"Amused" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing all the grandees of the earth. He was not pained at seeing such eagerness in behalf of trifles that he had invented. He liked to fill his courtiers with raptures or with despair, by a smile or a frown. He thought his sisters' ambition childish, but it amused him; and if they had to cry a little at first, he finally granted them what ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... Martinprez on horseback, and saluted; of course, he returned my greeting most graciously. But I was not a little amused, and could hardly help laughing, when the young Hiberno-Maltese tatterdemalion took off his dirty cap with a flourish to the General, simultaneously with my salute, as if he had been my confidential friend, ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... Grace, with an amused smile. "That doesn't worry me. She has repeated that performance so often that I ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... discussing our favorite characters in history, just as you and I used to do at Bellisle, and David was very much amused when I told him that those I most admired were Aristides, St. Paul, and General Washington. His favorites are Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Washington. So we agree about one of them, but differ widely as to the other two. David absolutely laughed when I mentioned St. Paul with ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... fancy upon one of these creatures, lie in wait for it, beset it with kindness, persevere in overcoming its wildness. You are amused, delighted, proud of your success. One day—you remember?—it sang as you had always wished to hear it. It annoyed you, and you threw a stone at it. With a little less angry aim you would have killed it. I have never seen anything more inhuman. How do I know that some day ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... a wonderful thing, Warren," he continued, addressing the boy he named, "when you started the Boy Scout movement over here. Well I remember the day I told my people about it. They were amused. They called it one of the crazy plans of the Americans. They were afraid to have me join. They were afraid that I would get into trouble with the government. Everything is so strictly watched. But they were so glad to have me have a good chance to learn the American language, ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... ha! ha!—ho! ho! ho!" roared our visiter, profoundly amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... dressed. But he had a wonderfully pleasant voice in speaking, with the smile of a happy and phenomenally innocent boy, and his bright brown eyes had the most guileless expression in the world. At the present time it amused him to be Queen Christina's favourite, perhaps because she was a genuine queen, or possibly because her cold-blooded murder of Monaldeschi was still so fresh in every one's memory that there was a spice of danger in the situation; but in any case he was prepared for ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... glorying in the prospect of unlimited wealth, presented a startling contrast in more ways than one to the poverty-stricken old man whose curious garb and lonely habits had made him an object of ridicule to half the town. I own that I was half amused and half awed by the condescending bow with which he greeted my offhand nod and the affable ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... long time as the lagoon should remain frozen, and the ice became a scene of the liveliest traffic, and was everywhere covered with sledges, bringing the produce of the country to the capital, and carrying away its stuffs in return. The Venetians of every class amused themselves in visiting this free mart, and the gentler and more delicate sex pressed eagerly forward to traverse with their feet a space hitherto passable only in gondolas. [Footnote: Origine delle Feste Veneziane, di Giustina Renier-Michiel] The lagoon remained frozen, and these pleasures ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... devils down yonder behind the swamp," she would whisper, warningly, when, after the first meeting, he had crept back again and again, half fascinated, half amused to greet her; "I'se seen 'em, I'se heard 'em, 'cause my ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... fire-eating act. "If I told you that I actually swallowed blazing fire, any physician would know that I was not telling the truth. I do not really eat the fire. I only seem to do so. But if in doing so I can deceive you into thinking I do, and you are thrilled and amused, you get your money's worth, I earn mine, and we are all satisfied. So don't be alarmed ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... and the world seemed lighter. Sommers looked at his companion more closely and appreciatively. Her tone of irony, of amused and impartial spectatorship, entertained him. Would he, caught like this, wedged into an iron system, take it so lightly, accept it so humanly? It was the best the world held out for her: to be permitted to remain in the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... manner of growth. The pine and hemlock and fir were easily learnt; the white birch too; beyond those at first she was perpetually confounding one with another. Mr. Van Brunt had to go over and over his instructions; never weary, always vastly amused. Pleasant lessons these were! Ellen thought so, and Mr. Van Brunt ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... put them in my pocketbook," I said, writing down the names, though I confess that I did so without any serious thoughts about the matter, but merely for the sake of pleasing old Mammy. When I told Captain Willis afterwards, he was highly amused with the notion, and said that I might just as well try to find a needle in a bundle of hay as to look for the old woman's son on the coast ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... the conversation. It was so pleasant to him to be thus in confidential intercourse, that, as the evening came on, he would not allow lights to be brought into the drawing- room. As if they were in a sociable family circle, in some old remote castle, they amused themselves in relating ghost-stories, and here, too, Bonaparte won a victory. His story surpassed all others in horrors and thrilling fears, and the dramatic mode of its delivery increased its effect. Josephine became excited as if by some living reality; and ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... which he keenly felt, with the laurel chaplet that he wore in public in his later years, and he would doubtless have surrendered some of his victories, if he could thereby have brought back his youthful locks. But, however much even when monarch he enjoyed the society of women, he only amused himself with them, and allowed them no manner of influence over him; even his much-censured relation to queen Cleopatra was only contrived to mask a weak point in his political position.(1) Caesar was thoroughly a realist ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was more offended or amused she couldn't tell; and she stood staring at him by the electric light. To her amazement the hard little face began to twitch. "I didn't mean to mad you," Tim grunted, with a quiver in his rough voice. "I've been listening to every word you said, and I thought ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... reason in the comedy for such strong words. Most men would be amused or pleased by a woman who makes up to them as Adriana makes up to Antipholus. I hear Shakespeare in this uncalled-for, over-emphatic "even my soul doth for ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... principle in him, that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under close confinement in the Bastile seven years; during which time he amused himself in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a great chair. He often told his friends afterwards, that unless he had found out this ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... which would lead us, I saw, to a spot some way along the coast, beyond the point, I calculated, where the bushranger had fallen over. Had I not been so anxious about the fate of my brother and sister, I should have been amused at the air of importance with which the savage strutted on at the head of the party, evidently feeling himself infinitely superior to us. He held a lance in his left hand; a tall feather was stuck in his bushy hair; not ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... poised, dainty creature at his side. One drunken individual cheered her personally. At this a faint shell pink appeared in her cheeks, though she gave no other sign that she had heard. Sherwood glanced down at her, amused. