes up to beat his neighbor and not for application to his own back. Come, now! who the devil are you angry with? In one day chance has worked a miracle for you, a miracle for which I have been waiting these two years, and you must needs amuse yourself by finding fault with the means? What! you appear to me to possess intelligence; you seem to be in a fair way to reach that freedom from prejudice which is a first necessity to intellectual adventurers in the world we live in; and are you wallowing in scruples worthy of a nun ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... action. It forgets that once we were young men, strong, impetuous, daring. It forgets what we did; but that has always been so. It always will be so. John Hanson, retired Commander of the Special Patrol Service, is fit only to amuse the present generation with his ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... Col. William Cody, generally known as "Buffalo Bill." They do not reflect that it is just because the social gap between the two is so irretrievably vast and so universally recognised that the duchesses can afford to amuse themselves cursorily with any eccentricity that offers itself. As Pomona's husband put it, people in England are like types with letters at one end and can easily be sorted out of a state of "pi," while Americans are theoretically ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... to sit up with you till She comes home," said Maria, "and we might as well amuse ourselves." She began to read, and Harry listened happily. But Maria, whenever she glanced over her book at her father's happy face, felt ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... looked up at her husband for sympathy. He was reading a letter of his own, and its contents seemed to amuse him, for he ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... as the saddle was cinched, she spread her legs apart, bracing them firmly as though about to receive the weight of an iron safe. Then as each article of the pack was thrown across her back, she flinched and uttered the most heart-rending groans. We used sometimes to amuse ourselves by adding merely an empty sack, or other article quite without weight. The groans and tremblings of the braced legs were quite as pitiful as though we had piled on a sack of flour. Dinkey, I had forgotten to state, was a white horse, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... society people often believed they could not amuse themselves better than by voluntarily submitting to the most severe despotism of an external constraint, in order to allow the utmost latitude to personal whims. Herein lies the colossal humor, the deep ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... of this extraordinary language, some of the names of the Basque towns may amuse and surprise the reader; perhaps, in the Marquesas islands, lately taken possession of by the French, they may find some sounds which to Basque sailors, of which a ship's crew is almost certain to have many, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... believe that we have a right to laugh at Amyas's scheme as frantic and chimerical. It is easy to amuse ourselves with the premises, after the conclusion has been found for us. We know, now, that he was mistaken: but we have not discovered his mistake for ourselves, and have no right to plume ourselves on other men's discoveries. Had we lived in Amyas's ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... vain that her mother told her that Charley's story would amuse her twice as much when she should read it printed; it was in vain that Mrs. Woodward assured her that Charley should come up to her room door; and hear her thanks as he stood in the passage, with the door ajar. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... afterward, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with that caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people was cooking their dinners—cooking their dinners, and ... what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot's beard, and we all laughed—fit to die. Little ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... thoughts are suggested by seeing a face of country quite familiar, in the rapid movement of the rail-road car! Nay, the most wonted objects, (make a very slight change in the point of vision,) please us most. In a camera obscura, the butcher's cart, and the figure of one of our own family amuse us. So a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us. Turn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Mrs. Kent; "you sit there, next to Mr. Kent, where you can talk about archaeology. Mr. Carter tells me he knows nothing about such subjects, so he will have to amuse Kathleen and me." ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... and novelty of the scenes in which I was involved did not fail considerably to amuse me, and my mind gradually recovered its tone, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... details were given to amuse his young sisters at home,—the beings he loved best on earth, not only at this time but throughout life. If he ever had any deeper love for another, there is no hint given of it in his life or letters. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... gentleman again, moving off, ‘you will please amuse yourself until I return’; but seeing me look wild, said, ‘You have seen too much of me to feel alarmed for your own safety. Take this imp for your guide, and if he is impertinent, put him through; and for fear the exhibitions may overcome your nerves, imbibe of this cordial,’ ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman |