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... temples, called by the Greeks asylums, (war not being yet either proclaimed, or so far commenced as that they had heard of swords being drawn, or blood shed any where,) the soldiers in perfect tranquillity, amused themselves, some with viewing the temple and groves; others with walking about unarmed, on the strand; and a great part had gone different ways in quest of wood and forage; when, on a sudden, Menippus attacked them in that scattered condition, slew many, and took fifty of them prisoners. ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... time the people in the court-room were beginning to believe in this new witness. They were amused by his melodramatic action in thus fixing the hour; but they seemed to have confidence in the outcome. As for the President, it looked as if he also had made up his mind to take the young man in the same way. ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... severely, "pardon me if I suggest that you accept a resemblance too precipitately. It is a pity," I went on, with an amused laugh, as the thought occurred to me, "that this Bellford and I could not be kept side by side upon the same shelf like tartrates of sodium and antimony for purposes of identification. In order to understand the allusion," I concluded airily, "it may be necessary for you to keep an eye on ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Knowles's mouth twitched nervously and he began to stroke his upper lip—a provoking habit of his, seeing that he had no moustache to account for it. Evidently there was some secret understanding between the two, and Wyndham was gravely and maliciously amused. ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... glittered brightly in the sun and was as smooth as a mirror, and so calm that they could scarcely distinguish its murmur; sparrows chirped joyfully and the immense canopy of heaven spread over it all. Madame Aubain brought out her sewing, and Virginia amused herself by braiding reeds; Felicite wove lavender blossoms, while Paul was bored ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... chamber-window of a student, occupied half in pouring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the visitor's demeanor, demands of it, in jest and with out looking for a reply, its name. The Raven addressed, answers with its customary word, "Nevermore"—a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student, who, giving utterance aloud ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... her eggs, it amused her to see the Mate Hares come limping out at sunset, very timidly at first, pausing, startled, at every sound. Soon, however, they forgot their fears and began their dances, hopping and running round and round like ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... News, tells the following story, which I give in his words: "While we were writing," says Hansen, "Richard Harding Davis walked into the writing-room of the Palace Hotel with a bunch of manuscript in his hand. With an amused expression he surveyed the three correspondents filling ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... extravagant. Her independence was inherent and not acquired. She had laid down certain laws for herself to follow; and that these often clashed with the laws of convention, which are fetish to those who divide society into three classes, only mildly amused her. Right from wrong she knew, and that ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... can almost say I'm well." The blush was still on her face as he turned to receive her answer, but she smiled with a bright courageousness that secretly amused and pleased him. "I thank you, Doctor, for my recovery; I certainly should thank you." Her face lighted up with that soft radiance which was its best quality, and her smile became half introspective as her eyes dropped from his, and followed her outstretched hand as it ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... Mr. Robert Hall, in his controversy upon this subject with Mr. Kinghorn, in which—having demolished Kinghorn's castle in a few pages—he, in order to make a book, amused the public by kicking the ruins about, thus adverts to these treatises: 'The most virulent reproaches were cast upon the admirable Bunyan, during his own time, for presuming to break the yoke; and whoever impartially examines the spirit of Mr. Booth's Apology, will perceive that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... matters of wills and inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezukhov and the owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward him, though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... approached the narrower thoroughfare where Amherst awaited her. He hung back a moment, and she was amused to see that he failed to identify the uniformed nurse with the girl in her trim dark dress, soberly complete in all its accessories, who advanced to him, smiling under her ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... throng surrounding the mountebank three persons seemed especially amused by the peroration. They were two gentlemen, very elegant and distinguished, in evening clothes, and with them a pretty woman wearing a loose silk ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... death-bed, about 1570, had placed in Vedel's hands all the MSS. which he had collected. Queen Sophia, cloistered in the Ouranienborg with her antiquary and her astronomer, and waiting for the tempest to moderate, desired to be amused with stories of her national history. Vedel ventured to read to her some of the legendary poems which still lingered among the people, and she was so enchanted with them, that she commanded him, when he returned ...
— Grimhild's Vengeance - Three Ballads • Anonymous
... what I have had to go through here, on account of the failure of these rascally Neapolitans, you would be amused; but it is now apparently over. They seemed disposed to throw the whole project and plans of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... all these little details greatly amused the King. He, too, wanted to go and see the castle of another Fouquet, but, as we complained of the bad roads, he ordered these to be mended along the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... had come up for a little relaxation, and gave never a thought to his anxious patients or the many sick-rooms he was in the habit of visiting. A young English fellow, called Peterson, who amused himself by travelling; an old colonist, full of reminiscences of the old days, when, "by gad, sir, we hadn't a gas lamp in the whole of Melbourne," and several other people, completed the party. They had all gone off to the billiard-room, ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... startling. A year ago last fall I was hunting some miles below my ranch (on the Little Missouri) to lay in the winter stock of meat, and was encamped for a week with an old hunter. We both had 45-75 Winchester rifles; and I was much amused at his insisting that his gun "shot level" up to two hundred yards—a distance at which the ball really drops considerably over a foot. Yet he killed a good deal of game; so he must either in practice have disregarded his theories, or else he must have always overestimated ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... patron of the arts, but a statesman and a philosopher, he turned his efforts toward the Quartier Latin, to the great minds who would one day take up the guidance of a more enlightened France. There he made the discovery that one amused himself more than at the Cercle Royale, and spent considerably less than in the arts, and that at one hundred francs a week he aroused an enthusiasm for the Bourbons which almost attained the proportions ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... Mr. Swinton that since the death of her mother she had frequently in the night, and sometimes in the day been entertained with musick, performed, as she imagined, by invisible spirits; and since her conviction, has often been amused in the same manner; but in the night before her execution, the musick was more heavenly than ever she had heard it before; and this she declared in the morning before ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... in a stream when they are pierced. In these thirsty regions, when springs and brooks are dry, the cattle bite them to get at the moisture, regardless of the thorns. On the north coast of Africa the camels delight in crunching the juicy leaves of the same plant. I have often been amused in watching the camel-drivers' efforts to get their trains of laden beasts along the narrow sandy lanes of Tangier, between hedges of prickly pears, where the camels with their long necks could reach the tempting lobes on ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... the Governor's palace and besought him to protect the innocent women and children. This time the appeal bore fruit. The Governor promised to call out the military, and an hour afterwards a detachment of soldiers appeared upon the scene. At first they stood by, amused spectators, cheering the mob whenever it broke into a dwelling, taunting the poor women who ran hither and thither in frantic endeavors to escape the wretches who pursued them; but later in the day the temptation to join the plunderers ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. After all, my dear, if you watch people carefully, you'll be surprised to find how like hate is to love. (She starts, strangely touched—even appalled. He is amused at her.) Yes: I'm quite in earnest. Think of how some of our married friends worry one another, tax one another, are jealous of one another, can't bear to let one another out of sight for a day, are more like jailers and slave-owners than lovers. Think of ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... little Ellen; "but I'm surprised. I'm so astonished that I'm almost troubled, and yet I never was so glad in my life. You are the very first person who has ever asked me to help them. I have amused people—oh, yes, often; but helped—you are the very first who ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... The banker amused himself by increasing this ten thousand francs in the most marvellous ways. He, who never ventured upon a rash speculation with his own money, always invested it in the most hazardous schemes, and was always so successful, that at the end of fifteen years the ten thousand ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... seized the marketplace. Philopoemen came out upon the alarm, and fought with desperate courage, but could not beat the enemy out again; yet he succeeded in effecting the escape of the citizens, who got away while he made head against the pursuers, and amused Cleomenes, till, after losing his horse and receiving several wounds, with much ado he came off himself, being the last man in the retreat. The Megalopolitans escaped to Messene, whither Cleomenes sent to offer ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... days back someone sent me two feathers. Two bird's feathers in a sheet of note-paper with a coronet, and fastened with a seal. Sent from a place a long way off; from one who need not have sent them back at all. That amused me too, those ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... he exercised an ever-increasing influence upon the popular understanding, his sympathetic nature endeared him more and more to the popular heart. In vain did journals and speakers of the opposition represent him as a lightminded trifler, who amused himself with frivolous story-telling and coarse jokes, while the blood of the people was flowing in streams. The people knew that the man at the head of affairs, on whose haggard face the twinkle of humor so frequently changed into an expression of profoundest sadness, was more than any other ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... violin. He promised me, and went away. In the evening he arrived with his violin, and they played together. But for a long time things did not go well; we had not the necessary music, and that which we had my wife could not play at sight. I amused myself with their difficulties. I aided them, I made proposals, and they finally executed a few pieces,—songs without words, and a little sonata by Mozart. He played in a marvellous manner. He had what is called the energetic and tender tone. ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... slipping through your fingers. He had been all but caught by one of our men, in the country, only the other day. He was at the railway-station waiting for the up-train, due in a quarter of an hour, and he saw our man driving up in a gig. At this point Mr. Rowe stopped, looking amused. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... violently that he thought they were about to fall. Nevertheless he reached the top, as he realized when his head came in contact with the trap-door, upon the other side of which he pictured Ah Ben standing with an amused smile. Henley placed his shoulder against the door, and to his amazement found that it opened quite easily. He then procured a light, and having satisfied himself that there had never been the slightest intention to ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... his sister's child all the way in his arms, and she had clapped her hands and laughed aloud and tried to talk a great deal with the few words she had learned to say. She was very gay in her baby fashion; she was amused with the little crowd so long as it did not trouble her. She fretted only when the grave, kind man, for whom she had instantly felt a great affection, stayed too long by that deep hole in the ground and ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... resting place—but after all it matters little since his abiding place is in the pages of English history.... What none could thoroughly appreciate except those who lived in his intimacy was the perfect simplicity which made him the most easily amused of men, ready to pour out his stores of anecdote to old and young—to discuss opinions on a level with the most humble of interlocutors, and take pleasure in the commonest forms of pleasantness—a fine day, a bright flower. Nor do I think that the ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the captain hastened on, leaving Priscilla biting her lip and staring after him, half angry, half amused. "One could be proud of him—if—if—Oh heart, heart! What is 't thou 'rt clamoring for! Well—at least I can go and make a posset for my dear dame, and the rest may wait." And with a sigh and a smile and a blush the girl turned ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... startled—or, well maybe I'd better say surprised and a little sore, but she tore it open and read it at a glance almost, which is why I say it must have been only a note. But while she was reading it she frowned, then smiled, as if something had amused or—or—" ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... next to it, but on higher ground, more than thirty feet above the natural level of the river, was a neat wooden cottage, inhabited by a very aged man and his helpless imbecile wife, equally aged with himself. This man, formerly a soldier, was a cabinet-maker, and amused his declining years by forming very ingenious articles in his line of business; his house was a model of curious nick-nackeries, and thus he picked up just barely enough in the retrograding village to keep the wolf from the door; whilst the soldiers helped him out, by sparing from their messes ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... amused Walter Clifford, but still he was beginning to chafe at being kept from Miss Bartley, when one morning her servant ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... present to answer them. For I think that any enterprising boy who reads The Shy Age (GRANT RICHARDS) will forthwith make it his business to find out the name of the school at which Jack Venables amused himself, and that even if unavoidable circumstances prevent him from going there he will, at any rate, remain disgruntled until he can place his finger upon it on the map. After reading those tales of school and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... potatoes and curdled milk. I used to dip my hands into the bucket to mix it all up, and I loved making them wait for their food a few minutes. Their eager cries and the way they wriggled their snouts about always amused me. ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... the rest of the story: "The audience was delighted as usual with the first act, and all went well till the third, when, the passage of the Red Sea being at hand, the audience as usual prepared to be amused. The laughter was just beginning in the pit, when it was observed that Moses was about to sing. He began his solo, the first verse of a prayer, which all the people repeat in chorus after Moses. Surprised ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... roused a curiosity half angry, half feminine, by which Helbeck was alternately harassed and amused. She never tired of asking questions about the Jesuits—their training, their rules, their occupations. She could not remember that she had ever seen one till she made acquaintance with Father Leadham. They were alternately a mystery and a ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... quarrelsome Flying Foxes, and the melancholy Nightjar in the distance was fulfilling its mission of making all the bush creatures miserable with its incessant, mournful "mo-poke! mo-poke!" As Dot could understand all the voices, it amused her to listen to the wrangles of the Flying Foxes, as they ate the fruit of a wild fig tree near by. She saw them swoop past on their huge black wings with a solemn flapping. Then, as each little Fox approached the tree, the Foxes who ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... gorgeous checked crazy-quilt covered the bed—for though the days are hot on the desert, the nights are quite sharp. The floor, like the walls, was bare, and when the girls peered at themselves in the tiny mirror they gave little squeals of amused disgust. The heat of the sun, too, had drawn out the resinous qualities of the raw wood, and the room was impregnated with an aroma not unlike that of a pine forest under a ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... stunting of the growth, both mentally and physically. Dr. Langden Downe reports several cases of this sort where the children had lived to be twenty-two years old and still remained infants, symmetrical in form, just able to stand beside a chair, utter a few monosyllabic sounds, and to be amused with toys. Dr. F. R. Lees, referring to the injury inflicted upon the liver by alcohol, says: "And recollect, whatever injury you inflict upon this organ, to your posterity the curse descends, and as is ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... Napoleon only dreamed of the future, and dreams never are logical and consistent. I myself listened to his dreams in silence, and they amused me as the merry fairy-stories of my childhood did—fairy-stories invented only for the purpose of making ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... then instantly closing his camera, surveyed the result of his operation. On bringing the picture out upon the plate, he was surprised to find a shadowy representation of a human being, so remarkably ghostlike and supernatural, that he became amused at the discovery he had made. The operation was repeated, until he could produce similar pictures by a suitable arrangement of his lenses and reflectors known to no other than himself. About this time he became acquainted with one of the most famous spiritualist-writers, and in conversation ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... had often amused the old woman by tales of her grandchildren, and as Cricket always had more accidents and disasters than all the rest of the family put together, she had naturally figured largely ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... the great treasure of beauty the castle contained. Those who understood him returned him thanks for this service, and they gave the Judge an account of his extraordinary humour, with which he was not a little amused. Sancho Panza alone was fuming at the lateness of the hour for retiring to rest; and he of all was the one that made himself most comfortable, as he stretched himself on the trappings of his ass, which, as will be told farther on, cost ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... debasing credulity and wholesome light. We are so sensible of the new air that breathes impalpably over the book, that when the old theological fancies appear for form's sake, and are solemnly marshalled in orthodox state, the contrast and the incongruity are so marked that one is amused by what looks like a subtle irony, mocking the censor under his very eyes. Who can help smiling at the grave question, Adam, le premier de tous les hommes, a-t-il ete philosophe? Such disputes as whether it is proper to baptize abortions, ceased to interest a public that had begun to educate itself ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... on the following Wednesday. She chose her guests cleverly among influential deputies or other persons of note who, sooner or later, might advance her interests. In short, she gathered an agreeable and befitting circle about her. People amused themselves at her house; they said so at least, which is quite enough to attract society in Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed in completing his great and serious work that he took no notice of the sudden reappearance of luxury in ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... The idea amused Jo, who liked to do daring things and was always scandalizing Meg by her queer performances. The plan of 'going over' was not forgotten. And when the snowy afternoon came, Jo resolved to try what could be done. She saw Mr. Lawrence drive off, and then sallied out to dig her way down ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... gas, seen green water turned to red, and phosphorus burnt in oxygen, we have got our smattering, of which the most that can be said is, that though it may be better than nothing, it is yet good for nothing. Thus we often imagine we are being educated while we are only being amused. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... mere burlesques, coarse mummeries, such as may have amused Nuernberg and Augsburg during Shrovetide, when drunken louts figured as Bacchus and sang drinking songs by Hans Sachs. There is no reality in all this; there is no belief in pagan gods. If we would see the haunting divinity of the German Renaissance, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... there to observe, that I again amused myself by watching footsteps, the precision of which in the sandy soil was curious. Looking down from the elephant, I was interested by seeing them all in relief, instead of depressed, the slanting rays of the sun in front producing this kind of mirage. Before us rose no more of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... others slipped out at the rear. The committee congratulated themselves on having had the self-denial to exclude ladies. Mr. Gladstone's satellites hurried the old man off and into his carriage, though the fight promised to become Homeric. Grodman stood at the side of the platform secretly more amused than ever, concerning himself no more with Denzil Cantercot, who was already strengthening his nerves at the bar upstairs. The police about the hall blew their whistles, and policemen came rushing in from outside ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... induce Heinz to talk with him here in the anteroom it would be impossible for her to escape. So, feigning that he had noticed nothing, he pretended to be much amused by Biberli's nimble flight. Forcing a laugh, he flung the hood at his head, and before he opened the door of the adjoining room again asked to speak to his master. Biberli replied that he must wait; the knight was holding a religious ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... amused at the incredulous disgust of his tone. "I must run up to town, to-morrow morning. Let us go together. You have ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... much enduring men that the greater their misery the greater their mirth. Thus our captured officers, close guarded in the Pretoria Model School, and carefully cut off from all the news of the day, amused themselves by framing parodies on the absurd military intelligence published in the local Boer papers; whereof let the following ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... are amused by the reveries of the stupid novelists, who, knowing little of human nature, work up stale tales, and describe meretricious scenes, all retailed in a sentimental jargon, which equally tend to corrupt the taste, and ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... looking at his guests and wondering what he would say. He was a little amused and half hurt and felt like a man who has had a Sunday School scholar stop him on the street to ask him about the welfare of his soul. He thought of Edith Carson waiting for him in her store on Monroe Street, of ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... she select, have made and pay for a school outfit for her. Another has a great scheme for starting a "workingwoman's home" and wants Miss Anthony to furnish the money. The list might be extended almost indefinitely and, while one is amused and disgusted by turns, there are among this vast correspondence many letters which touch the heart. During the tariff debate in Congress in 1897 a paragraph was widely published that a tax was to be placed on tea, and this note, evidently written by a child, was received: "My mamma ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the cynical, half-amused air, and was now speaking with great intensity. Braden, struck by the change, turned suddenly to regard the old man with a new and puzzled light in his ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Observing the smile of amused incredulity that played upon the features of his questioner, Wilcox reiterated, with an air of half ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... to gain a livelihood, to become the nominal keeper of a coffee house, one of the first places of the kind which had been opened in the Scottish metropolis. As usual, it was entirely managed by the careful and industrious Mrs. B—; while her husband amused himself with field sports, without troubling his head about the matter. Once upon a time the premises having taken fire, the husband was met, walking up the High Street loaded with his guns and fishing-rods, and replied calmly to some one who ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Miss Jewell's expression relaxed. She stole an amused glance at the cook and, reading her instructions in his eye, began to temporize. Ten minutes later the crew of the Elizabeth Barstow in various attitudes of astonishment beheld their commander going ashore with ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... amuse the sea fairies. For he would make himself into four or five suns at once, or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire and stick himself in the middle of them, and wink at the fairies; and I dare say they were very much amused, for anything's ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... greatly amused with the new line of business chalked out for them, of "getting bills" from other countries when short in this. There are two descriptions of "bill brokers," but the class bearing that designation purely deal with domestic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... and unlading the carriage, bore the garments down to the water, and working with cheerfulness and alacrity soon despatched their labor. Then having spread the garments on the shore to dry, and having themselves bathed, they sat down to enjoy their meal; after which they rose and amused themselves with a game of ball, the princess singing to them while they played. But when they had refolded the apparel and were about to resume their way to the town, Minerva caused the ball thrown by the princess to fall into the water, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... love better to be pleased than to be taught, Cato is read, and the critic is neglected. Flushed with consciousness of these detections of absurdity in the conduct, he afterwards attacked the sentiments of Cato; but he then amused himself with petty cavils and ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... these days of second-hand knowledge) will apply to a good many books beside. But if they still fancy that the advocates of 'Woman's Rights' in England are of the same temper as certain female clubbists in America, with whose sayings and doings the public has been amused or shocked, then I beg them to peruse the article on the 'Social Position of Women,' by Mr. Boyd Kinnear; to find any fault with it they can; and after that, to show cause why it should not be reprinted ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley
... terror, achieved a safe descent from his perilous eminence, which, I verily believe, nothing but the fear of instant death could have moved him to attempt. The awkward mode of Andrew's descent greatly amused the Highlanders below, who fired a shot or two while he was engaged in it, without the purpose of injuring him, as I believe, but merely to enhance the amusement they derived from his extreme terror, and the superlative exertions of agility to ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the hotel at Hot Springs, he sampled his mother's apricot cordial, and as the taste pleased him, he became quite tipsy. This was fun for a while, but he essayed a cigarette in his exaltation, and succumbed to a vulgar, plebeian reaction. Though this incident horrified Beatrice, it also secretly amused her and became part of what in a later generation would have ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... guard her from the experience, which could not fail to be hurtful to one of her over-sensitive nature, but he had been absent on a special mission at the time. Philippa's attitude towards the world in general, and towards men in particular, was changed; it became one of amused toleration. Men were interesting, certainly, and pleasant companions, but were not to be taken seriously ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... being so well and frankly received, or invited to spoil my dinner in so agreeable a manner, as by these fair Pomonas. I could not refuse an invitation so cordially given. I sat down, and, notwithstanding my dull and fretful humour, soon found myself amused in my own despite by the lively chatter of the Creoles. An hour passed rapidly in this manner, and a second and third might possibly have been wiled away as agreeably, had not my stiff Virginian feeling of etiquette made me apprehensive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... does the sense of being pleased and amused blunt our faculties of perception and discrimination of character, that I can only compare it to the taste of certain fruits, at once luscious and poignant, which renders our palate totally unfit for relishing or distinguishing the viands which are subsequently ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... character, every detail, is instinct with life.... From beginning to end we are aroused, amused, absorbed."—The Tribune, Chicago. ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... wooden galleries passing from stem to stern, and rising tier above tier, were the rivetters 'with busy hammers closing rivets up,' and keeping the echoes awake with their ceaseless, and, to unaccustomed ears, painful din. The rivet-boys, alike alarmed and amused us, as they leaped from gallery to gallery with fearless agility, brandishing their red-hot bolts, and replying in imp-like screechings to the hoarse commands of their seniors. The decks were filled with carpenters, the cabins with joiners, the rigging with painters, and all with seeming bluster ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... went off in surly silence, and Mr. Merryweather turned to Jack Ferrers, who had remained an amused but somewhat embarrassed ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... Whose liquid arms the mighty globe surround, They pour forth vows, their embassy to bless, And calm the rage of stern AEacides. And now, arrived, where on the sandy bay The Myrmidonian tents and vessels lay; Amused at ease, the godlike man they found, Pleased with the solemn harp's harmonious sound. (The well wrought harp from conquered Thebae came; Of polish'd silver was its costly frame.) With this he soothes his angry soul, and sings The immortal deeds of heroes and of kings. Patroclus only of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... commonly conspire to counteract Nature, to constrain and divert, to extinguish the impulse Nature has given him, to substitute others which are the source of all his misfortunes. In almost all the countries of the earth, man is bereft of truth, is fed with falsehoods, and amused with marvellous chimeras: he is treated like those children whose members are, by the imprudent care of their nurses, swathed with little fillets, bound up with rollers, which deprive them of the free use of their limbs, obstruct their growth, prevent their activity, and oppose ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... no more great orators like Cicero, battling for human rights, and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed. Nor was there liberty of speech in the Senate. The usual jealousy of tyrants was awakened to every emancipating influence on the people. They were now amused with shows and spectacles, but could not make their voices heard regarding public injuries. The people were absolutely in the hands of iron masters. So was the Senate. So were all orders and conditions of men. One man reigned supreme. His will was law. Resistance ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... stand by the people in the Commons and grind the people in the Lords; who, after crying down public wrongs, upon finding the responsibility of a coronet on their shoulders, suddenly become arrant sticklers for hereditary rights. We are amused to notice, among those peers who have risen above the selfishness by which they are surrounded, and have given us a well-timed sympathy, but few who are of new creations: for the Duke of Argyle and the Earls of Carlisle and Clarendon are descendants of ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Budget Bill; HARCOURT discourses at large on JOKIM's finance. JOKIM sits listening with amused air. Life is on the whole to him a serious thing. But there is one episode that suffuses it with a gleam of humour; that is to hear HARCOURT talking Finance. "One of the very few things," JOKIM says, "of which he knows absolutely nothing." Now ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... away with a crooked smile on his pale, smooth face. The credulous, drink-softened German amused him. He would have to avoid Twenty-ninth street in the future. He had not been aware that Bergman ever ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... wealthy master of a hatchet! of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his way. One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother's pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly that I don't believe the tree ever got the better of it. The next morning the old ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... against his wife—an offence which she had committed—but he put it aside as something to be grappled and dealt with when he felt again like taking up the serious and disagreeable things of life. For the moment, he desired only to be amused by Sister Soulsby. Her casual mention of the fact that she and her husband were taking their departure that very day, appealed to him as an added reason for devoting ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... violin to Grosvenor Gardens when Mrs. Harrington invited him, in her commanding way, to dine. It amused Mrs. Harrington to accompany his instrument on the piano. Her music was of the accompanying order. It was heartless and correct. Some of us, by the way, have friends of this same order, and, like Mrs. Harrington's ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... towards the shore in our boat, and then launched upon his log, to which was lashed an axe, and around his neck a bag was suspended containing biscuits, and a little of everything that he appeared to fancy or be amused ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... not sure at all of that,' said Tocqueville. 'He cannot sit down a mere quiet administrator. He must do something to distract public attention; he must give us a substitute for the political excitement which has amused us during the last forty years. Great social improvements are uncertain, difficult, and slow; but glory may be obtained in a week. A war with England, at its beginning, is always popular. How many thousand volunteers would he have ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... even the study of the 3,996 aphoristical rules of Panini, or his algebraical symbols. Very true, most of the Brahmans themselves have now forgotten the correct interpretations of their sacred texts. Yet they know enough of the dual meaning in their scriptures to be justified in feeling amused at the strenuous efforts of the European Orientalist to protect the supremacy of his own national records and the dignity of his science by interpreting the Hindu hieratic text after a peremptory fashion quite unique. Disrespectful though it may ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Stanhope first launched his model-boat on the Serpentine, no one expected to see the time when steam and paddles should suffice to carry "a tall ship" across the broad Atlantic. As little did we, when we were first amused by that very pretty musical toy, the German Eolina, anticipate, that within three years we should hear such an instrument as the one we are about to describe. In shape, size, and compass, the AEOLOPHON is the counterpart ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... cigar refreshed the toiling females from time to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while all these operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with inspecting the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in the phrases commonly employed by genteel young men,—for he had perused an odd volume of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a Sophomore ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... see," explained the amused President, "this tent is designed for four; two good-sized bedsteads set up in it; and the necessity seems to be upon us to crowd as much as we can conveniently. There will be no danger of impure air, you know, for you have all ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... painted cardboard and the queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening on the stage, and expressed delight ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... cowboy it was the rodeo boss, indulgent, but aware of the tenderfoot's ability to make trouble, who soberly assigned his fair disciple to guard a pass over which no cow could possibly come. And Kitty, sensing the deceit, had as soberly amused herself by gathering flowers among the rocks. But the next day, having learned her first lesson, she struck for a job to ride, and it was the giddy-headed lover who permitted her to accompany him—although not from any obvious or ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... mischievously amused and inclined to enjoy it, looked very grave as the boy, after a particularly outrageous jibe at a highly respectable old gentleman, turned and deliberately winked ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... said the young lady, abruptly, and swept us off without further parley. The Irish gentleman opened the door for us, staring with a half-puzzled, half-amused look at the lofty air with which the young lady passed out. He followed us into the hall, where we left him discharging his remaining pellets at the furniture, and whistling 'Kathleen Mavourneen,' as ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... amused with the variety of characters of which our table is composed. Some of the emigrants appear to entertain the most sanguine hopes of success, appearing to foresee no difficulties in carrying their schemes into effect. As a contrast to these there is one of my countrymen, just returned ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... the representatives of the Southern division of the country have amused themselves in Congress by applying the opprobrious name of "slave" to the free Northern laborer. And how familiar have the significant epithets of "white slave" ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... moment might well have fluttered a girl's nerves after his recognition of her by the Schiller statue, after that episode of the flowers, and what she had heard of him. But life had not yet touched either her nerves or spirit; she only felt amused and a little excited. Close to, he had not so much that look of an animal behind bars, and he certainly was in his way a dandy, beautifully washed—always an important thing—and having some pleasant essence on his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... confidence marked the relations of Carey and the committee so long as Fuller was secretary. When the news came that the missionaries had become indigo planters, some of the weaker brethren, estimating Carey by themselves, sent out a mild warning against secular temptations, to which he returned a half-amused and kindly reply. John Newton, then the aged rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, on being consulted, reassured them: "If the heart be fired with a zeal for God and love to souls," he said, "such attention to business as circumstances require ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... were as amused and as diligent at learning household work as their brothers were in their departments, and might have been seen every afternoon in the kitchen, in their little white pinafores, engaged in learning ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... never before seen Victoria Woodhull. Early in 1870, however, she had called at the brokerage office which Victoria and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, had opened in New York on Broad Street. The press had been full of amused comments regarding the lady bankers, and Susan had wanted to see for herself what kind of women they were. Here she met and talked with Tennessee Claflin, publishing their interview in The Revolution, and also an advertisement of Woodhull, Claflin ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... women? Because it is expected of you? Only by a few, and they make themselves very absurd by always trying to say nonsensical things to you. Men of this sort appear to have an impression that you are still children amused with a Jack-in-the-box which springs up in a very conceited hobgoblin way. Everybody likes a joke, and at times feels a childlike pleasure in speaking nonsense; but, believe me, sense is ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... amused himself shooting at a target with Larry and Tom and was able to make four bull's-eyes out of five, but never before had the opportunity to aim at a live mark come to him, and as he raised ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... Sometimes he insisted on being tender, and even this was not so bad as she expected, at least for a few minutes at a time; she rather enjoyed having her hand pressed so seriously, and his studied phrases amused her. It was only when he wished the conversation to be brilliant and intellectual, that he became intolerable; then she must entertain him, must get up little repartees, must tell him lively anecdotes, which he swallowed as a dog bolts a morsel, being at once ready for the next. He never ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and wound the halter about the tree that he could go neither back nor forwards, nor so much as put his head down to browse. There he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... I shall never see your country—and why should I wish it? How could such a huge being as I live among you? For a little while I should be amused with you, and you astonished at me. I might find friends here and there, like you; but your people could never understand my nature, nor I theirs. I should be carried about as a spectacle; I should not belong to myself, but to those who exhibited me. There could be little sympathy between your people ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... on the Postulates of Political Economy, were all published in these pages. He wrote, in fact, the first article in the first number. Though himself extremely cool and sceptical about political improvement of every sort, he took abundant interest in more ardent friends. Perhaps it was that they amused him; in return his good-natured ironies put them wholesomely on their mettle. As has been well said of him, he had a unique power of animation without combat; it was all stimulus and yet no contest; his talk was full of youth, yet had all the wisdom of mature judgment (R.H. Hutton). ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... in high, crisp accents: "Pardon me, but I can't help being amused, Mr. Woods, by the way in which hard luck dogs your footsteps. I think Fate must have some grudge ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... enjoyable day, and women whose aspect was careworn but cheerful, to whom a holiday was probably a memorable event in the year. Of young people there was of course a considerable sprinkling, and amongst the crowd could be seen a number of individuals whose amused expression of countenance and general aspect bespoke them ordinary travellers, who meant to avail themselves of a "cheap train." All classes and conditions of men, women, and children were hustling ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... explain everything. Why does one person begin life with a good mind while another is born with small mental capacity? Because one worked hard at life's problems in past incarnations while the other led a butterfly existence and merely amused himself. Why does one move serenely through trying circumstances always maintaining a cheerful view of life while another loses control of his temper at the slightest annoyance and wears himself out with the trifling vexations of existence? Only because one has for a long ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... and usually somewhat trivial into the bargain; there is something playful about it, that will not support a very exacting criticism, and the lesson must be apprehended by the fancy at half a hint. Such is the great mass of the old stories of wise animals or foolish men that have amused our childhood. But we should expect the fable, in company with other and more important literary forms, to be more and more loosely, or at least largely, comprehended as time went on, and so to degenerate in conception from ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... This speculation has amused me and may amuse some reader. I do not know enough of Elizabethan manuscripts to judge of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... into his boat, followed by the rough country fellows, who amused themselves by joking at Jean Le Nocher's increasing trade and the need of putting on an extra boat these stirring times. Jean put a good face upon it, laughed, and retorted their quips, and plying his oars, stoutly performed his part in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... delighted to see us; caressed our children, praised their growth and improvement; Clara also was pleased to meet again her young friend Alfred; all kinds of childish games were entered into, in which Perdita joined. She communicated her gaiety to us, and as we amused ourselves on the Castle Terrace, it appeared that a happier, less care-worn party could not have been assembled. "This is better, Mamma," said Clara, "than being in that dismal London, where you often cry, and never laugh as you do now."—"Silence, little foolish thing," replied her mother, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... sin, my father's blighted life; I know I always loved her as a girl-woman, for she was always womanly. Now I adore her with the love of a life; with a love that has never been frittered away, for I have never loved the soulless creatures whom I have amused myself with." And hastening his steps he was soon by Lady ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... amused the others but frightened the too successful Alfaretta. Also, her attention was claimed by Molly's expression. That ambitious young person was looking very white about the lips, and was clasping and unclasping her hands in ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... hoodwinked and blinded by the artifices of those Jesuitical engineers, who have long conspired to sacrifice our religion to the idolatry of Rome, our laws, liberties and persons to arbitrary slavery, and our estates to their insatiable avarice, may possibly be deterred and amused with high threats and declarations, flying up and down on the wings of the royal name and countenance, now captivated and prostituted to serve all their lusts, to proclaim all rebels and traitors who take this covenant; yet, let no faithful English heart ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... that the ladies from Merrimac Avenue shouldn't feel they were importunate: what was striking was that Mrs. Nettlepoint didn't appear to suspect it. However, she would in any case have thought it inhuman to show this—though I could see that under the surface she was amused at everything the more expressive of the pilgrims from the South End took for granted. I scarce know whether the attitude of the younger visitor added or not to the merit of her good nature. Mr. Porterfield's intended took no part in the demonstration, scarcely spoke, ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... entertainment amused me more than the ball, where I witnessed the most startling contrasts of art and nature. Elegant Frenchwomen side by side with their brown, awkward sisters, and the staff officers in full uniform, in juxta-position with the half- naked islanders. Many of the natives wore, on this occasion, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... reason why we should gratify your whim," said Paradise, still amused. "But it will serve to pass the time. We will fight you, one ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... and sunrise from Barnbougle, and threatened to learn to milk cows and cut corn. She brought inconceivable motion and sparkle into the rather stagnant country house, and she was the greatest possible contrast to Joanna Crawfurd. Joanna was a natural curiosity to Polly, and the study amused her, just as she made use of every other variety and novelty, down to the poultry-yard ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... not seem any the worse for his long confinement; indeed, he was grinning as though the scare of his enemies over that flashlight had amused him. ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... become so well satisfied with his post of mediator between the writers of the two nations, that it became paramount with him to preserve the good-will he had won in England, and this appears in the cautious and almost obsequious mien of "Bracebridge." One may trace it also, with amused pain, in his correspondence with Paulding,—honest, pathetic Paulding, a rabid miso-Briton who burned to write something truly American, and couldn't; whom Drake laughingly ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... even by his intimates. The outside world was at liberty to wonder respectfully at the hidden meaning of his actions. He was so great a man that his lavish patronage of the "purer forms of Christianity" (which in its naive form of church-building amused Mrs. Gould) was looked upon by his fellow-citizens as the manifestation of a pious and humble spirit. But in his own circles of the financial world the taking up of such a thing as the San Tome mine was regarded with respect, indeed, but rather as a subject for discreet jocularity. It was ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... me I might go home; I was saved. Just that implacable director had proved himself the best in his efforts to rescue us. One or two "primani," who had amused the tribunal with some very broad lies, were condemned to a few days' lock-up. That ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... a whole week, there were many Philistine young men, and they amused each other with questions ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... remodelling amused the miserable master of the manor, during the latter part of the summer and the autumn following his wife's death. But with the coming of the winter, returned all his gloom and horror. And the good old priest, so far from ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... was laughing softly, her eyes radiant as they met those of her companion, amused ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to her my childish reminiscences and speculations, which amused her not a little. Her hearty, mirthful zest showed that the theme was not a disquieting one. I now begged her to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... drink it. She should sprinkle herself with it, or bathe in it," said Nicholas, amused at this ultra-modern way of carrying back ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... are now a woman of property, you will never dream of having any one to wait on you," said her master, amused with the volume of human nature thus ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... to hail the ship, and ask them for a cup of coffee. The thought amused him and saved the situation. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... horror and indignation is in the long run increased, we think— though at first it may seem counteracted—by the tone of levity, and even jocularity, under which he has chosen to veil the deep sarcasm and substantial terrors of his story. We smile at first, and are amused, and wonder, as we proceed, that the humorous narrative should produce conviction and pity—shame, ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith |
